Do You Have What it Takes to be a Leader? The Effect of Creative Behavior on Perceived Leader Potential and the Moderating Role of Regulatory Focus Theory
Master Thesis
MSc Human Resource Management
Department of Human Resource Management & Organizational Behavior Faculty of Economics and Business
University of Groningen
January 30th, 2020
Jenna Johanna Rüdinger
Student number: 3879291 Wassenberghstraat 19 9718 LE Groningen j.j.rudinger@student.rug.nl Supervisor: Dr. Tim Vriend University of Groningen Acknowledgment
Abstract
In the past decades, research about the influence of creativity on leader emergence has intensified. The results, however, differ regarding the extent to which creativity is seen as a leader characteristic. To address this concern, this research introduces an integrative framework of the leader emergence theory in which the effects of creative behavior on perceived leader potential are best understood when considering the mediating role of activated leader prototypes and the moderating role of Regulatory Focus Theory (promotion vs prevention focus). The conceptualization has been tested through an online survey in which 131 dyads of employees and leaders participated. Leaders had to indicate if they perceive their employees as potential leaders when those engaged in creative behavior. It was expected that perceivers who had a promotion (prevention) focus, see (do not see) creativity as a prototypical leader characteristic. Therefore, they were more (less) likely to see individuals engaging in creative behavior as potential leaders. The data was analyzed in SPSS and results showed that there was a significant positive effect of activated leader prototypes on perceived leader potential. Yet neither promotion nor prevention focus significantly moderated the indirect relationship of creative behavior and perceived leader potential. Additionally, the most important implications and limitations are discussed, and directions for future research are advised.
Keywords: creative behavior, leader categorization theory, leader emergence theory,
Do You Have What it Takes to be a Leader? The Effect of Creative Behavior on Perceived Leader Potential and the Moderating Role of Regulatory Focus Theory
“We need to be bold and creative in everything we do.”, the Economist wrote in a 2019 article titled “Entrepreneurial leaders are needed for a decentralised world” interviewing David McCourt, author of the book “Total Rethink”. Indeed, studies from Bloomberg (Levy & Cannon, 2016) and the World Economic Forum (2016) show that future jobs “will all demand creative problem solving skills” (Merchant, 2019). Especially in leader positions creativity plays an important role. According to a recent Forbes post “Creativity: The Secret To Better Leadership” by Courtney Kramer (2019), “Creativity is something that exists within all of us. But to be creative leaders with integrity, we must be willing to take a stand for creativity and the elements and environment that can empower it to flow.”
Albeit research agrees on the importance of creativity for leader effectiveness (Kern, 2010; Shin & Zhou, 2007; Tierney, Farmer, & Graen, 1999), it is still unclear about its effect on leader emergence in terms of the extent to which an individual is perceived by others as a leader (Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt, 2002). The current state of literature presents competing perspectives regarding the role of creative behavior in the leader emergence context since some results showed a positive association of creative behavior and leader emergence (Ensari, Riggio, Christian, and Carslaw, 2011; Offermann & Coats, 2018), whereas others found a negative relationship (Mueller, Goncalo, & Kamdar, 2011; Mueller, Melwani, & Goncalo, 2012).
The leader categorization theory (LCT) by Lord and Maher (1991) is often used to describe such effects as it concerned with parameters according to which perceived people are assigned to different categories (Lord, Foti, & Phillips, 1982). The theory’s aim is to show the structure and content of cognitive categories in order to make a distinction between leaders and non-leaders (Lord et al., 1982). Therefore, prototypical leader characteristics defined as “personal assumptions about the traits and abilities that characterize an ideal business leader” (Epitropaki & Martin, 2004) are used.
according to them, creativity is not compatible with leader prototypes. Concluding, there is an inconsistency between the concept of leader prototypes and the one of creativity. Therefore, results differ in regard to the relationship of creative behavior and perceived leader potential based on the leader categorization theory. Due to the relevance of both concepts, it is important to find explanations for this inconsistency.
This discrepancy might indicate that people differ in the extent to which they perceive creativity as being part of leader prototypes since on the one hand, it can be seen as an opportunity to embrace new processes and to keep pace with changes (Offermann & Coats, 2018). On the other hand, it can be seen as a threat to the status quo and to well-established features of leaders (Mueller et al., 2011). The divergent perspectives might be caused by the fact that distinct personalities react differently to creativity and that some people see it as an opportunity, whereas others perceive it as a threat. This personally distinct perception of creativity might be determined by the moderating role of another factor. Therefore, in this paper I propose that Regulatory Focus Theory is crucial in determining whether observing creative behavior activates leadership prototypes.
Regulatory Focus Theory, presented by Higgins in 1997, is concerned with the psychological phenomenon in which people have different self-regulation principles. Higgins (1997) divided this concept into two independent regulatory foci. On the one hand, there are people appreciating to approach pleasure, called promotion focus. On the other hand, others prefer the avoiding pain approach, namely prevention focus. While self-regulation via promotion focus uses accomplishments and aspirations to pursue ideal goals, a prevention focus concentrates on safety and responsibilities in order to avoid undesired outcomes (Higgins, 1997, 1998).
2018; Sternberg, 1999) and promotion focus enables creativity (Friedman & Förster, 2001). Therefore, creative behavior has a positive influence on perceived leader potential. Second, it is possible that people with a prevention focus perceive individuals with creative behavior as less suitable leaders. In line with their cognitive mindset, prototypical leaders are not supposed to behave in a creative way because creativity could lead to uncertainty which violates the prototype leaders’ behavior (Mueller et al., 2011, 2012) since leaders are supposed to ensure stability (Phillips & Lord, 1981). Concluding, the extent to which creativity is part of the leadership categorization theory depends on the individual regulatory focus of the perceiver. This line of reasoning will be further elaborated in the following theory section.
