Perspective Chapter: Creativity in the Work Environment – Reflections on the Role of Management for Creative Individuals Work

Abstract

The paper aims to reflect on creativity at work, broadening the perspective on the influence of the environment and leadership practices and policies for expressing creative individuals. Based on theory, it is argued that the creative abilities of individuals need to be associated with an organization whose leadership allows and encourages creative work. The methodology consists of a theoretical essay, to answer the proposed research question: how do leadership and management practices influence the creative expression of workers in different contexts? It appears that leadership plays a fundamental role in creating and maintaining an organizational culture that allows creativity and innovation on the part of employees. Based on this reflection, a theoretical expansion of the componential model of the invention (cyclic model—systemic approach) is presented, listing elements that must be considered when one intends to analyze creativity in the work environment.

1. Introduction

Over time and with the advance of capitalist systems, companies were constituted as rigid and hierarchical structures in search of predictability of action and acting in a pyramidal model, where power relations were established rigorously. With the advancement of the twenty-first century, the insertion of technologies and new consumption patterns led to numerous transformations in the organizational environment.

These changes have driven the emergence of new organizational models, more organic and flexible, common to segments of the economy whose main asset is employees’ cognitive and intellectual capabilities. In this context, the creative skills of workers are considered essential for companies to remain innovative and competitive in the market.

To authors such as Sternberg [1], creativity is a decision, an attitude toward life, and a matter of individual skills. As the author mentions, intellectual conformity is a common point of the rigid structures that condition adults’ way of thinking. This conditioning of creativity is very present in companies with management modes, especially people management, focused on standardization and rigid and bureaucratic hierarchical relationships.

Therefore, research indicates that it is not enough for workers to have creative skills, they must be engaged in the organization, so that they can obtain the best result in their work. This will happen as the worker finds, in the organizational environment, conditions that encourage them to try, experiment, create and, therefore, innovate at work.

For the understanding of creativity [1, 2], a systemic approach is important, considering the internal aspects of the individual (intrinsic factors) and their environment (extrinsic factors). When talking about factors related to the environment, creativity at work can find, in the organizational culture, elements that are configured as incentives or as obstacles to its expression.

Culture, seen as the set of assumptions, values, beliefs, policies, and practices of people, configures an organization’s way of being [3]. Leadership, as guardian of the organizational culture, plays a fundamental role in creating an environment that is conducive to the expression of creativity by workers.

The leader can play the role of pushing workers to do their best, to mobilize their best skills, in favor of superior results. Engaging leadership can make your team act in an integrated, systemic, flexible, creative and innovative way, fundamental characteristics of contemporary organizations [4].

This study, whose methodology is based on a theoretical essay supported by unsystematic observation, aims to reflect on creativity at work, broadening the perspective on the influence of the environment and management practices and policies for expressing creative individuals. The aim is to answer the following research question: how do leadership and management practices influence the creative expression of workers in different contexts?

The relevance of the text lies in the relationship established between creativity, leadership and engagement. Although there are many studies demonstrating the importance of leadership for the creativity of individuals in the work environment, the association with engagement can bring new elements for reflection on the themes [5].

As an answer to the proposed question, this study presents, in the next sections, a theoretical approach to creativity, followed by the topic of leadership, engaging leadership and organizational culture. Next, the authors’ theoretical reflections and observations results are pointed out. It ends with a suggestion to expand the contingency approach to creativity, which may include other elements related to organizations’ leadership and management methods.

2. Creativity

Creativity has been associated with people’s characteristics and abilities for a long time. To Boden [6], creativity is “the ability to present new, surprising, and valuable ideas and artifacts”. To Florida, creativity is selecting and filtering data, information, and perceptions to create something new and useful.

Intrinsic motivation is an important principle for creativity [2]. This intrinsic motivation makes the individual perform the task for pleasure, for their interest, and challenge. Thus, people would be more creative when motivated mainly by the interest, pleasure, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself.

Through intrinsic motivation, people seek more knowledge, which develops domain skills. The model proposed by Amabile mentions that domain skills and creative processes are important for creative work [7, 8]. As a mastery skill, what the person possesses as skill, talent, or knowledge acquired through formal and informal education and their life experience stands out. As creative processes, the way of working, personality traits, and ways used to stimulate new ideas stand out [9].

