Forbes, February 6, 2011, Sunday

Forbes

February 6, 2011, Sunday

Forbes

Too Creative to be a Leader? Really?

In his insightful post entitled “Are the People in Your Organization Too Smart to be Creative?” Forbes contributor, Chunka Mui, co-author of Billion-Dollar Lessons previews a study to be published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (summary here) by Jennifer Mueller, Jack Goncalo, and Dishan Kamdar to the effect that in traditional organizations open expression of creative ideas is negatively correlated with perceptions of leadership potential.

Mui concludes that the bias against creative persons for leadership positions in traditional management is deep-seated.

First, many current leaders are the product of past biases against creativity, and hence making them less likely to value creativity.

Second, the smartest people have learned over time that being openly creative is not rewarded.

Given that the future of most organizations depends on creativity, this finding offers further compelling evidence why traditional management must be reinvented and imperial management structures replaced.