that promote uncertainty by requiring gate-keepers to identify the single ‘best’ and most ‘accurate’ idea thereby creating an unacknowledged aversion to creativity.”
In her post Why Creative People Are Rarely Seen as Leaders, Susan Cain says Jennifer Mueller, assistant professor of management at Wharton and lead author of the study, “speculates that out-of-the-box thinkers tend not to do the things that traditional leaders do: set goals, maintain the status quo, exude certainty.”
Cain adds, “I suspect that another reason for the creativity gap in the leadership ranks is that many creative thinkers are introverts. Studies suggest that innovation often requires solitude – and that the majority of spectacularly creative people across a range of fields are introverts, or at least comfortable with spending large chunks of time alone.”
One issue she notes is that people “who like to spend time alone are decidedly at odds with today’s team-based organizational culture. Introverts are much less likely than extroverts to be groomed for leadership positions, according to management research, even though another Wharton study led by Professor Adam Grant found that introverted leaders outperform extroverted ones when managing proactive employees — precisely because they give them the freedom to dream up and implement new ideas.”
In his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Cain says, Daniel Pink tells the story of an example of this kind of CEO: William McKnight (1887 – 1978), 3M’s president and chairman during the 1930s and 1940s, “a fellow who was as unassuming in his manner as he was visionary in his thinking. McKnight believed in a simple, and at the time, subversive, credo: ‘Hire good people, and leave them alone.’”
Cain thinks “Today’s leaders need to perform traditional tasks, like making speeches, rallying troops, and setting goals. But they also need to feel in their bones what innovation means.
“If the same person can’t do all these things at once – and let’s face it: how many people are both social and solitary, goal-oriented and wildly original? – we should be thinking more about leadership-sharing, where two people divide leadership tasks according to their natural strengths and talents.
“One example of this model is introverted ‘product visionary’ Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, and the extroverted ‘people person’ COO Sheryl Sandberg.”
A related book: Mark Zuckerberg: Ten Lessons in Leadership by Michael Essany.
Sheryl Sandberg is interviewed in the book Knowing Your Value: Women, Money, and Getting What You’re Worth by Mika Brzezinski.
Susan Cain is author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking [an Amazon top Best Seller in Psychology of Creativity & Genius].
Also see my earlier posts:
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Last reviewed: 21 Aug 2013