Creativity is a decision to “buy low and sell high in the world of ideas”, according to the investment theory of creativity proposed by Sternberg in partnership with Todd Lubart. Creative people generate ideas or seek out disadvantaged ideas that have growth potential, persisting in this idea until they get value and move on to the next idea [1, 10].

What is creative is new, and the human mind produces positive changes. However, the new can also seem strange, which can bring fear, which is why creativity is often not wanted to be considered, both in personal life and in companies. Creative people will be able to advance with their original ideas and improve the environment in which they are inserted, bringing benefits to those involved [11].

Different studies on the issue of creativity added new elements to the debate, as the importance of the environment where the individual is inserted was glimpsed so that they can express their creativity. According to this theory, creativity requires the interaction of the following aspects: intellectual ability, knowledge, thinking style, personality, motivation, and environment [1].

To Sternberg, no matter how much the person has all these six creative skills, if there is no favorable environment for accepting and stimulating ideas, all this inner creativity may not be demonstrated. However, in some cases, one force may be so great that it will neutralize the other, as high motivation can neutralize the influences of the environment when it is not conducive to the development of creativity [1, 9, 10].

The same author says that creativity is a decision, so in addition to having the skills proposed by this author, it is necessary to decide to use them. Thus, to be creative, it is necessary to “generate new ideas, analyze them, defend and sell them to other people” [1].

As for intellectual ability, the author highlights the ability to see problems from new perspectives, select the best ideas, and persuade with them until obtaining value [1]. It is important to know to be able to proceed with the idea, but according to this author, high knowledge in the domain area can make it impossible to visualize beyond this [1, 9]. However, creativity requires experience and practice. Ideas in creative people arise from well-developed skills and sufficient knowledge in the area in question [12].

The willingness to overcome obstacles, willingness to take risks and tolerance for ambiguity are important characteristics in the personality of the creative person [1, 11].

Analyzing external factors to the individual, extrinsic motivation such as rewards, evaluations, control, competition, and limited choices can harm creativity. The social environment can intervene in the individual’s motivation, significantly influencing the creative process performance [2, 13, 14].

The research by Madjar et al. showed that employees’ creative performance was related to encouraging creativity in their work environment, such as by supervisors and co-workers, but also by sources unrelated to this work environment, such as the family and friends [2].

Another important aspect of the creative process is the multicultural experience [15]. Cultural diversity can increase creativity, allowing new relationships to be made by enriching the cultural environment [12]. In this sense, groups and work teams presenting diversity among their members can facilitate creativity. Therefore, encouraging diversity in organizations must be a management decision and a leadership policy.

The creation process is also related to culture, as it serves as a reference for what the individual “is, does, communicates, and elaborates” [15]. Thus, to the author, human creativity is developed in the cultural context due to people being and developing within certain cultures, in which they share and determine their life values. The creative process lies in the interconnection between creativity, as the expression of each individual, and creation, as the realization of their potential within a cultural context. Therefore, this process is related to structuring and forming something, coming out of imagination only [15].

The human motivation to create is in the search for ordering and meanings. Creation processes occur within the scope of intuition. Intuitive, these processes become conscious as they are expressed, given form [15]. The intuitive act is a value choice through relevant and selected processes regarding its importance for each individual. In this intuitive act, the memories and knowledge acquired are renewed and resignified [15].

When thinking about creativity, it is necessary to have a broad vision, considering the individual’s intrinsic and extrinsic factors, such as the environment in which they are inserted.

Creativity results from the reciprocal and favorable relationship between the individual and the environment [9, 16]. In creative expression, there is the interaction of personal variables (individuals) and elements of the historical and cultural context. To understand why, when, and how new ideas are produced, we need to consider both internal and external variables to the individual [9].

For the understanding of creativity, a systemic approach is important, considering the internal aspects of the individual (intrinsic factors) and their environment (extrinsic factors) [1, 2, 13].

To promote intrinsic motivation in the workplace, we need to have the freedom to experiment. However, concerning the work context, with technical and administrative work routines, one must reconcile creativity with management and quality in carrying out the work [17].

