Creativity-Stimulating Leadership: A Critical Incident Study of Leaders' Influence on Creativity in Research Groups

This study examines how group leaders in academic and industrial research settings stimulate creativity in group members. The study uses a modified version of the critical incident technique to collect creative incidents as perceived and reported in interviews with research group members. These incidents were content analysed according to the reported creative situation and the creativity-stimulating leadership behaviours. Reasons for the importance of the incidents are given (each incident is subdivided into categories and subcategories). The highest ranked categories deal with how leaders provide expertise in research meetings and in supervisory situations, in particular for the advancement of research. Four types of creativity-stimulating leadership behaviours are also discussed. The study finds few differences between how leaders in universities and industries stimulate creativity.