Leadership style and group creativity

This study examined the effects of leadership style on group project quality in the context of a required class exercise for 246 MBA students. The 64 student teams were instructed to perform some type of school/community service project and the team leaders were randomly assigned to be more or less participative in their project selection meetings. Independent judges rated projects on two dimensions: how creative and how worthwhile. Consistent with the Vroom contingency model, I found that the best leadership style for group creativity depended on whether the leader was more or less creative than the other group members. If the leader was less creative than the others, a more participative/facilitative style produced more creative projects than a directive style. But if the leader was more creative than the others were, a directive style produced more creative group projects than a facilitative style. The pattern was different when project quality was measured by ratings of how worthwhile the project was as opposed to how creative. More participative leadership led to projects considered more worthwhile. A structural equation model is presented showing that more participative leadership leads to more engagement in the task and less conflict. More engagement and more conflict lead to more creativity. But more conflict leads to less worthwhile projects. The need to decide if creativity is desired, the necessity to balance creativity against other quality dimensions such as practicality or project worthiness, and the implications for a manager who wants creativity from a group are discussed.