A study carried out by Schmitz aimed to identify how the work environment is configured as a stimulus to the creativity of the professional and to analyze the relationships between the creativity of the individual (professional) and its use in gastronomic work in food services (work environment) [18]. The research demonstrated that creativity in the work environment has a cyclical relationship; that is, as a factor increases in a category (individual’s creativity category and work environment category), there is a small or moderate increase in the other factors addressed in the study. The study also demonstrated that in gastronomy, concerning creativity, there is an interaction between the intrinsic factors of the technologist and the extrinsic ones related to their gastronomic work environment.

So that the worker can exercise their creativity, it is important that they are engaged and committed to the work they perform and that they find, in the environment, the necessary elements for their motivation. In this sense, we explain the ideas about engaging leadership and the importance of this leader profile so that creativity can be manifested and converted into superior results, ultimately leading to organizational innovation.

3. Engaging leadership

One of the fundamental assets of an organization today is people and intellectual capital. Faced with this new scenario and organizational configurations, leaders now have the fundamental role of investing in companies’ human capital and seeking superior results, investing in strategy and appropriate policies for people management.

Leaders play a key role in organizations, as they are responsible for defining, implementing, and disseminating strategies with their employees [19]. In addition, they assume enormous importance in the competitive environment of companies since their leadership style directly reflects on their subordinates. Being a leader means being prepared to plan, organize, execute, and analyze but always attentive to the engagement process, working with communication, flexibility, problem-solving ability, and systemic vision. Carrying out people management implies getting involved not only in issues that, sometimes, are directly linked to the goals and objectives of the organization but thinking about the individual and creating a good work environment is also a function of the manager.

Many approaches, perspectives, and definitions are recurrent for leadership in organizational studies [5, 20, 21]. However, there is a consensus among scholars that leadership reveals the influence of the leader on the subordinate, which is essential for managers to be aware that their actions and definitions will reflect on the team and the delivery of expected results. What is needed is leadership that inspires and engages.

One of the new leadership approaches is the one that deals with the engaging leader, which is important to understand the new profile of leaders in the contemporary organization [4, 22, 23, 24]. Engaging leadership motivates and believes that employee engagement comes first, regardless of the size or segment of the company [18]. In this sense, leadership plays a fundamental role in creating a work environment that allows the creative expression of all workers.

In the engagement process, it is important to create opportunities for employee contribution through practices such as flexible teamwork, employee involvement policies, and information sharing [25, 26]. This role belongs to the leader, that is, to promote actions to involve their employees.

From this perspective the leader must have some attitudes that enable the improvement in employee performance, which, consequently, can lead to team engagement, such as maintaining a team that can meet job requirements, replacing members when they do not achieve adequate levels of performance after appropriate follow-up, enabling open and internal communication that encourages everyone’s active participation, and encouraging trust and respect for the differences of each team member [27]. By creating a suitable work environment, engaging leadership lays the groundwork for creativity to be explored by workers.

Tamara Erickson points out that increasing engagement—finding ways to encourage individuals to invest more psychic energy in their work—is the most powerful lever corporations have to improve productivity [28]. There is, therefore, the understanding that people are the main asset of organizations, and leadership needs to be aware and attentive to its employees, seeking to achieve the company’s objectives with them, leading to innovation and competitiveness in the market [5].

Successful organizations realize that they can only grow, prosper, and maintain their continuity if they can optimize the return on employees’ investments, that is, invest in their employees and engage them so that they can deliver with more vigor, absorption, and dedication [4, 22, 23, 24]. The profile of leadership in organizations has undergone several changes. Recycling was necessary since the leadership role was no longer focused on imposing and controlling tasks.

The latest generation in the job market seeks a challenging environment with the possibility of flexible working hours and formats. It is a propitious space to develop their creative potential [22]. These aspects also shape the new profile of managers. Therefore, it becomes necessary to develop strategies and establish criteria for obtaining results, in addition to disseminating the organization’s vision of what is expected of each professional [19, 22].

In this scenario, some aspects common to successful teams are observed, point out: recognition of the need for mutual support in the team, feeling of co-responsibility for the work done and for the company, trust between team members, open and transparent communication, training and recognition of conflicts in a constructive way [27]. Everyday situations are configured as opportunities for emerging new ideas and exploring creativity.

