Leadership development:the key to unlocking individual

creativity in organizationsJeffery D. Houghton

Department of Management and Industrial Relations, West Virginia University,Morgantown, West Virginia, USA, and

Trudy C. DiLielloNaval Facilities Engineering Command, Port Hueneme, California, USA

Abstract

Purpose – This paper sets out to develop and test a hypothesized model of the role of adultleadership development and youth leadership development as possible moderators of the relationshipsbetween creative self-efficacy, perceived support for creativity, and individual creativity.

Design/methodology/approach – The study employs the multi-group nested goodness-of-fitstrategy in LISREL 8.53 to test the interaction effects of two qualitative moderator variables.

Findings – Results suggest that adult leadership development may moderate the relationshipbetween perceived organizational support for creativity and individual creativity, while youthleadership development may moderate the relationship between creative self-efficacy and individualcreativity.

Research limitations/implications – Limitations include concerns regarding generalizability,possible social desirability and response set biases, self-report data, and causality. The primaryimplication is that leadership development, targeted at adults as well as children, may represent oneimportant key for unlocking idle creative potential and enhancing overall organizational effectiveness.

Practical implications – Organizations may wish to consider youth leadership developmentexperiences as potential behaviorally based predictors of future job success for jobs that requirecreativity. Organizational decision makers should also carefully consider making leadershipdevelopment opportunities available to organizational members at all levels.

Originality/value – The study is among the first to examine both adult and youth leadershipdevelopment as potential facilitators of creativity in organizations and has value for practitioners aswell as for future creativity and leadership development researchers.

Keywords Leadership, Development, Creative thinking, Individual psychology, Innovation

Paper type Research paper

Creativity and innovation are critically important for organizations seeking to surviveand thrive in today’s highly turbulent business environments (Kanter, 1983;Tushman and O’Reilly, 1997; Utterback, 1994). In the face of the current uncertaintyin domestic and international financial markets, along with increasingly intensecompetition fueled by globalization, many of the world’s most successful companiesare adopting a new corporate business model based largely on using individualcreativity to facilitate organizational innovation (e.g. McGregor, 2007). In order to build

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

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The authors thank Teresa Amabile and Pam Tierney for helpful comments and feedback ontheir creativity constructs and measures.

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Received April 2009Revised August 2009Accepted September 2009

Leadership & OrganizationDevelopment JournalVol. 31 No. 3, 2010pp. 230-245q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0143-7739DOI 10.1108/01437731011039343

and sustain an organizational culture dominated by creativity and innovation,organizations must effectively identify and mobilize the creative resources of theirmembers. When organizational members perceive a work environment that restricts orfails to encourage individual creative expression, a gap may exist between the level ofindividual creative potential and the actual amount of individual creativity practicedwithin the organization. Leadership development may represent one important key forunlocking this idle creative potential and enhancing overall organizationaleffectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a hypothesized modelof leadership development and creativity in organizations. In short, we will examinethe potential role of adult leadership development in moderating the relationshipbetween perceived support for creativity and individual creativity as well as thepotential role of youth leadership development in moderating the relationship betweencreative self-efficacy and individual creativity. Our hypothesized model of leadershipdevelopment and creativity is presented in Figure 1. In the following sections we willdevelop and present our model on the basis of supporting theoretical and empiricalevidence along with accompanying research hypotheses for subsequent analysis.

Creative self-efficacy and individual creativityCreativity is a multifaceted concept that has been defined in a variety ways (e.g. Barronand Harrington, 1981; Guilford, 1950; Martindale, 1989; Sternberg and Lubart, 1999).Given the common themes across the various definitions, we join previous researchers(e.g. Amabile, 1983; Stein, 1974; Woodman et al., 1993) in defining creativity as theprocess of forming novel, useful and appropriate ideas in order to solve problems andincrease effectiveness. Our conceptualization of creativity is distinct from the relatedconcept of innovation. Although these terms have sometimes been usedinterchangeably or as a single competency, we view creativity as an individual orteam level process, while innovation involves the successful implementation of creativeideas at the organizational level (Amabile, 1988; Cummings, 1965; Woodman et al.,1993). Given this viewpoint, individual creativity is a necessary but insufficientcondition for successful organizational innovation, which in part can be driven byother factors (Amabile et al., 1996).