Given the contradictory literature, this study aims to explain the opposing impact of creative behavior on perceived leader potential. First, this gap is being rationalized by drawing on the integrative framework of the leader emergence theory by Acton et al. (2019) and the terminologies of leader categorization theory and Regulatory Focus Theory. Second, in order to test these predictions, an online field study was conducted in which dyads (N = 131) of employees and their leaders participated. The goal was to get insights in both external assessments and self-perceptions of employees’ leader potential in connection with their creative behavior. Finally, based on the findings, implications and limitations of the present study are stated and recommendations for future creativity and leadership research are concluded.
Therefore, this research has two overarching contributions since it enriches both theoretical and applied perspectives. Theoretically, it extends the existing body of literature on the relationship between creativity and leader emergence since it provides possible explanations for the gap in research results. As it bases its explanations on the extent to which creativity is seen as a leader prototype, it clarifies why some researchers understand creativity in leadership as an opportunity (Ensari et al., 2011; Offermann & Coats, 2018) and others as a threat to the status quo (Mueller et al., 2011, 2012). Practically, this paper will contribute to the field of human resource management by providing a better and deeper understanding of the relationship between creative behavior and perceived leader potential given the individual regulatory focus. Complete comprehension of this context is helpful for effective leadership processes in organizations.
Figure 1: Conceptual Model. Moderated – mediation model on the impact of creative behavior on perceived leader potential moderated by Regulatory Focus Theory (promotion vs prevention focus) and mediated by activated leader prototypes.
Theory and Hypotheses
Leader Emergence Theory
The leader emergence theory by Acton et al. (2019) represents the conceptual integrative framework of the current research. The researchers defined emergence in general “as a dynamic, interactive process grounded in three principles of emergent phenomena” (Acton et al., 2019, p. 145). The three principles include the elements of the emergent process, the underlying mechanisms of the emergent process, and finally the form and function of the emergent outcome (Acton et al., 2019). In the following, the three general emergent principles are explained in more detail.
function of the emergence outcome which is not fixed but rather variable (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). Therefore, it is from utmost importance to consider both “the form of change that the outcome demonstrates […] and temporal characteristics of the outcome” (Acton et al., 2019, p. 148). Concluding, this means that all principles are important for comprehending the emergent theory by Action et al. (2019). By applying these emergent principles to the specific context of leader emergence in the following this paper illuminates the phenomenon of how individuals emerge as leaders.
Based on the preceding emergent principle number three and the denotation by Judge, Bono, Ilies, and Gerhardt (2002), I define leader emergence as the extent to which an individual is perceived by others as a leader. Since leader emergence often gets conceptualized as leader potential (Kwok, Hanig, Brown, & Shen, 2018), I also adopt this conceptualization for my following research.
Deriving from this notion, perceived leader potential is characterized by two underlying process mechanisms at the relational level. First, the recognition of traits and behaviors (elemental properties of principle one) of the perceived individual. Second, the association of whether the individual's actions match the perceiver’s image of an ideal leader. Since people have different conceptions of their ideal leader it creates ambiguity in the association process (Acton et al., 2019). Therefore, I suggest the leader categorization theory as an explanatory mechanism in this process.
Leader Categorization Theory
The leader categorization theory (LCT) is a crucial part of leadership research (Lord et al., 1982; Offermann, Kennedy, & Wirtz, 1994). Over the last decades, the LCT became more popular and is now a component of many types of researches on different topics (Acton et al., 2019; Mueller et al., 2011) because it makes up for a large part of the explanation of how leaders are perceived (Kenney, Schwartz-Kenney, & Blascovich, 1996; Lord, Foti, & DeVader, 1984).
experience and eventually enable individuals to make faster decisions about other people (Rosch, 1978).
In the case of LCT, leadership represents a cognitive category (Lord & Maher, 1991) on which people rely during decision making processes. Therefore, individuals in an organizational context conceive leader prototypes, also known as Implicit Leadership Theories (ILTs). Those ILTs are “implicit and naïve conceptualizations people hold of leaders” (Offermann & Coats, 2018, p. 513) and they are represented in cognitive structures or prototypes. With those simplified structures or prototypes individuals make distinctions of leaderlike vs non-leaderlike traits, abilities, and characteristics (Epitropaki et al., 2013).
Since the LCT is a recognition-based process (Lord & Maher, 1991) the process of leadership perceptions can either occur automatically (e.g. leader prototype matching on the basis of vis-à-vis contact) or controlled (e.g. leader prototype matching on the basis of socially communicated information).
Concluding, “categorizations are made based on the match of stimulus properties to abstractions or prototypes derived from characteristics common to category members” (Lord & Maher, 1991, p.36). This process is called the prototype approach because the perceivers apply their present prototypes to simplify the categorization procedure of the perceived individual. Therefore, category-based representations make “perceivers compare stimuli from the comparison-individual to attributes of an abstract leadership […] prototype” (Epitropaki et al., 2013, p.861).
In summary, this means that the LCT is not only a clarification of the formation of leadership perceptions but also “an explanation of how leadership schemas are organized in long-term memory and how people are likely to process information related to leadership” (Lord & Maher, 1991, p.35). In the following section, I describe which effect leader prototypes, according to the LCT, have on perceived leader potential.
Activated Leader Prototypes and Perceived Leader Potential
This activation process is an interpersonal procedure since the perceivers’ leader prototypes are only individually activated for those who are observing. It can be seen as evaluation of the perceived behavior which is compared with the perceiver’s pre-existing leader prototypes (Lord & Maher, 1991). Consequently, this activation process is based on the fit of perceived behavior and common leadership traits or leader prototypes (Epitropaki et al., 2013). Therefore, prototypical leader attributes explain why individuals get assigned to a specific category (leaderlike vs non-leaderlike) and associated with perceptions of leaders (Lord, De Vader, & Alliger, 1986). As a consequence, activated leader prototypes seem to display the requirements for perceived leader potential (Hollander, 1992). However, the activation process of leader prototypes is sensitive to context, and thus might differ in changing circumstances (Lord, Brown, Harvey, & Hall, 2001). Concluding, it can be said that the perception of activated leader prototypes is the process through which an observed individual is categorized and recognized as having leader potential (Lord et al., 1982). On these grounds, using the LCT framework, activated prototypes lead to perceived leader potential. Therefore, the first hypothesis is:
Hypothesis 1: Activated leader prototypes are positively related to perceived leader potential.