Given the notes by the authors [27, 29], it is noteworthy that the leader must be aware of these points and promote a favorable environment within organizations, as this would possibly promote the process of engagement. To this end, cultivating positive emotions is essential, as it promotes an expansive, tolerant, and creative mental disposition, leaving people open to trying out new ideas, which creates challenges for management, since it needs to be based on positive psychology, aware that promoting well-being in the work environment can attract, retain, and obtain extraordinary results [30].

Therefore, the key piece is in the role of the leader when working with their team, transforming it into a multidisciplinary team focused on results, emphasizing cooperation and not coercion, and bringing about situations that benefit everyone mutually [20]. This becomes a big challenge for managers; being present, assessing risks and opportunities, giving freedom to create and innovate, and obtaining mechanisms to achieve the expected results with team engagement and delivery.

Organizational strategies are fundamental to employee engagement, leading them to full involvement in work, where their creative abilities can be fully exercised. It needs to be an appropriate combination between people and working conditions and that a planned organizational action tends to have more results than those carried out individually by the areas [31].

In addition to performing the traditional “roles”, a leader who inspires, strengthens the team, teaches and supports, is participative, and works creatively and flexibly with subordinates [30]. Leadership must foster a trusting environment; it is up to the leader to inspire and trust their team, allowing the employee to have flexibility, be aware of the organization’s strategies and have the autonomy to carry out their activities.

The trust allows employees to believe in the organization and leadership, do their best, and exercise their abilities to the fullest [20]. To do so, the leader needs to trust their team and allow them to act so that the organization’s objectives are achieved, and employees feel part of the process.

According to research by the Gallup Institute, when employees are inspired, motivated, and supported in their work, they naturally work harder—and that work is significantly less stressful. Therefore, management can directly influence the engagement or disengagement of its employees. According to assumptions defended by this study, the creation of an adequate environment for work can favor the use of creative skills by workers.

The idea is that engaging leadership can stimulate employees to use their cognitive and creative capacities fully. According to the theories of creativity presented, the work environment is fundamental for creativity to be exercised.

4. Reflections on the relations between creativity and leadership

The resources, when appropriately available in the environment, promote initiative, creativity and leadership, creating engagement at work. Therefore, understanding the scenario in which the employee operates, the challenges for their performance, with regard to the structure and organization of work, are factors that can contribute to engaging the teams. A suitable workplace, with psychological and physical conditions, encourages the engagement of the teams [31].

However, creativity is a decision, in addition to having creative skills, the worker must decide to use them. To be creative, it is necessary to generate new ideas, analyze them, defend and “sell” solutions to other people [1]. The leader has the role of stimulating his subordinates, but the employee will have the decision-making power if he wants to use his creativity.

Empowering teams and actively listening is important to promote engagement and requires mutual trust between the manager and his employees. Trust allows employees to believe in the organization and its leadership, to do their best [20].

Trust helps the team to reduce the fear of the new and the strange to that group, allowing creative people to advance with their original ideas and improve the environment in which they are inserted, bringing benefits to all the people involved [11].

It is important to point out that the leader needs to trust his team and allow the workers to act safely. Thus, the organization’s objectives will be achieved and workers will feel like subjects of the process. Trust happens when people feel safe to act, have initiative, reinforcing confidence in their work [28].

In the creative process, it is important to highlight the differential of the multicultural experience for workers [15]. Cultural diversity can increase creativity, as it allows new relationships to be made from the enrichment of the cultural environment [12]. The leadership approach, in order to encourage trust and respect for the differences of each team member, helps engagement and expands individual and organizational results [27].

Given the diversity of knowledge and exchange of ideas, the role of the leader is necessary for the progress of activities. In this process of engaging teams, leaders are responsible for defining and implementing strategies with employees [19]. They also have the role of inspiring their teams, being motivators, believing in the potential of their employees, considering that their engagement must come first [28].

The motivating leader can provide the right environment for increasing the employee’s intrinsic motivation, which is one of the main aspects for creativity [2]. Thus, people would be more creative when motivated mainly by the interest, pleasure, satisfaction and challenge of the work itself.