Figure 1.Hypothesized model of

leadership developmentand creativity

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A strong internal belief in one’s ability to successfully engage in creative behaviors isgenerally considered an important part of the creative process (Amabile, 1983;Bandura, 1997; Ford, 1996; Tierney and Farmer, 2002). Indeed, self-efficacy beliefs forengaging in creative behaviors appear to be critically important in helping individualsto persist in their creative endeavors, especially in the face of difficult or challengingsituations (Tierney and Farmer, 2002). Simply stated, creative self-efficacy is thesubjective belief in one’s personal ability to be creative, that is, a personal assessmentof one’s own creative potential (Tierney and Farmer, 2002). Creative self-efficacy is aspecific application of Bandura’s (1997) conceptualization of self-efficacy as a targetedperception of capacity that involves viewing oneself as being good at creative problemsolving and novel idea generation. Similar to the concepts of creative capability beliefsand creative self-image (Ford, 1996), creative self-efficacy is usually considered to bedistinct from other self-views such as self-esteem and self-confidence, which involvebroader and more generalized feelings. Creative self-efficacy, on the other hand,involves a specific judgment regarding the capacity for creative action (Tierney andFarmer, 2002).

The greater the creative self-efficacy possessed by an individual, the more likely theindividual will be to perceive opportunities to actually apply their creative potential inthe form of creative action. Although this relationship could possibly be attenuated byfactors such as a bad fit between the person and the job (Cummings and Oldham, 1997;Farmer et al., 2003; O’Reilly et al., 1991) or an organizational environment that does notsupport individual creative behavior (Amabile et al., 1996; Cummings et al., 1975;Oldham and Cummings, 1996; Woodman et al., 1993), this relationship is still likely tobe strongly positive. Indeed, in one of the few studies to empirically examine the role ofcreative self-efficacy in the creative process, Tierney and Farmer (2002) reported thatcreative self-efficacy predicted job performance above and beyond the effects of jobself-efficacy. Hence, based on this theoretical and empirical evidence, we predict:

H1. Creative self-efficacy will be positively related to individual creativity.

Perceived organizational support for creativityThe broad concept of perceived organizational support (POS) has received a significantamount of attention from researchers over the past two decades as evidenced by thelarge number of empirical studies on the subject (Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002).Social exchange theory (e.g. Eisenberger et al., 1986) and the norm of reciprocity(Gouldner, 1960) suggest that if one party treats another party well, the rewarded partywill be compelled to return the favor. POS theory expands on this basic concept ofreciprocity by specifying that in return for outcomes such as fair procedures,supervisory support, favorable job conditions and other rewards, employees willprovide inputs such as reduced absenteeism and turnover along with increasedorganizational commitment and performance (Eisenberger et al., 1986). Empiricalresearch on POS has generally supported these assertions. In fact, a recentmeta-analysis of more than 70 studies reported significant relationships between POSand a variety of outcome variables including affective commitment, job satisfaction,positive mood at work, job involvement, and a desire to remain with the organization(Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002).

In addition to these linkages, researchers have often suggested a relationshipbetween POS and individual creativity (e.g. Amabile, 1988; Cummings et al., 1975,

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Shalley, 1995; Woodman et al., 1993; Zhou and George, 2001). Indeed, some theoristshave identified perceived organizational support for creativity as a specific type ofPOS, defining it in terms of the extent to which employees perceive encouragement,respect, rewards, and recognition from the organization for those who demonstratecreativity (Zhou and George, 2001). Several popular models of individual creativityand innovation in organizations include the basic concept of perceived support forcreativity. For example, Mumford and Gustafson (1988) identify a number ofenvironmental conditions that may support innovation and creativity, includingvalued rewards, autonomy, risk taking, and alternate viewpoints. In a similar vein,Woodman and colleagues’ (1993) model of creativity suggests that anorganizational environment supports creativity when leadership is moredemocratic and collaborative, when structures are more organic than mechanistic,when groups contain a diversity of individuals, and when training focuses on ideageneration and the problem-solving skills needed for creativity. Likewise, Ford’s(1996) model of creativity contends that absorptive capacity, disposition towardrisk, and the extent to which an organization is willing to pursue creative and riskycourses of action are the primary factors that influence an organization’s ability tosupport creative action. Finally, Amabile’s (1988) classic model of innovation andcreativity suggests that three elements combine to support and encourage creativityand innovation:

(1) organizational motivation, defined as the encouragement of acceptable levels ofrisk coupled with the practice of challenging the status quo;

(2) organizational resources, including the people, equipment, tools, training andother types of supporting mechanisms; and

(3) supportive management practices, including autonomy and informativecompetency-focused evaluations.

