Leader preferences for level of complexity in workplace artwork, transformational leadership, and non-leader perceptions of leadership perceived through complexity levels in art

Using art to decorate leader workspaces serves the purpose of providing personalization and stimuli to the occupant and to others. Leaders perceive themselves from a personal perspective while others use varied means to generate perceptions of the individual. As leader workspaces are experienced by others, perceptions of leadership may form, in part, as a result of one's impressions related to the complexity found in the artworks displayed. Leadership perceptions may be enhanced through artwork which transcends its mere decorative aspects.; Transformational leadership encourages members to embrace the opportunity to envision the greater good of their organization and to become leaders themselves. Accordingly, non-leader perceptions of transformational leadership experienced through art may enhance working relationships.; This study examined non-leader perceptions of complexity in art considered supportive of transformational leadership as well as leader preferences for complexity in art. A sample of 40 leaders rated their leadership style via Avolio and Bass's (2004) Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. They subsequently viewed eight twentieth century artwork image pairs where one image was of low complexity and the other, high complexity. The preferred image within each pair was selected based on willingness to display the image within the workspace. A sample of 29 non-leaders viewed the identical image pairs combined with five transformational leadership statements from the MLQ and selected the image which was felt to be most supportive of the statements for each of the pairs.; Correlation coefficient was applied to determine relationships between leader complexity preferences and transformational leadership as well as non-leader perceptions of complexity levels in art felt to be supportive of transformational leadership. Leader preferences and non-leader perceptions were compared using mean scores based on frequency of choice for high complexity. Group differences for gender, organization type, and prior experience with and exposure to art were compared for the leader and non-leader samples.; Leader preferences did not achieve statistical significance but revealed a trend toward preferring high complexity. Non-leaders similarly perceived high complexity images as supportive of transformational leadership. The results warrant consideration for the display of complexity levels in artwork for workspaces which may spring forth perceptions of transformational leadership.