Proactive personality congruence and creativity: a leader identification perspective

Abstract

PurposeDrawing upon the social identity approach, this research examines whether and how leader–subordinate congruence at high levels of proactive personality facilitates subordinate creativity.Design/methodology/approachTwo different data sets (Study 1:N = 205; Study 2:N = 222) were collected from leader–subordinate dyads in China to provide stronger empirical evidence regarding our hypotheses. Polynomial regression and response surface analyses were used to test our predictions.FindingsSubordinate creativity in the scenario in which the leader and subordinate shared a highly proactive personality (i.e. high–high congruence) was higher than that in the incongruence or low–low congruence scenario. The subordinate's identification with the leader mediated the above relationships such that the indirect relationship between leader–subordinate proactive personality and subordinate creativity via identification with the leader was maximized in the high–high congruence scenario.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that organizations should consider selecting both highly proactive leaders and highly proactive subordinates to facilitate the subordinates' identification and subsequent creativity.Originality/valueThis research highlights the crucial role of leader–subordinate congruence in strong proactive personality for the promotion of creativity and reveals that identification with the leader accounts for the above relationship.