In short, these models suggest that organizations must increase the stimulants andremove barriers in order to support individual creativity and enhance organizationalinnovation. Based on the creativity theory reviewed here, we advance:

H2. Perceived organizational support for creativity will be positively related toindividual creativity.

Leadership developmentOver the past few years, more and more attention has been focused on leadershipdevelopment, as evidenced by the large numbers of both academic andpractitioner-focused books and articles on the subject (e.g. Byrne and Rees, 2006;Day, 2001; McCauley and Van Velsor, 2004; Pearce, 2007). Leadership developmentmay be defined as a process of expanding the capacity of individuals to assumeleadership roles and to engage effectively in leadership processes (Day, 2001; McCauleyand Van Velsor, 2004). Leadership development may take place formally, through aspecific training program or planned course of experiences, or more informally,through 360-degree feedback, executive coaching, mentoring, networking, jobassignments and action learning (Day, 2001). Although many scholars have arguedthat leadership development is a critical success factor for long-term organizationaleffectiveness (e.g. Conger and Benjamin, 1999), it is all too often viewed as an

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unnecessary luxury by organizational leaders focused on the bottom line andimmediate short-term results (Ruvolo et al., 2004). Quite to the contrary, we seeleadership development as a key for unlocking and mobilizing individual creativity inorganizations. In addition, although the vast majority of the literature on leadershipdevelopment has focused on adults, we suggest that both adult and youth leadershipdevelopment have important but differential effects on organizational creativity.

Adult leadership development is commonly explained in terms of a selection,optimization, compensation (SOC) model (e.g. Baltes, 1997; Mumford and Manley,2003). The SOC framework suggests that leadership capabilities and capacities aredeveloped via a dynamic interaction between individuals and their environments(Mumford et al., 2007). According to this view, the leadership development process isshaped by the situations that individuals choose for themselves or are allowed to enterinto by their organizations. More precisely, selection for participation in adultleadership development usually happens in two ways: organizational selection andself-selection (Mumford et al., 2007). Organizational decision makers are more likely toselect people who have certain relevant skills, abilities, and characteristics that makethem “visible” in the organization (Fiedler, 1996). Furthermore, in the context ofdeveloping leaders for creative efforts, organizations will tend to actively choose andperhaps even recruit for further development those individuals who already have someexpertise and problem solving skills within the creative domains in which they will beoperating (Mumford et al., 2007). Selection is not limited, however, to the choices madeby the organization. Self-selection processes are also likely to be operating asindividuals make choices regarding the kinds of roles they will accept and the kinds ofleadership development opportunities they will seek (Mumford et al., 2007).

As noted above, organizations are more likely to select highly valued and visiblemembers to participate in leadership development and other training activities ( Johlkeet al., 2002). Providing the opportunity to participate in leadership developmentactivities is usually viewed by employees as a very positive action on the part of theorganization and one that communicates the organization’s care and concern for thewell-being of its members (Nadler and Nadler, 1989). In fact, empirical research hassuggested a relationship between discretionary employee development opportunitiesand perceived organizational support (Wayne et al., 1997; Tansky and Cohen, 2001).Although there is no single “magic bullet” leadership development intervention thatwill provide all of the capabilities and capacities necessary for creative action, manyinterventions focus on providing technical expertise, creative thinking skills,organizational knowledge and other key competencies related to leadership andcreative processes (Mumford et al., 2002; Mumford et al., 2007). Given the theoreticaland empirical evidenced outlined above, it seems reasonable to suggest that adultleadership development will intensify the effects of perceived organizational support inenhancing perceptions of opportunities to engage in creative behaviors in theworkplace. We therefore assert:

H3. Involvement in adult leadership development activities will moderate therelationship between perceived organizational support for creativity andindividual creativity such that the relationship will be significantly strongerfor those individuals who have participated in adult leadership developmentactivities than for those who have not.

