Leading Creative Teams: A Process-Perspective With Implications for Organizational Leaders

Leaders often find themselves managing teams of individuals who are tasked with creative problem-solving while confronting complex issues and ambiguous situations. Using a process perspective, we review three core processes of creativity (problem construction, idea generation, and idea evaluation/selection) and provide best-practice recommendations for leaders to increase their teams' performance during each process. To facilitate problem construction, leaders should define constraints and goals without outright instructing teams on their course of action or defining the presenting problem. Leaders can apply project management techniques that budget for increased exploration and experimentation while building visions for the end product and providing opportunities for sensemaking. Idea generation can be facilitated by fostering a climate of psychological safety and avoiding the pitfalls of production blocking or evaluation apprehension. Leaders may recruit expert facilitators or apply technological solutions we describe. Finally, during idea evaluation, expert leaders may be well-situated to determine the best ideas themselves. However, nonexpert leaders should instruct their team to define evaluation criteria and take steps to avoid routine "tried-but-true" methods from being viewed disproportionately favorably during evaluation.