Working with greater intensity, focusing on your responsibilities and having an emotional connection to your tasks are some of the positive factors that are observed from encouraging engagement, which can be promoted from actions taken by leadership with the definition of organizational policies [31].

Added to these incentives is the personality of the creative person, who demonstrates the willingness to overcome obstacles, willingness to take risks and tolerance for creative ambiguity [1, 11]. Having a creative personality and being led by engaging leadership can lead workers to develop themselves and make teams more productive.

Authors point out that there must be an appropriate combination between personal skills and working conditions and that a planned organizational action tends to have more results than those carried out individually by the areas [31]. This reciprocal and favorable relationship between the individual and the environment is fundamental for creativity [9, 16].

The importance of the systemic approach in relation to creativity is highlighted, considering the internal aspects of the individual (intrinsic factors) and their environment (extrinsic factors), for the understanding of creativity, according to the analyzed authors [1, 2, 13]. This idea is illustrated in Figure 1, where it is identified that creativity in the work environment happens at the intersection between resources, techniques and motivations. The overlapping area is the area of greatest creativity both for individuals and for innovation in organizations.

Figure 1.

Creativity intersection, both for the individual and for the organization. Source: [7].

The Componential Model of Creativity for the individual occurs through the intersection between domain skills, relevant creative processes and intrinsic motivation [7]. For the author, for true creativity to happen and generate innovation, it is necessary to combine these three elements in the environment.

Resources are important for creativity in a given area or domain, both individually and in organizations. In individuals, these are their domain skills, such as talents, technique and knowledge in a certain area. In companies, however, they are the resources in the domain task, such as materials, human resources, specific software for each area, among others. In individuals, techniques are considered the relevant creative processes, such as the style of thinking and working, the way of checking the world, which provide new ideas. In companies, techniques are innovation skills, such as management for the generation of creativity. Both individually and in organizations, techniques and resources complement each other [7]. Motivation drives actions aimed at creativity and innovation. In the individual there is intrinsic motivation for the task and in companies the motivation for innovation.

Based on studies carried out and the considerations pointed out in this theoretical essay, where the role of engaging leadership was considered fundamental in the creative process of teams, an expansion of the componential model of creativity is proposed [18]. The proposed framework is that of a cyclical model, where both elements related to the individual’s characteristics and those related to organizational policies and leadership practices interact with each other, dynamically and in constant interrelationship. Figure 2 presents this proposed cyclical model.

Figure 2.

Ciclical framework of this study’s creativity. Source: Designed by the authors (2022).

In this cyclical framework, all factors in the individual’s creativity category are correlated with each other, as well as those in the environment’s creativity category. It proposes, therefore, an expansion of the role of management policies and practices for the understanding of creativity in everyday work. From this model, it is understood that creativity can be dispersed in all activities and people and it is the responsibility of the leader to encourage it for the superior results of the organization and of the workers themselves.

5. Conclusion

The aim of the study was to reflect on creativity at work, broadening the perspective on the influence of the environment and leadership practices and policies for the expression of creative individuals. The study addressed theories about creativity and leadership, focusing on engaging leadership. Theoretical reflection demonstrated the importance of the role of the leader for the construction of a work environment that allows the worker to express himself creatively.

This study addressed team leadership and management, in order to analyze the organizational strategies that encourage the stimulation and appreciation of creativity in the work environment. Thus, aspects related to engaging leadership are pointed out, which, based on team support actions, can result in more engaged workers and with superior results in their work.

It was possible to advance in studies on creativity in the work environment, demonstrating that it occurs in a cyclical relationship between the individual’s creativity factors and the creativity factors in the work environment in which the worker is inserted, with emphasis on the role of engaging leadership. The proposed cyclic approach understands that creativity at work occurs in a dynamic relationship between individual creative skills, techniques, intrinsic motivation, available resources, management policies and leadership practices.

Understanding this dynamic relationship raises the importance of leadership related to creating a work environment that encourages innovation. The worker’s intrinsic motivation can be increased when he finds in his leader engaging team management practices, adequate organizational support and an environment conducive to the expression of his creative potential. Finally, it is understood that creative teams lead to organizational innovation, closing the virtuous cycle of work, guiding individuals and the organization to superior results.