Creative Behavior
The following section sheds light on the question whether creativity is seen as part of the ILTs, and thus belongs to the set of leader prototypes. Therefore, I build on the overall definition of creativity as the development of useful and novel ideas (Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby, & Herron, 1996) and Janssen’s (2000) definition of creativity in the context of innovative work behavior which is the “creation, introduction and application of new ideas within a work role, group or organization” (Janssen, 2000, p. 288). It is important to note that these behaviors are intentional and that they follow the purpose to create a benefit for either role performance, the group, or the organization (West & Farr, 1989).
2015; Wang, Wang, Liu, & Dong, 2017). Creative behavior is seen as an essential quality since “in contemporary knowledge-work-intensive organizations, most projects are done by teams of professionals striving to be both productive and creative in developing new products, new services, new processes, or new ways of doing business” (Amabile, Schatzel, Moneta, & Kramer, 2004, p. 6). Therefore, researchers dealt with the ongoing question of what might foster creativity. For example, previous literature studied which leadership types contribute to employee creativity (Johnson et al., 2017; Mumford et al., 2002; Zhang & Bartol, 2010). Hence, research on the influence of leadership on creativity is relatively broadly explored. In contrast, there is still a shortage of research on how creativity is affecting leader potential (Sijbom et al., 2015), since some studies found a positive relationship between creativity and leader potential (Offermann & Coats, 2018), whereas some researchers discovered a negative association (Mueller et al., 2011, 2012). Given these contradicting findings, empirical research on this topic has not been able to fully explain the relationship.
To close this gap, this research takes a different angle on the relationship of creative behavior and leader potential. It is centered on the study of Phillips and Lord (1981) where they found that prototypical leader behavior is attained when leaders ensure structure and stability in order to diminish uncertainty. Since a given degree of uncertainty is also included in creativity, as it is defined as novel and useful, novelty always contains uncertainty (Amabile, 1988; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Stein, 1974). Therefore, creativity is not always desired as a leader characteristic since it contradicts the prototypical leader characteristics from Phillips and Lord (1981). Studies from Mueller and associates (Mueller et al., 2011, 2012) have found that creative ideas have a negative effect on the perception of leader potential. They explained their empirical results with the argumentation that “the most readily accessible prototype of leadership might not include creativity” (Mueller et al., 2011, p. 497) since leaders are supposed to maintain the status quo and encourage structure and order (Phillips & Lord, 1981). For their participants it seemed that their implicit leadership theories, mostly naturally arisen and easily accessible, are not consistent with creative behavior. It would take them longer and would require more cognitive effort to recognize individuals engaging in creative behavior as potential leaders (Mueller et al., 2011). Consequently, the lack of fit between creative behavior and activated leader prototypes prohibits individuals engaging in creative behavior from being categorized as potential leaders.
Kennedy, and Wirtz (1994). As a reason for the incorporation of the factor creativity they stated the demand for creative problem solving skills and the ability to develop new ideas increased (Atwater & Carmeli, 2009). These skills and abilities became more essential due to the greater meaning of technology at the workplace (Thomas, 2014). This development was responsible for the fact that creativity became part of their defined leader prototypes. In line with this argumentation, Ensari et al. (2011) found in their study that certain traits, including creativity, predict who has leader potential, and thus will emerge as a leader.
In essence, there are two possible outcomes of leader behaviors in the context of creative behavior. Some leaders follow the traditional leadership approach in which they try to maintain the status quo and diminish uncertainty (Phillips & Lord, 1981). They see creative behavior as a threat which harms their desire for stability since creative behavior requires novel actions and new approaches and inherently changes the status quo (Amabile, 1988; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Stein, 1974). Other leaders react to turbulent environments and embrace changes (Offermann & Coats, 2018). In this scenario creative behavior contributes to their leadership approach since creative behavior meets the demands for new challenges. They react, for example, with creative problem solving skills and the development of new ideas to the rapidly increase in technological changes, globalization, and rising competition (Atwater & Carmeli, 2009).
Concluding, there are different perspectives (opportunity vs threat) on creativity based on LCT which eventually influence perceived leader potential. Given these two divergent findings about the inclusion of creativity as a leader prototype, I propose the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 2a: If creativity is seen as a leader prototype, it positively influences perceived
leader potential.
Hypothesis 2b: If creativity is not seen as a leader prototype, it negatively influences perceived
leader potential.
Regulatory Focus Theory
Regulatory Focus Theory developed by Higgins (1997) distinguishes people’s regulation motivation and their goal-directed behavior and describes “two orthogonal self-regulatory mindsets with different causes” (Neubert et al., 2008, p. 1220). It exceeds the hedonic principle that people approach pleasure and avoid pain since it is rather a motivational principle divided into two opposite foci: promotion focus (accomplishments and aspirations) and prevention focus (safety and responsibilities).
When people adopt a promotion orientation, they are motivated to strive for the desired end-state through advancement, aspirations, and accomplishment. These people have a promotion focus which is a motivational orientation regulating the presence and absence of positive outcomes (Higgins, 1998). On the contrary, when people try through maintenance to avoid conditions that distance them further from desired end-states (Higgins, 1997), they pursue a prevention focus. A prevention focus is a motivational orientation regulate ng the presence and absence of negative outcomes (Higgins, 1998). Consequently, people having a promotion focus prefer risk over safety during goal striving, whereas people with a prevention focus favor safety over risk (Johnson et al., 2017) and eventually they are more vigilant (Brockner & Higgins, 2001).
