Creative style: The measurement, changeability and relationships with leadership and performance

The majority of existing creativity research focuses on measuring the level to which people are creative, or the amount of creative output achieved; in contrast, research into creative style refers instead to the tendencies of an individual in terms of how they personally achieve and/or contribute to creativity. Creative style is currently an under-researched area which often lacks theoretical links to the wider field of creativity and innovation, resulting in a fragmented and isolated body of research.

This thesis presents two research studies which aim to: align creative style to an established model of creativity and innovation (the Dynamic Componential Theory; Amabile & Pratt, 2016); and to better understand the nature of creative style and its relationships with other constructs through a new measurement tool.

Study 1 involved 303 participants across two timepoints, six months apart. This study established the reliability and factor structure of the Creative ID measure of creative style, whilst demonstrating that creative style (at time 1) can account for additional variance in creative/innovative performance (at time 2) after controlling for Big Five Personality Domains. Additionally, creative styles were seen to be generally stable over time, yet can develop following the experience of specific work-life events such as being promoted to a leadership position.

Study 2 involved multilevel data from 178 participants (125 followers nested within 48 leaders). This study found no significant relationships between the creative style and leadership style of an individual, implying that ways of being creative and ways of leading are not related. Some significant relationships were found between the creative style of a leader and their followers’ creative/innovative performance; as well as between leadership style and follower
creative/innovative performance.

Theoretical contributions and practical implications of this work are discussed, along with recognised limitations and suggestions for future research.