Are Creative People Less Likely To Land Leadership Roles?

CNN:

Your manager and colleagues regard you as a creative genius, leading to thoughts of a promotion in your head.

But if you're harboring ambitions of harnessing your skills to land a leadership role, you could be in for a tough climb, according to new research.

Read the whole story: CNN

Comments

[Genders]

11:00 PM on 02/06/2011

Agreed, specially these days the suits think creative people are to disorganized to run things. Wrong, but that's what they think.

[R U Sirius]

11:37 AM on 02/05/2011

Not in my experience. The suits are terrified of creative people because they tend not to be rule followers (how can you follow rules and still "think outside of the box"?), they're often harder to control and/or intimidate, and they are frequently less interested in squashing other people to get to the top.

Corporate types usually fear that creatives are out to "get their jobs" but this is usually not the case. The suits generally do their best to get rid of them anyway.

[anfractuous]

08:01 PM on 02/03/2011

No amount of creativity will supplant the irresistable allure of the brown-nose. I would bet, in regard to this study, there is a much greater uniformity among those who argued against creativity than those who argued for. I would even wager about the advantages of such seemingly peripheral variables as weight, height and attractiveness, vs. those of ideas. Ideas as such, are less important than the percentage of people who resemble you in some aspect when it come to progress in an organization.

If creativity was such a prize among the hominids, an Einstein would have been born 40,000 years ago. Then again, maybe he was.

[JayMonaco]

09:47 AM on 02/02/2011

Leadership generally requires a left-brained mentality...sad sad weepy weepy, I know--I'm a right-brainer myself. But that's just how the humans work.

[colred]

09:31 AM on 02/02/2011

Boy, I can certainly relate to this. I work in education and have for years been attempting to become a leader with in the building, district and field. I'm also very creative. I'm the guy in the back, or front, who asks the hard questions or changes the perspectives. Haven't been able to gain a leadership role no matter how I try. Everyone loves my ideas. Everyone is willing to exploit my ideas, after they've tried everything else. The people that become "leaders", however, are the ones willing to do the administrators' work.

[Widespread Panic]

11:11 PM on 02/01/2011

Not from my experience. Most of the creative people that I know ARE the leaders. The workerbees are usually, in my experience, not as creative. Of course this could depend on your line of work, where you work, age, etc.

[JayMonaco]

09:46 AM on 02/02/2011

Yeah, what line of work are you in?

[Widespread Panic]

01:15 PM on 02/02/2011

I'm in IT but also work on the business side.

[dporterdvd]

09:09 PM on 02/01/2011

Creative people create new ideas. New ideas represent change. Many people are afraid of change and prefer the perceived safety of what is familiar even when their environment is in decline.

[R U Sirius]

11:38 AM on 02/05/2011

You said it much better than I did! Fanned.