In their meta-analysis, Lanaj, Chang, and Johnson (2012) have found that creativity vs safety as personality-based characteristics are related to regulatory foci. Since creative behavior is seen as something novel, it contains unpredictability and uncertainty (Janssen, Van de Vliert, & West, 2004) and eventually risk (Amabile, 1988; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Stein, 1974). Hence, individuals with a promotion focus respond differently to this stimulus than people with a prevention focus. Promotion focused individuals are more likely to appreciate creative behavior as they are exploratory oriented in their pursuance of ideals and gains (Neubert, Carlson, Kacmar, Chonko, & Roberts, 2008). Contrary, people with a prevention focus are usually more conservative and prefer safety over risk, and therefore they are not open to creativity or even dislike creative behavior (Förster, Friedman, & Liberman, 2004).
is in line with the research from Said (2016, p. 22) in which he stated that “leadership goals can be directed at change and progress, or be related to safety and maintaining the status quo.”
Concluding, I have several lines of argumentation to argue that depending on the regulatory focus people respond differently to the same stimulus, in this case creativity. This leads to the fact that different leader prototypes get activated when individuals engage in creative behavior. Consequently, it can be expected that people with promotion vs. prevention have different perspectives on what constitutes appropriate leader behavior. In the line of reasoning, I state the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 3a: The relationship between creative behavior and activated leader prototypes is
more positive when promotion focus is high, rather than low.
Hypothesis 3b: The relationship between creative behavior and activated leader prototypes is
more negative when prevention focus is high, rather than low.
In conclusion, this research focuses on the relationship between creative behavior and perceived leader potential given the mediating role of activated leader prototypes and the moderating role of Regulatory Focus Theory. Drawing on Acton’s et al. (2019) leader emergence theory, I align the previously mentioned hypotheses into two final moderated-mediation hypotheses.
Given the overall framework of the three emergent principles I start with the first one and explain the particular elemental properties in my research. Creative behavior in the sense of “creation, introduction and application of new ideas” (Janssen, 2000, p.288) serves as an element “which meaningfully impact[s] the emergence process” (Acton et al., 2019, p. 147).
argued that creative activities challenge the status quo which might result in an intra- or interpersonal conflict.
The third principle connects principles one and two as it focuses on how (through activated leader prototypes) the elemental property (creative behavior) is predicting the emergent outcome (perceived leader potential) and additionally, it takes the form and function of the emergent outcome (perceived individuals get ascribed leader potential vs perceived individuals do not get ascribed leader potential) into consideration (Acton et al., 2019). If there is a match between the creative behavior of the prospective leader and the activated leader prototypes, the prospective leaders will get perceived and categorized as potential leaders (Lord et al., 1982). In case of a promotion focus, this relationship is likely to be positive, whereas in the prevention focus based scenario, it is rather negative. Therefore, creative behavior can be seen as one element with two meanings that speak to the same mechanism in two contradicting ways. Concluding, the following can be hypothesized:
Hypothesis 4a: The indirect relationship between creative behavior and perceived leader
potential as mediated by activated leader prototypes is more positive when promotion focus is high, rather than low.
Hypothesis 4b: The indirect relationship between creative behavior and perceived leader
potential as mediated by activated leader prototypes is more negative when prevention focus is high, rather than low.
Methodology
Design, Procedure, and Participants
The previous chapter developed several hypotheses to investigate whether there is a connection between creative behavior and perceived leader potential. According to Acton et al. (2019), an appropriate and effective approach to measure leader emergence, and thus leader potential, is a questionnaire. Therefore, online surveys with the use of the Qualtrics survey software were executed. During data gathering I collaborated with another student from the university. We joined forces in the data collection process from October 22nd, 2019 until December 11th, 2019.
Alumni Network. Employees and leaders participated as dyads (N = 131). There was no limitation regarding demographic variables of the participants. After expressing their interest in the study, participants received an invitation email which included an explanation and an individual link to the online survey. Three questionnaires were designed (employee survey, leader survey, leader survey for multiple employees), available in English and German. It took participants about ten minutes to fill in the survey. Before they started the survey, they gave informed consent and agreed to participate in the research. Participation was entirely voluntary. In case participants had questions, they could find the contact details (names and email addresses of the researchers) at the end of the survey. The questionnaires can be found in Appendix I.
To avoid that order effects bias results, both the order of the variables and the order of the items were randomized. First, there were questions concerned the topics of creative behavior, activated leader prototypes, Regulatory Focus Theory, and perceived leader potential. Afterwards, participants were asked about demographics and more general questions about their organizational hierarchy and the sector they are operating in.
Response rate. Since the collected data could only be used when the employee and the
leader both participated in the survey, only answers from 131 dyads were appropriate. This represented a response rate of 64.22% since 204 dyads were both targeted and willing to participate in the survey.
Leader survey. In sum, there were 131 answers from leaders mainly working in the
services sector (58.8%). 52.7% of leaders were female and 47.3% were male. No participant used the option “other” in regard to gender. The average age of leaders was 45 years (Mage = 44.58, SD = 11.68) with an average tenure in their current position of 9.38 years (SD = 9.66). Furthermore, 51.9% had a master’s degree. Most leaders were employed in a middle management (43.5%) or top management position (22.9%) where they supervised mainly one to five (34.4%), six to ten (22.9%) or more than 20 employees (19.8%). Their level of seniority at the organization was predominantly middle (33.3%) or senior level (54.3%). Half of the leaders (50.4%) indicated that their hierarchical power level within the firm was above 75%. The survey language in the leader questionnaire was mainly German (87.12% German and 12.88% English).