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The process of leadership development is not limited to adults working inorganizations. Although it is a relatively new area of research, youth leadershipdevelopment has been a recognizable phenomenon in the US for several decades withorganizations such as 4-H, the Boy and Girl Scouts, clubs, churches and civic groupsemploying a variety of strategies to develop young people for future leadership roles(Libby et al., 2006). Recently, researchers have begun to acknowledge the importance ofyouth leadership development within the larger context of youth developmentprocesses in general (e.g. Kress, 2006). Youth leadership development may be definedas experiences, ranging from highly structured to very informal, that allow youngpeople to develop the competencies necessary to effectively lead others (Zeldin andCamino, 1999). Although youth leadership development efforts resemble leadershipdevelopment efforts at the adult level, some scholars have suggested that youthleadership development tends to focus more on skill and knowledge acquisition thandoes adult leadership development, which tends to focus more on influence anddecision-making (e.g. MacNeil, 2006). In addition, many youth leadership developmentprograms focus either explicitly or implicitly on helping students to mobilize theircreative potential. Furthermore, research on the development of creativity in childrensuggests that childhood developmental experiences can be predictive of subsequentcreativity in adulthood (Runco, 2006; Russ, 1996). Based on this evidence, we suggestthat children who are involved youth leadership development activities gainexperience and skills in finding opportunities in their environments to apply theircreative potential and that these experiences and skills will transfer into adulthood. Wethus posit that adults who were involved in youth leadership development activities aschildren will be more likely to perceive opportunities to apply their creative potentialby engaging in creative actions than adults who were never involved in youthdevelopment activities. Specifically:

H4. Involvement in youth leadership development activities will moderate therelationship between creative self-efficacy and individual creativity such thatthe relationship will be significantly stronger for those individuals who haveparticipated in youth leadership development activities than for those whohave not.

MethodsData and samplePrimary data were collected by means of a web-based survey within the ArmyContracting Agency, a strategic command within the United States Department ofDefense (DoD). The DoD stresses the importance of leveraging workforce creativity inorder to develop the critical new capabilities and competencies necessary for fulfillingits mission of averting enemy terrorization. Indeed, creativity and innovation havebeen identified by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) as ranking among themost effective means for facilitating the changes necessary for maintaining acompetitive advantage. The data were gathered as part of a larger research programdesigned to examine a number of creativity-related issues within the DoD.

A total of 693 individuals chose to participate in the survey out of a total workforceof approximately 1,900, yielding a 37 percent response rate. This response rate wasbetter than average when compared with response rates for other surveys of federalemployees and with response rates in general on surveys with a similar delivery

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format (Sheehan, 2001). In the current survey, an invitation to participate was sent viatwo separate e-mails. The first e-mail included an informed consent notification, thepurpose of the study, the approval and sponsorship of the study, a confidentialitystatement and a link to the online survey. A second e-mail summarized the initialmessage, added a personal note, and provided a four-day extension along with a link tothe online survey. A response rate check showed no indication of any type ofsystematic non-response bias with a fairly representative percentage response fromeach of nine regional offices. The average age of those surveyed was approximately 46and the average job tenure was approximately 12 years.

Cases were divided into four subsamples based on the subjects’ participation inadult and youth leadership development. Subsample 1 consisted of subjects who hadparticipated in adult leadership development activities, subsample 2 consisted ofsubjects who had not participated in adult leadership development activities,subsample 3 consisted of subjects who had participated in youth leadershipdevelopment activities, and subsample 4 consisted of subjects who had notparticipated in youth development activities. Listwise deletion for missing dataresulted in final sample sizes of 289 (yes – adult LD), 344 (no – adult LD), 307 (yes –youth LD), and 326 (no – youth LD) for subsamples 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively.

MeasuresAll items were measured using a Likert-type scale (1 ¼ strongly disagree to5 ¼ strongly agree) and are shown in Table I along with reliability estimates for eachscale dimension.

Creative self-efficacy. Creative self-efficacy was measured using six items, four ofwhich (items 1-4, Table I) were taken from Tierney and Farmer’s (2002) self-efficacy

Items

Creative self-efficacy scale a ¼ 0.841. I feel that I am good at generating novel ideas2. I have confidence in my ability to solve problems creatively3. I have a knack for further developing the ideas of others4. I am good at finding creative ways to solve problems5. I have the talent and skills to do well in my work6. I feel comfortable trying out new ideas

Individual creativity scale a ¼ 0.847. I have opportunities to use my creative skills and abilities at work8. I am invited to submit ideas for improvements in the workplace9. I have the opportunity to participate on team(s)

