The Characteristics of the Creative Manager

Abstract

An earlier literature review (Hender and Higgs, 2003) developed a model and identified a number of attributes of the creative manager, but no attempt was made to determine the relative importance of these. This paper describes two studies that were undertaken in order to understand which of these attributes are the most relevant to today’s managers. In the first study five individual critical incident technique interviews and two focus group interviews were conducted. From these forty characteristics were identified. In the second study, fifteen individual repertory grid technique interviews were conducted. One hundred and seventy five bi-polar constructs were extracted, clustered into forty-six categories, and analysed according to the framework developed in the earlier paper. It was found that creative managers are open, driven, energetic, unorthodox and different, experimenting, have self-confidence, are able to tackle conflict, are intelligent, have the ability to think outside the box and generate ideas, have wide knowledge, and will challenge other’s ideas. Creative managers are intrinsically motivated, whereas non-creative managers are more motivated by extrinsic factors. A number of business skills were identified such as communication skills, being a good motivator, having a clear business focus, and being a good manager. These observations may indicate that creative managers also share characteristics of effective managers. In contrast with previous literature on creativity, which has regarded creative persons as introverted and not particularly sociable or participative, it was found that creative managers are extraverts and have an external focus. Far from being loners, they deliberately involve other people - they are open, not arrogant, sociable, they share, listen, and have a team focus. An ability to develop other people’s ideas was found to be an important characteristic, maybe even more important than being able to generate ideas and concepts in the first place. Creative managers must also create an environment which supports creativity in others. Creativity was viewed as being about both idea generation and implementation, with a focus on results, and both studies identified creative managers as problem solvers. The study concludes that it is perhaps innovation and creative problem solving rather than creativity per se that is important in a business context.