Employee survey. In total, there were answers from 131 employees. Employees were
average tenure of the current position was 5.13years (SD = 6.59). 29.8% of employees had a master’s degree. Most employees were employed in a non-management position (64.6%) in which they mainly did not supervise other employees (60.8%). 82.8% described their seniority level at the organization as middle level or below. The majority of employees (69.5%) indicated that their hierarchical power level within the firm was below 50%. The survey language in the employee questionnaire was mainly German (90.7% German and 9.3% English).
Measurement
All measurement instruments were 5-point Likert scales reaching from (1) strongly
disagree to (5) strongly agree, except for the control variables. The whole survey with all
measurement instruments can be found in Appendix I. For the analyses, I only used the data from distinct sources which will be described in the following.
Creative behavior. The independent variable was measured using a 9-item list. This
was Janssen’s (2000) questionnaire based on scales from Scott and Bruce (1994) concerning innovative work behavior and Kanter‘s (1988) division of three innovation stages namely idea generation (e.g., ‘creating new ideas for difficult issues’), idea promotion (e.g., ‘mobilizing support for innovative ideas’), and idea realization (e.g., ‘transforming innovative ideas into useful applications’). In these self-rating questions, employees were asked to indicate to which extent they agree with the mentioned statements. Cronbach’s alpha was .90 for the variable of creative behavior.
Regulatory Focus Theory. In this study, the moderator (individual regulatory focus)
was operationalized with the items concerning leader regulatory focus introduced by Said (2016). We asked leaders to rate the extent to which they motivate their employees to primarily focus on different outcomes. The four items regarding the leader promotion focus had a Cronbach’s alpha of .72 (i.e., ‘achieving positive outcomes at work’, ‘achieving success at work’, ‘my aspirations and ideals when working’, and ‘fulfilling my work as successful as possible’), whereas the four items concerned with the leader prevention focus had a Cronbach’s alpha of .65 (i.e., ‘avoiding negative outcomes at work’, ‘avoiding failure at work’, ‘my duties and responsibilities when working’, and ‘fulfilling my work as correct as possible’).
Activated leader prototypes. Based on the research from Offermann and Coats (2018),
strength, masculinity, intelligence, well-groomed, and creativity). This resulted in 26 items in total since one subdimension (i.e., well-groomed) only had two items. Leaders were asked to rate their employees’ characteristics. Example items were if the employee was ‘caring’, ‘creative’, or ‘educated’. Cronbach’s alpha for the activated leader prototype variable was .62. Therefore, the variable did not pass the threshold of .65 of Cronbach’s alpha (Rosenblum & Seashore Louis, 1981).
Perceived leader potential. To measure the dependent variable, perceived leader
potential, a 4-item measure (Mueller et al., 2011) was used. In the current sample, Cronbach’s alpha was .89. Leaders ranked their employees’ leader potential in an external perception process. Examples were if the employee ‘will become an effective leader’ or if he/she ‘will learn leadership skills’.
Control variables. As suggested by Mueller et al. (2011), the participants’ demographic
variables gender, tenure of the current position, level of education (e.g. High School, Bachelor, Master), and age served as control variables for measuring the relationship between creative behavior and perceived leader potential. The education level was especially interesting in regard to creative behavior since people with a higher educational level are expected to perform more complex and non-standardized jobs, usually resulting in opportunities for creative behavior at the workplace (Scott & Bruce, 1994). Moreover, the sector the organization is operating in was added (retail/distribution, government/not-for profit, services, production/industry; Hemsley-Brown, 2004) and a question regarding the personal hierarchical power level within the firm from bottom (0) to top (100) (Lammers, Stoker, & Stapel, 2010) in order to control for external circumstances of perceived leader potential.
Data Analysis
Data Preparation. Before starting with any statistical analyses with the use of SPSS
Hypotheses Testing. During the hypotheses testing process, I performed several
analyses. To test the first hypothesis, I used a hierarchical multiple univariate regression analysis in order to investigate the effect of activated leader prototypes on perceived leader potential. Next, PROCESS model 4 (Hayes, 2013) with 5000 bootstrapping samples was used to elaborate on the mediated relationship between creative behavior and perceived leader potential through activated leader prototypes (Hypothesis 2a and 2b). Afterwards, I executed two moderation analysis with the help of PROCESS model 1 with 5000 bootstrapping samples (Hayes, 2013) to find out whether promotion and/or prevention focus are moderating the connection between creative behavior and activated leader prototypes (Hypothesis 3a and 3b). Finally, to get a holistic view of the conceptual model (Hypothesis 4a and 4b), I performed two moderated-mediation analysis (once with promotion focus and once with prevention focus) using the PROCESS model 7 again with 5000 bootstrapping samples (Hayes, 2013).
Data Management
During the data gathering process, data was collected and saved in the Qualtrics Survey Software. Afterwards in the data analysis process, all information was transferred to SPSS. To protect confidentiality, it was only available to the research students and the supervisor. As soon as data was transferred from Qualtrics to SPSS, all data (e.g., names, email addresses, IP addresses) that might reveal the leaders’ or employees’ identity was deleted. Gathered data was only saved until the end of the thesis period.
Results
In the following section, the results of the conducted analyses, as mentioned in the method section, will be described for the hypotheses.
Bivariate Correlations
Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of the variables of interest and the control variables can be found in the Pearson correlation table (Table 1). The most significant results are mentioned in the following section.
Hypotheses Testing
Hypothesis 1: Activated leader prototypes are positively related to perceived leader potential.
To test Hypothesis 1, I executed a multiple regression analysis (Table 2). The model variable activated leader prototypes had a significant positive effect on the dependent variable perceived leader potential (B = 1.12, p < .001). Therefore, there was significant evidence to confirm the first hypothesis.
Hypothesis 2a: If creativity is seen as a leader prototype, it positively influences perceived
leader potential.