10. I have the freedom to decide how my job tasks get done11. My creative abilities are used to my full potential at work

Perceived organizational support for creativity scale a ¼ 0.9412. People are recognized for creative work in this organization13. Ideas are judged fairly in this organization14. People are encouraged to solve problems creatively in this organization15. This organization has a good mechanism for encouraging and developing creative ideas16. People are encouraged to take risks in this organization17. Rewards are given for innovative and creative ideas

Table I.Measurement items andscale reliabilities

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scale and two of which (items 5-6, Table I) were created for the present study in order toassess two additional nuances of creative self-efficacy not included in the existingitems. One of the additional items assessed subjects’ perceptions regarding the extentto which they believe that they have the talent or expertise to do well in their work,while the other item measured subjects’ perceptions of the extent to which they feelthat they possess the ability to take risks by trying out new ideas (see Amabile et al.,1999). The scale demonstrated good reliability with a ¼ 0:84.

Individual creativity. Individual creativity was operationalized in terms of individualperceptions of opportunities to engage in creative behaviors using five items developedspecifically for the current study (see Table I). A principal components analysisrevealed a clean factor structure for our individual creativity construct relative to theother constructs in the present study with strong factor loadings (all . 0.60) andvirtually no cross-loadings (none . 0.40) for any of the items, thus providingsubstantive evidence in support of the discriminant validity of our creativityconstructs. The individual creativity scale demonstrated solid reliability witha ¼ 0:84.

Perceived organizational support for creativity. Perceived organizational support forcreativity was measured with six items (see Table I) from “KEYS: assessing theclimate for creativity,” used with permission from the Center for Creative Leadership(Amabile et al., 1999). The KEYS scale has demonstrated fairly strong psychometricproperties in past research (e.g. Mathisen and Einarsen, 2004) and showed very goodreliability in the current study with a ¼ 0:94.

Participation in leadership development. Two items were used to assessparticipation in youth and adult leadership development programs: “Have youparticipated, or are you now participating, in a formal Leadership DevelopmentProgram?” and “As a child, did you participate in youth programs that helped youdevelop leadership skills?” If answering either question in the affirmative, subjectswere then encouraged to respond with a brief description of the type of leadershipdevelopment program they experienced. The DoD’s Defense Leadership andManagement Program (DLAMP) and the Naval Facilities Leadership DevelopmentInitiative were the most often mentioned adult formal leadership developmentprograms, while scouts (boy, girl, cub, eagle, etc), 4-H, church-based programs, andorganized sports were the most frequently referenced youth leadership developmentactivities.

AnalysisIn order to test our hypotheses, we used the multi-group nested goodness-of-fit strategyin LISREL 8.53 as described by Jaccard and Wan (1996). This strategy tests theinteraction effects of a qualitative moderator variable in two steps. The first stepconsists of determining a multi-group solution in LISREL in which separate parameterestimates are determined for each group along with an overall measure of model fitthat considers both groups simultaneously. A nonsignificant chi-square statisticindicates an overall model that fits well across both groups. The demonstration of agood fitting overall model is a necessary prerequisite to moving on to the second stageof the analysis, which evaluates the proposed interaction effect. The interaction istested by imposing an across-group equality constraint on the parameter of interest. Inother words, the multi-group analysis is performed again but with the additional

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constraint that the regression coefficients between the dependent and independentvariables be equal in the two groups. If the two path coefficients are actually equal inthe two populations, then the overall fit of the model in step two should not beadversely affected by this constraint. On the other hand, a significantly worse fittingoverall model in step two indicates a substantial interaction effect ( Jaccard and Wan,1996).

We used item-parceling techniques to simplify our model and to facilitate testingalong the lines described above. In general, the use of item parcels allows for fewerparameter estimations and greater stability of estimates (e.g. Marsh et al., 1989). Inaddition, so long as items comprising latent constructs demonstrate unidimensionality,estimates should not vary significantly regardless of whether parcels or items are used(Sass and Smith, 2006). In addition, researchers have shown that when using itemsfrom a unidimensional scale, the parceling procedure is irrelevant (Little et al., 2002;Sass and Smith, 2006). In the current analysis, individual items for each construct wererandomly divided, summed and averaged to create two parceled indicators forperceived organizational support for creativity, two parceled indicators for creativeself-efficacy, and three parceled indicators for individual creativity. Item parcels areportrayed visually as part of our hypothesized model in Figure 1. Although notdescribed in detail, we tested a number of alternative parceling methods and found nosubstantive differences in our subsequent findings.

