You Gotta Believe - Leaders are Made vs. Born

Each Sunday, the Boston Globe's Uncommon Knowledge section features interesting research findings from the social sciences.  Yesterday, the newspaper described a study by Crystal L. Hoyt, Jeni L. Burnette and Audrey N. Innella.  The researchers examined the impact of individual beliefs regarding leadership on actual behavior.  They compared people who tend to believe leaders are "born" with those who tend to believe leaders are "made."   The scholars conducted two studies.  In the first study, they primed individuals to think about a leadership role model.  Then, they found that the people who believed that leaders are made tended to show more confidence and less anxiety as they performed a leadership task (delivering a speech).  In the second study, they asked some individuals to read an article arguing that leaders are made.  They found that those who read the article tended to show more confidence, exhibit less anxiety, and perform better in the delivery of a speech (as measured by independent judges). 

Power and Creativity

This Psychology Today blog post by Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman describes some research about power and creativity.   Kaufman describes a new study by Daniel Sligte and his colleagues.  The researchers assigned participants to work in pairs on a task.  In each pair, one participant was assigned to a position of power, while the other played the role of subordinate.   Moreover, the low power participants in each pair were assigned to one of two conditions: stable power or unstable power.   By unstable, the researchers meant that the participants were told the power positions may be reversed at some future point.

What did these scholars find?   In the stable power condition, the powerful individuals exhibited more creativity.  However, in the unstable power condition, the low power individuals displayed a higher level of creativity.  The scholars explained their finding:

"For low power individuals, power instability is empowering, leading them to act and behave as high power individuals...Having unstable low power leads to feelings of confidence and self-efficacy, especially when low power individuals can gain power by being creative. They may be more confident about their abilities and also perceive that they have the 'power' to change their situation."

The results imply that providing our employees with a clear path to greater responsibility and authority may actually empower them to be more creative in the here and now.  We've always known that autonomy can be empowering and motivating.  In some sense, this study suggests that the mere possibility of future autonomy can be motivating and may yield improvements in creativity.  Beyond that, the study reinforces the notion that creativity is not simply a trait with which we are born (or not born).  Creativity may be impacted substantially by organizational structure and environment.