Hypothesis 2b: If creativity is not seen as a leader prototype, it negatively influences perceived
leader potential.
To test Hypothesis 2a and 2b, a mediation analysis was conducted. Against my prediction, results showed that creative behavior did not have a significant influence on activated leader prototypes (B = .02, p > .10; Table 3), thus the mediation a path. Nor was there a significant effect on perceived leader potential (B = .08, p > .10; Table 2), hence the mediation
c path. The only observed significant effect was the one from activated leader prototypes on
perceived leader potential (B = 1.12, p < .001; Table 2). Therefore, only the mediation b path showed a significant positive relationship. Concluding, both Hypothesis 2a and Hypothesis 2b could not be confirmed.
Hypothesis 3a: The relationship between creative behavior and activated leader prototypes is
more positive when promotion focus is high, rather than low.
Hypothesis 3b: The relationship between creative behavior and activated leader prototypes is
more negative when prevention focus is high, rather than low.
To test Hypothesis 3a and Hypothesis 3b, two moderation analyses were conducted (Table 3). For neither promotion focus nor prevention focus a significant interaction effect with creative behavior was found. Therefore, both Hypothesis 3a and Hypothesis 3b were rejected.
Hypothesis 4a: The indirect relationship between creative behavior and perceived leader
potential as mediated by activated leader prototypes is more positive when promotion focus is high, rather than low.
Hypothesis 4b: The indirect relationship between creative behavior and perceived leader
To test Hypothesis 4a and Hypothesis 4b, I checked the moderated-mediation indices which were both insignificant since the given confidence intervals included zero (95% CI [upper, lower]). Therefore, the last hypotheses were rejected.
Supplementary Analyses
Focus on Creativity. In the previous analyses, I aggregated all different activated leader
prototypes (Offermann & Coats, 2018) merging them into one variable. However, in a further exploration I detangled the nine subdimensions of activated leader prototypes and I had an additional look at the leader prototype ‘creativity’. The results of a regression analysis (Table 4) showed that the creativity as an activated leader prototype had a highly significant positive effect on perceived leader potential (B = .62, p < .001). However, there was neither an interaction effect for promotion focus and creative behavior nor for prevention focus and creative behavior (Table 5).
Activated Leader Prototypes as a Moderator. An alternative way of measuring the
Table 2
Mediating Effects on Perceived Leader Potential
Perceived Leader Potential
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
B (SE) B (SE) B (SE) B (SE)
Intercept 3.70 (.36)*** 3.41 (.53)*** -.14 -.35 (.75) Gender Leader -.05 (.16) -.08 (.17) -.18 (.14) -.20 (.14) Tenure Current Position Leader .01 (.01) .01 (.01) .01 (.01) .01 (.01) Hierarchical Level Leader .00 (.00) .00 (.00) .00 (.00) .00 (.00) Hierarchical Level Employee -.00 (.00) -.00 (.00) .00 (.00) -.00 (.00)
Creative Behavior .10 (.13) 0.8 (.12)
Activated Leader Prototypes 1.12 (.18)*** 1.12 (.18)***
R² .02 .02 .26*** .26***
ΔR² -.02 -.02 .23***
Notes. N = 131. Standard Errors between the parentheses. † p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001
Table 3
Moderating Effects on Activated Leader Prototypes
Activated Leader Prototypes
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
B (SE) B (SE) B (SE) B (SE)
Intercept 3.42 (.16)*** 3.36 (.23)*** 3.35 (1.63)* 2.43 (.90)* Gender Leader .11 (.07) .11 (.07) .08 (.07) .10 (.07) Tenure Current Position Leader -.01 (.00) -.01 (.00) -.00 (.00) -.01 (.00) Hierarchical Level Leader .00 (.00) .00 (.00) .00 (.00) .00 (.00) Hierarchical Level Employee -.00 (.00) -.00 (.00) -.00 (.00) -.00 (.00)
Creative Behavior .02 (.06) -.13 (.47) .10 (.25)
Promotion Focus .03 (.39)
Prevention Focus .31 (.26)
Creative Behavior x Promotion Focus .04 (.11)
Creative Behavior x Prevention Focus -.03 (.07)
R² .05 .05 .09 .19
ΔR² .02 .01 .00 .00
Table 4
Mediating Effects on Perceived Leader Potential
Perceived Leader Potential
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
B (SE) B (SE) B (SE) B (SE)
Intercept 3.70 (.36)*** 3.38 (.60)*** 1.52 (.51)** 1.28 (.65) Gender Leader -.05 (.16) -.08 (.17) -.16 (.15) -.18 (.15) Tenure Current Position Leader .01 (.01) .01 (.01) .01 (.01) .01 (.01) Hierarchical Level Leader .00 (.00) .00 (.00) .00 (.00) .00 (.00) Hierarchical Level Employee -.00 (.00) -.00 (.00) -.00 (.00) -.00 (.00)
Creative Behavior .11 (.16) .08 (.14)
Creativity .62 (.11)*** .62 (.11)***
R² .02 .02 .22*** .22***
ΔR² -.02 -.02 .18***
Notes. N = 131. Standard Errors between the parentheses. † p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001
Table 5
Moderating Effects on Creativity
Creativity
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
B (SE) B (SE) B (SE) B (SE)
Intercept 3.55 (.26)*** 3.42 (.39)*** 5.82 (2.67)* 1.78 (1.54) Gender Leader .17 (.12) .16 (.12) .12 (.12) .15 (.12) Tenure Current Position Leader -.01 (.01) -.01 (.01) -.01 (.01) -.01 (.01) † Hierarchical Level Leader .00 (.00) .00 (.00) .00 (.00) .00 (.00) Hierarchical Level Employee -.00 (.00) .00 (.00) .00 (.00) .00 (.00)
Creative Behavior .04 (.10) -.91 (.77) .28 (.42)
Promotion Focus -.54 (.64)
Prevention Focus .53 (.44)
Creative Behavior x Promotion Focus .23 (.18)
Creative Behavior x Prevention Focus -.08 (.12)
R² .04 .04 .10† .12*
ΔR² .01 .00 .01 .00
Table 6
Moderating Effect of Activated Leader Prototypes
Perceived Leader Potential
B (SE) LLCI ULCI
Intercept 3.98 (.33)*** 3.32 4.63
Gender Leader -.21 (.15) -.50 .08
Tenure Current Position Leader .01 (.01) -.01 .03 Hierarchical Level Leader .00 (.00) -.00 .01 Hierarchical Level Employee -.00 (.00) -.01 .01 Creative Behavior .11 (.14) -.16 .39 Activated Leader Prototypes 1.10 (.19)*** .72 1.47 Creative Behavior x Activated Leader Prototypes .12 (.32) -.52 .75
R² .26***
ΔR² .00
Notes. N = 131. Standard Errors between the parentheses. † p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.
