Review of Mumford et al, "How Creative Leaders Think
The authors argue in this article that leader creativity is based on experiential cases that involve the evaluation of ideas put forth by the leaders and followers. The idea that leaders must possess creative thinking skills is accepted as fact. The notion that leaders may express these creative thinking skills uniquely is disputed. The process of evaluation is critical to an organization's creative thinking. The authors explain that the historically presented role of a leader is to: 1. Motivate followers' creative efforts (Sosik, Kahai and Avolio); 2. Formulate structures that will allow creative activities to flower (Cardinal and Damanpour); 3. Support creative efforts (Anderson & West, Bain, Mann and Pinola-Merlo, Oldham and Cummings)These three role definitions assume that the leader is not a direct participant of the creative process, but instead fulfills a supportive role that st
Leaders also need to possess perceived technical skills. During the process of evaluation, the leader needs to be creative - adding to the ideas and combining his ideas to the newly presented ideas. In the article, the authors review the results of experiments and discuss cases using three historical leaders: Henry Ford, JP Morgan and Henry Chauncey as support for this assertion. The case findings show that leaders build on previous experiences to contribute to the conceptual combination and idea evaluation. imulates and facilitates the work of others. By exploring the results of a series of experiments and analyzing a series of cases, the authors attempt to answer these questions: What do creative leaders think and how do they stimulate creative thought?Leader cognition explores the idea that leaders must be creative in order for followers to be creative. The more skill a leader has with the heuristics presented, the better equipped that leader is to be creative. Followers present ideas and the leader evaluates those ideas. The level of perceived technical skills is directly related to the group's performance, according to multiple studies. The remainder of the article discusses the supporting evidence that leaders do, in fact, hold an active role in the creative process. This process should spawn further creative discussion and lead to new ideas. The authors conduct experiments, study cases and review implications of four topics: 1.
Common topics in this essay:
Henry Chauncey,
,
Oldham Cummings,
Kahai Avolio,
Cardinal Damanpour,
creative process,
creative thinking,
active role,
conceptual combination,
active role creative,
conceptual combination idea,
role creative process,
thinking skills,
creative thinking skills,
idea evaluation,
ideas process,
perceived technical,
technical skills,
perceived technical skills,
combining ideas,
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Acceptance Essays