ResultsStandardized path estimates for the two adult leadership development subsamples areshown in Figure 2 with the estimates for the “Adult Leadership Development” groupshown in bold and the estimates for the “No Adult Leadership Development”group shown in parentheses with measurement error effects omitted for clarity.Similarly, standardized path estimates for the two youth leadership developmentsubsamples are shown in Figure 3 with the estimates for the “Youth LeadershipDevelopment” group shown in bold and the estimates for the “No Youth Leadership

Figure 2.Standardized pathestimates for adultleadership development

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Development” group shown in parentheses with measurement error effects omitted forclarity. The hypothesized relationship between creative self-efficacy and individualcreativity was significant (p , 0:001) across all four subsamples. Hence, H1 was fullysupported. The hypothesized relationship between perceived organizational supportfor creativity and individual creativity was also significant (p , :001) across all foursubsamples. Thus, H2 was also fully supported.

Chi square goodness-of-fit statistics for the two adult leadership developmentsubsamples are shown in Table II. As indicated in the table, the chi square difference of5.15 between the multiple group model (Model 2) and the model with an equalityconstraint placed on the path between perceived organizational support for creativityand individual creativity (Model 3) was significant (p , 0:025). In contrast, the chisquare difference of 0.17 between the multiple group model (Model 2) and the modelwith an equality constraint placed on the path between creative self-efficacy andindividual creativity (Model 4) was not significant. Thus, H3 that involvement in adult

Figure 3.Standardized path

estimates for youthleadership development

Model x 2 df x 2 difference df

1. Null 2,714.51 422. Step 1:Multiple group model 46.50 22(No across-group constraint)3. Step 2a:Equality constraint model 51.65 23(POS for creativity ! individual creativity) Model3-2 difference 5.15 14. Step 2b:Equality constraint model 46.67 23(Creative self-efficacy ! individual creativity)Model 4-2 difference 0.17 1

Table II.Chi square

goodness-of-fit statistics– adult leadership

development groups

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leadership development activities moderates the relationship between perceivedorganizational support for creativity and individual creativity was supported.

Chi square goodness-of-fit statistics for the two youth leadership developmentsubsamples are shown in Table III. As demonstrated in the Table II, the chi squaredifference of 0.005 between the multiple group model (Model 2) and the model with anequality constraint placed on the path between perceived organizational support forcreativity and individual creativity (Model 3) was not significant. On the other hand,the chi square difference of .3.68 between the multiple group model (Model 2) and themodel with an equality constraint placed on the path between creative self-efficacy andindividual creativity (Model 4) was significant at the a ¼ 0:10 level and approachedsignificance (c:v: ¼ 3:84) at the a ¼ 0:05 level. Thus, H4 that involvement in youthleadership development activities moderates the relationship between creativeself-efficacy and individual creativity received moderate support.

DiscussionOur findings suggest that both adult leadership development and youth leadershipdevelopment activities may play important roles in unlocking individual creativity inorganizations. Based on our data, adult leadership development activities appear tomagnify the effects of perceived organizational support for creativity on perceptions ofopportunities to actually practice creativity. Similarly, it appears that participation inyouth development activities in childhood may help organizational members toperceive opportunities to apply their creative potential even in the face of possibleenvironmental obstacles within their organizations. These findings have importantimplications for today’s organizational leaders who want to assemble and mobilize themaximum level of creative resources available for their organization. First, given thepossible role of youth leadership development experiences in facilitating individualcreativity in adulthood, organizations may wish to consider certain types of childhooddevelopment experiences as behaviorally based predictors of future job success forjobs that require creativity. More specifically, behaviorally based interview questionscould be designed to assess youth leadership development experiences as a means tohelp select individuals who may, as a result of their past experiences, be more adept atfinding ways to use their creative potential in the workplace. Second, given the possible

Model x2 df x 2 difference df

1. Null 2762.58 422. Step 1:Multiple group model 51.04 22(No across-group constraint)2. Step 2a:Equality constraint model 51.045 23(POS for creativity ! individual creativity) Model3-2 difference 0.005 14. Step 2b:Equality constraint model 54.72 23(Creative self-efficacy ! Individual creativity)Model 4-2 difference 3.68 1

Table III.Chi squaregoodness-of-fit statistics– youth leadershipdevelopment groups

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role of adult leadership development programs for facilitating individual creativity byintensifying the positive effects of perceived support for creativity on individualcreativity, organizational decision makers should carefully consider making leadershipdevelopment opportunities available to organizational members at all levels.