LLCI = lower limit confidence interval, ULCI = upper limit confidence interval.
Discussion
Given the rapidly growing technological advancements and the spreading globalization, creativity became a hot topic in various research streams. This also applies to research about leader emergence. The current state of literature found mixed results on how creative behavior is seen in regard to the emergence of potential leaders. Therefore, the aim of this quantitative research was to shed light on the role of creative behavior regarding perceived leader potential. This was done in order to provide an explanation for the controversial findings about whether engaging in creative behavior leads to a higher or lower level of perceived leader potential. I additionally examined the potential moderating role of Regulatory Focus Theory in the integrative framework of the leader emergence theory. The main findings of the analyses enabled me to draw the following key conclusions.
behavior and promotion focus nor between creative behavior and prevention focus. This indicates that in the current study Regulatory Focus Theory did not significantly moderate the relationship between creative behavior and activated leader prototypes. Next, the supplementary analyses showed that creativity on its own as an activated leader prototype had a significant positive influence on perceived leader potential. However, also in this scenario, no interaction effect between creative behavior and regulatory foci was found. Moreover, the supplementary analyses showed that activated leader prototypes, integrated as a moderator, still had a significant positive influence on perceived leader potential. Concluding, the only significant result which was in line with the hypotheses was the positive relationship of activated leader prototypes and perceived leader potential.
In the following, theoretical and practical implications, strengths and limitations of this study, future limitations, and final concluding remarks will be discussed.
Theoretical Implications
The present research has implications for various research areas. First of all, this review provides an overview of the varying results in the context of creativity and leader emergence. By comparing the mixed findings of the opposed researches - some see creativity as an essential leader characteristic (Bass, 1990; Daft, 1999; Offermann & Coats, 2018; Ensari et al, 2011), whereas some do not associate creativity with leader prototypes (Mueller et al., 2011, 2012) - it became transparent that the underlying reason for their disagreement is based on the leader categorization theory. Since, in my study, activated leader prototypes had a positive influence on perceived leader potential it clarified the relationship between necessary leader characteristics and the perception of leader potential. Especially, the results of the supplementary analyses showed that creativity on its own, detangled from the other activated leader prototypes, predicted perceived leader potential. As a consequence, it can be concluded that creativity is indeed part of leader prototypes which is in line with the results from Offerman and Coats (2018) and that these findings eventually confirm LCT.
about the relevance of Regulatory Focus Theory needs further research using different operationalizations of this theory and creative behavior.
Practical Implications
On the one hand, this study makes organizations aware of the relevance of creativity but on the other hand, it also states divergent positions that creative behavior can be seen as an opportunity or a threat in the leadership context. Therefore, next to its theoretical contributions, this thesis also provides several insights that can serve as practical implications for employees and leaders, especially concerning the recruitment process (i.e., assessment centers) and the talent development process in organizations.
By now, organizations’ attention has been drawn to the fact that creativity is important for competitive advantage, and therefore for organizations’ survival (Tushman & O’Reilly, 1997; Janssen, 2000; Mumford, Scott, Gaddis, & Strange, 2002; Sijbom et al., 2015; Wang, Wang, Liu, & Dong, 2017). Therefore, companies might decide to see creativity in leadership as an opportunity, and thus they are more likely to provide a creativity friendly organizational culture. In order to establish an organizational climate which is open to creativity, the management should, among other features, “stimulate the expression of ideas [and] encourage employees to find answers creatively” (Roffe, 1999, p. 229).
Contrary to that, some companies might see creativity in leadership as a threat since it changes the status quo and might jeopardize the companies’ stability, resulting in “a bias against selecting the most creative individuals as leaders in favor of selecting leaders who would preserve the status quo by sticking with feasible but relatively unoriginal solutions” (Mueller et al., 2011, p. 497). This bias might be the reason for many leaders failing (Hogan & Hogan, 2001).
prototypes is an effective method to make them aware of their strengths and weaknesses and it also gives them clarification about a potential move up to a leadership position. Therefore, in order to maintain long-term leadership effectiveness and eventually also organizational effectiveness, I advise organizations to be clear about their ‘creativity in leadership approach’ as well as their preferred leader prototypes and to be honest with their employees about how they get perceived when engaging in creative behavior.
Limitations and Future Directions
This research faces several limitations, including statistical, methodological, and conceptual issues. Taking this into account, I give suggestions for future research.
Conceptual limitations. Notably, in this thesis, I have measured creative behavior from
a holistic perspective as one variable. I have not detangled it into the three different behavioral tasks (i.e., idea generation, idea promotion, and idea realization) that it consists of because “individuals can be expected to be involved in any combination of these behaviors at any time” (Scott & Bruce, 1994, p. 582). However, future research could also investigate their individual effect on perceived leader potential in order to see if they have varying influences. It might be conceivable that idea promotion and idea realization have a stronger effect on others perception since these are behaviors relatively easy to observe for others. On the contrary, idea generation is more hidden to others, and therefore harder to observe.
