The Role of Creative Leadership Manifestations in Creativity and Innovation

Creative leadership, leading others toward the attainment of creative outcomes, manifests differently depending on the context. Theory suggests that contextual features can produce three distinct manifestations of leadership–integrative, facilitative, and directive–but that context may vary in strength, potentially allowing for multiple manifestations of creative leadership. This study reports on the development and validation of a scale for measuring the three manifestations and their differential effects on creativity and innovation. The investigation occurred within a relatively weak context wherein multiple manifestations of creative leadership are possible. Examining 646 research unit members nested in 259 research units from nine German universities, this study reveals that the research units’ idea generation was positively related to the facilitating and integrating creative leadership manifestation, while the units’ innovative outcome was positively related to the directing and integrating creative leadership manifestation. This study contributes to understanding and measuring creative leadership and the distribution of creative and supportive tasks between leaders and followers.