Uncreative: Why Leaders Dodge Creativity

Creativity and business leadership haven’t always gone hand in hand.

Since leaders find themselves under immense pressure to provide results and receive approval, they sometimes default to established business methods that are proven to work. As a result, they often rob themselves of valuable opportunities to explore new, creative ideas and drive true innovation.

For almost a decade, Dr. Jennifer Mueller, associate professor of management in the University of San Diego Knauss School of Business, has researched how leaders approach and evaluate creative ideas.

“Organizations are desperate for innovation, but they have a very difficult time,” says Dr. Mueller. “Instead of seeing innovative ideas as opportunities, they see them as mistakes. This suggests that there is this new skill set decision-makers need around recognizing new ideas.”

Implicit Biases of Creativity

Business leaders commonly claim they embrace creativity, but they don’t use creativity in practice. In fact, they can have a negative, knee-jerk reaction to new and unconventional ideas. This stems from a lack of awareness around their mindsets that can bias them against creativity.

In a 2012 study published in Psychological Science, Dr. Mueller found that people generally say they love creativity. Yet in uncertain conditions, their reaction time tests showed they associated negative words such as “vomit,” with creativity and downgraded a creative idea. This means that when people experience a mindset that does not tolerate uncertainty, they can have a knee-jerk negative reaction to creative ideas, even when they desire them.

The question is: If people have difficulty recognizing creative ideas, how can organizations be expected to innovate as a whole? For businesses struggling to drive change, it seems the problem isn’t coming up with more creative ideas, the problem is understanding and addressing the inherent bias against creativity in the workplace.

Uncertainty Avoidance

Leaders are often reluctant to embrace creativity because they seek to avoid uncertainty. They fear failure and negative feedback, so they follow established patterns instead of trying new ideas.

Being in a decision-making role can actually shift someone’s perception of what creativity is, as Dr. Mueller found in a 2018 study published in the Academy of Management Journal. Decision-makers see creative ideas as what everyone else is doing, what is socially approved of and what’s proven to work. “The problem is that organizations think that they're going in these new directions when, in fact, they're not,” says Dr. Mueller. “They embrace the old but convince themselves that they’re innovating.”

For people who aren’t in a decision-making role, like consumers, social approval is irrelevant to whether or not they think an idea is creative. Leaders can often dismiss the very ideas consumers love.

Evaluating Creative Ideas

The ability to more effectively evaluate creative ideas in contrast to preexisting ideas is crucial for leaders.

“We used to believe that you can just use your expertise and you'll make good decisions,” says Dr. Mueller. “We found that is a poor prescription for recognizing new opportunities.”

For example, a study from the 1990s showed that experts hated the digital camera while novices loved it. The experts weren’t wrong in their reasoning; digital cameras at the time had poor picture quality compared to film. The novices, however, had different priorities: immediacy and low-cost film development. Those two criteria ended up dominating the film market and skyrocketing digital cameras to success.

“They’re using old criteria to assess new ideas and judge whether they’re safe or not,” says Dr. Mueller. “These mental shortcuts create a broader bias against creativity.”

A Valuable New Skill Set for Leaders

Chief executive officer turnover rates reached a record high in 2019, with over 1,600 U.S. CEOs leaving their roles.

Leaders in these executive positions are challenged with bringing organizations into the digital age and navigating technological disruption — and they don’t always have the skills to make it happen.

Dr. Mueller’s research reveals that there’s a new skill set leaders need to drive change. “Whether they’re in education, politics or the military, decision-makers must learn to use their expertise to recognize and value new ideas, especially in uncertain situations.”

This new skill set won’t just help businesses innovate; it will also change how people define what it means to be a good leader.

"One thing we assume leaders really need is confidence,” says Dr. Mueller. “But when you're trying to mobilize creativity, that instinct is horrible. When leaders can say, ‘I don’t know,’ it helps subordinates feel empowered to solve the problem and it invites their contribution.”

This confidence bias is also evident in group settings. In a soon-to-be-published study, Dr. Mueller looked at groups of people who were tasked with recommending how the health care industry could transition to using electronic health records in the early 2000s. She found that groups tended to reject new ideas when people agreed quickly — when everyone chimed in to say, “Yes, we’ll stick with the old way,” one after the other.

“Whenever you're doing something new, you can't predict the outcome until after it’s implemented,” says Dr. Mueller. “So, confidence in that decision should be a sign that you are not thinking about the idea in new ways.”

Aspiring business leaders must understand the importance of embracing creativity and evaluating new ideas in an increasingly competitive global market that demands innovation to survive.

Starting a Career in Business Leadership

The University of San Diego Knauss School of Business prepares students to become ethical leaders, innovators and change-makers. Associate professor of management Dr. Jennifer Mueller teaches organizational behavior and leadership to undergraduates and graduates. She brings to her classes years of research examining the biases people have against creative ideas and the costs and benefits of collaboration in teams.

Learn more about the University of San Diego Knauss School of Business and its innovative programs for future business leaders.

Jennifer Mueller is a professor of management at the University of San Diego's Knauss School of Business, where she teaches organizational behavior and leadership classes at both the undergraduate and MBA levels.