Moreover, this research does not differentiate between different kinds of creativity (e.g. incremental and radical creativity). According to Gilson and Madja (2011), it is important to make a distinction between incremental and radical creativity. Since incremental creativity only includes minor changes to the existing procedures, I would expect that they are more aligned to perceived leader potential as this type does not intend to transform everything but also keeps a part of the status quo. Radical creativity, on the contrary, entails revolutionary changes. This is why I would expect a less positive, maybe even a negative, relationship with perceived leader potential. Future research is now needed to incorporate the multifaceted types of creativity to investigate if results differ when having a look at them separately.
environment. Another example is the study from Mittal and Dhar (2014) in which they stated that transformational leadership can create a creative work environment. Taking this into account, future research should specify the type of leadership in order to prevent an overgeneralization of different forms of leadership.
Another conceptual issue are the consequences of leader perceptions. Since the conceptual model was designed to focus on the relationship between creative behavior and perceived leader potential it did not include a reaction on the perception of the potential leader. Therefore, it still remains open what happens next after the individual is perceived as a potential leader. In consequence, future researcher could, for example, also incorporate the official procedure of the individual’s promotion to a leadership position.
Furthermore, the activation process of leader prototypes presents a conceptual limitation. Since it is not clear if we first see people acting leaderlike and then assign them a leader role, or if we first assign people a leader role and then ascribe leaderlike characteristics. This is a distinction that was not tested in this research but for future studies it might be interesting to look into this topic more deeply to get a complete understanding of the whole leader prototypes activation process.
Methodological limitations. From a methodologically perspective, the usage of an
online questionnaire as the method design created several problems despite of the strengths of easy usage, simple adaptation to changing contexts, and time and cost efficiency. First, the different measurement instruments might not have been good enough since their Cronbach’s alpha was sometimes below .65, especially in the case of the mediator activated leader prototypes. Furthermore, participants gave the feedback that they did not know how to differentiate between the items ‘masculine’ and ‘male’ in the subdimension ‘masculinity’. Additionally, a visual inspection of a boxplot depicting this dimension (Appendix II) showed a floor effect since most of the subjects scored near the bottom and indicated that they do not see masculinity as a leader prototype. This was especially the case for their ideal image of a leader. I found the strongest floor effect in the category in which employees indicated their ideal leader image. There the majority of participants were female (69.5%). This indicates that the “long-accepted male-oriented ideology of ‘think male, think leader’” (Jackson, Engstrom, & Emmers-Sommer, 2007, p. 713) might have shifted towards a leadership mentality in which women are more represented. Given these issues with the measurement of activated leader prototypes it might be better for future research to measure the individual subdimensions separately.
languages like German (Offermann, Kennedy, & Wirtz, 1994), it might have been the case that participants tended to solely think about leadership styles with directive character (Graumann,1986). In general, the translation into another language can always display a hurdle as the survey questions could have been differently interpreted than their original meaning envisaged (Squires, 2009). Therefore, future research should keep the language barrier in mind and either try to use literature in the same native language or to hold on to the original survey questions and do not translate them in order to maintain the actual meaning.
Third, there were a number of issues with the targeted participants’ willingness to take part in this survey despite the fact that the issue of the common method variance was reduced (Lindell & Whitney, 2001) by using multiple methods of measurement (employees and leaders as data sources). Even though confidentiality was promised and maintained, some participants were scared to fill in the survey. As they had to indicate the name of either their employee or their leader in order to get the answers of the particular dyad matched, they feared to reveal their honest opinion. Dishonesty and lying about the true score could have been the consequence. This might have been due to the social desirability bias (Fisher, 1993). Nowadays people might experience the intense norm to embrace creativity even though they do not want to engage in creative behavior (Mueller et al., 2012). This argumentation is in line with the issues of self-reported data as self-reported answers might be exaggerated (Northrup, 1996). Concluding, this means for future research that they should find another method where participants do not have to indicate their study partner’s name in order to reduce the issues of the social desirability bias. One possible alternative would be that participating dyads are assigned numbers in advance which they have to indicate during the survey. This might feel more anonymous for them.
focus scale might have been a more fitting measure. A possible alternative would be the 18-item work regulatory focus scale from Neubert and colleagues (2008) which includes questions regarding prevention focus (i.e., security, oughts, and losses) and promotion focus (i.e., gains, achievements, and ideals) of an individual at work. Since it “was developed to capture the degree of regulatory focus that is evoked in a work setting” (Neubert et al., 2008), in this study it might be more precise to measure the intended variable.
Statistical limitations. From a statistically perspective, this study faced the challenge
of a small sample size (N = 131). Moreover, the sample depicted mostly (58.8%) employees and leaders in the service sector. Furthermore, most participants were German (88.91%). Especially the latter issue presents a constrain in this research. Based on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 2001), uncertainty avoidance is very common in German society. This tendency might influence their conceptions in regard to creativity, and thus it acts as a preventive mechanism for innovation (Hofstede, 2001) which is in line with my argumentation for prevention-oriented people. Not only concerning creativity but also with respect to leadership this problem might have occurred in the study since there are cultural differences in leadership perceptions (Gerstner & Day, 1994). Concluding, these three limitations cause a lack of representation of the overall society, especially regarding to different sectors (Hemsley-Brown, 2004) and different cultures (Gerstner & Day, 1994). However, due to the limited time frame, there was no possibility to extend the sample size. Future research should take a larger amount of additional data into consideration, hence, create a more extensive research foundation for “studies within single country context […] as well as through cross-country comparisons” (Offermann & Coats, 2018, p. 515). In doing so, robustness and generalizability of results can be promoted.
Conclusion
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