Our findings are limited in several important ways. First, our sample consistedexclusively of employees from the Army Contracting Agency, a strategic commandwith the Department of Defense (DoD). We hasten to suggest that this kind of sample isactually especially appropriate for creativity research. Like many other contemporaryorganizations ranging from Apple Computers Inc. to General Electric that are currentlyembracing new corporate business models based largely on creativity and innovation,the DoD has recently placed a strong emphasis on mobilizing all available creativeresources in order to maintain its competitive advantage. Nevertheless, as with anysample drawn from a single organization, the generalizability of our findings to otherorganizations of interest cannot be ascertained with any degree of certainty. Second,our data was self-reported and collected through a single survey at a single point intime, causing some concern regarding possible measurement problems such asresponse set and social desirability biases. Yet despite their inherent limitations,self-reported items collected in a single administration are widely used in behavioralresearch, particularly in the measurement of cognition and other unobservableprocesses. Baldwin (2000) states that self-reports are valuable when “there is no othersource for the information” (p. 3). Because the source of information investigated in thecurrent study was at the individual level and was based on the perception, the personalexperience, and the efficacy of the individual, the use of self-reports seems appropriatein this case. Third, our self-reported retrospective single item measurement ofinvolvement in leadership development activities weakens the credibility of ourfindings. Although, as noted above, we asked study participants to describe their adultand youth leadership development and found high frequencies of responses focused oncertain common development activities (e.g. scouting for youth development and aDoD leadership program for adult development), we have no way of knowing the fullextent and the precise nature of the development activities experienced by eachrespondent. As discussed earlier, youth leadership development experiences tend tofocus more on skill and knowledge acquisition while adult leadership developmenttend to focus more on influence and decision-making, but these distinctions are farfrom set in stone and the actual experiences of our subjects may have variedsubstantially. Youth development activities in particular are likely to differ both intheir content and duration and therefore in their impact on creativity, especially giventhe considerable length of time since the development experience. A more effectiveapproach would involve a longitudinal design that would more fully assess the natureof the leadership development activities experienced by the subjects beforesubsequently assessing their workplace creativity. Finally, although we haveprovided theoretical and empirical evidence in support of the idea that youth and adultleadership development activities may serve as important moderators that help tofacilitate individual creativity in organizations, causality cannot be proven withempirical methodologies such as SEM. Indeed, it is possible that some other factorscould be causing the relationships reported here. For example, it is possible that thecreative benefits from participating in leadership development activities result not

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from the experience itself but from the individual’s motivation, disposition oropportunity to participate in the activity.

In conclusion, future researchers should continue to examine the role of both adultand youth leadership development in facilitating individual creativity in organizationsacross other samples of interest. For example, studies could be designed to directlyassess the training effects of a specific leadership development program on theperceptions of opportunities to engage in creative behaviors among trainingparticipants. As mentioned above, there is also a need for longitudinal researchdesigned to follow participants in youth leadership development activities intoadulthood to more directly assess the efficacy of youth leadership development forfacilitating creativity and other behaviors of interest in the workplace. Through studiessuch as these future researchers may be able to continue to aid organizational leadersin identifying ways to unlock creative potential in order to maximize organizationaleffectiveness in today’s turbulent and highly competitive business environments.

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Further reading

Amabile, T.M. (1996), Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, CO.

About the authorsJeffery D. Houghton is an Associate Professor of Management and Director of the Master ofScience in Human Resources and Industrial Relations (MSIR) program at West VirginiaUniversity. He has presented his research at various professional meetings and has publishednumerous articles in a variety of respected journals. He holds a PhD in Organizational Studiesfrom Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Jeffery D. Houghton is thecorresponding author and can be contacted at: jeff.houghton@mail.wvu.edu

Trudy C. DiLiello is a Program Manager for the Naval Facilities Expeditionary LogisticsCenter. She was an instructor for the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) where she taught foreight years. Prior to joining the DAU, she was a Contracting Officer for the Naval FacilitiesEngineering Command. She holds a Doctorate of Public Administration from the University ofLa Verne.

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