Studies find creativity lacking in the workplace

Penn students preparing for On Campus Recruitment may think twice about highlighting creativity in their resumes.

A report, “Recognizing creative leadership: Can creative idea expression negatively relate to perceptions of leadership potential?,” authored by professors at Penn, Cornell University and the Indian School of Business, suggests that creativity is not always prized in the workplace.

Three studies suggest that creative thinkers are viewed as having less leadership potential because they exemplify nonconformity, according to Jen Mueller, management professor at the Wharton School and the first author of the report.

One of the three studies examined engineers in India, and the two others surveyed students at American universities.

The studies found that the expression of creativity is negatively related to leadership potential, unless charisma is also expressed.

A charismatic leader is someone who is extroverted and shows confidence — and if creativity is combined with these traits in a person, he or she is seen as having leadership potential, according to Mueller.

The problem arises for creative thinkers when they are not viewed as charismatic leaders by the evaluator.

This may be problematic for engineers, who are unlikely to be seen as charismatic leaders in their field compared to someone who possesses, for example, a Master in Business Administration, Mueller said.

She pointed out that the results of another study showed that students have a similar bias against their creative peers.

Additionally, Mueller suspects that people don’t think about charismatic leadership when they assess someone in a lower position, which can exacerbate the bias against creativity. According to her, creativity is critical to organizations, but organizations often have trouble identifying creative leaders.

Iwan Barankay, management professor at Wharton, added that employees must find a way to distinguish themselves if they hope for a promotion, but this research shows that they must find a way other than creativity in order to do that.

“On average the effect is that creativity will more often backfire than help to further a person’s career,” Barankay wrote in an e-mail.

Mueller believes this study will help diminish stereotypes by educating people about them, similar to methods used to combat stereotypes of minorities and women in the workplace.

It is her hope that the results of the study will help some managers realize their bias against creative thinkers.

Fine Arts professor Douglas Martenson was pleased to hear that someone in the business community was focusing on creative people who are overlooked for promotions in the office.

However, he found the results of the study discouraging.

“In the fine-arts field, I think we’re eternal optimists,” he explained. According to Martenson, if we all settled with this “jaded outlook, we’d end up in sorry shape.”

But looking back through history, Martenson was not particularly surprised, as many prominent figures have been initially punished for their creativity but eventually succeeded in their endeavors.

In his opinion, creative leaders tend to threaten others by standing out or speaking out.

Mueller also agreed that “creativity can be scary.”

She noted that sometimes a company that says it looks for creativity might be “paying lip-service.”

The report, one in a series relating to the subject of creativity, will be published in print in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology later this year.

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