How important is it for you to be creative? Four Profiles of Digital Leaders’ Creative Self-Images
Creative self-image is a belief about the importance that an individual assigns to their creativity in relation to the broader sense of self. In other words, the creative self-image is about how important it is to an individual to be creative in different areas of their lives, at work and in the free time.
Already in my previous research, I noticed that for a satisfactory development of professional life, it’s only about being aware that, “Yes, I am a creative person”, it’s equally important to be aware of the ways in which you are and could be creative (Velcu-Laitinen, 2024, Velcu-Laitinen, 2022). Being creative can mean different things to people in accordance with their creative tendencies, such as engagement in an artistic activity, generating ideas, doing work you feel passionate about or being resourceful in solving life’s challenges.
Moreover, it is possible for an individual to have multiple creative-self-images in different areas of their lives. “In my free time, I am a member of a band.”, “At work, I am passionate to create something new.”
There are at least four good reasons why creative self-images deserve more attention from both researchers and individuals: personal development (Valverde et al., 2017), career design (Valverde, 2020), work meaning (Boldt and Kaufman, 2023), and task performance (Saad et al., 2015). In the current research project, which was funded by Suomen Kulttuurirahasto, I was interested in exploring the nature of creative self-images of digital leaders, the professionals who shape the digital transformation of businesses, public institutions and ultimately, our lives as consumers and citizens.
Digital transformations bring along disruptive change in work processes, the relations with customers and new business models. They are characterised by uncertainty and ambiguity. So, it is useful to understand the digital leaders’ subjective experiences related to how they rely on their creativity to lead the digital transformation
I interviewed 45 leaders of digital transformations in Finland, Australia, Kazakhstan, Ireland, USA, Singapore, Japan and Romania. Based on the thematic analysis of the interview transcripts, I identified four categories of digital leaders’ creative self-images: 1) the creative role model – focused on expressing one’s creative thoughts and behaviours; 2) the learning pioneers – attracted by learning and diverse interests; 3) the coaches of creative people – helping others’ refine their new ideas; and 4) the architects of innovation possibilities – the ones taking initiative to instil an innovative mindset towards digital transformation. (See Figure 1)
Figure 1: Four profiles of digital leaders’ creative self-image
During the thematic analysis, similarities and differences emerged the identified profiles of creative self-images between the respondents who are active in the Finnish business ecosystem and the study participants in Australia, Ireland, Japan, Kazakhstan, Romania and Singapore.
Similarities in profiles of creative self-image of the digital leaders across countries
The architects of innovation possibilities
The pioneer of change and innovation portrayed themselves as initiators and challengers. This category was found to be the most frequent among respondents. The study participants described experiences related to digital transformation through phrases like “pushing things forwards”, “building creative solutions”, “challenging existing practices”, “try to figure out mentality”, or “questioning the impossible”. To be creative as a leader can be about identifying the people and situations to work on new ideas related to digital transformation, experiment and learn from failure.
The creative role model
The creative role models are the leaders who express their creative ideas and personality in direct interactions with others at work. Whereas it’s about using humour, metaphors, design skills or thinking about an idea from different perspectives, the outcome is connection and authenticity in specific conversations.
To sum up, the pioneers of innovation possibilities and the creative role models are based on the creative impulses of taking initiative and express oneself, respectively. These are human tendencies that pervade cultural boundaries, which may explain why these two creative self-image profiles were common among the leaders who took part in this study.
Difference in profiles of creative self-image of the digital leaders across countries
The last two profiles of creative self-image, the learning pioneer and the coach of creative employees seem to show some differences between the digital leaders active in Finland and the leaders from other countries in this study.
The learning pioneers
The respondents in this profile had roles as Chief Digital Officers in Finland. The learning pioneers show attraction towards continuous learning from diverse domains of knowledge and future-relevant ideas. The respondents in this profile described themselves as “try to be quite wide”, “futurist”, “generalist”, having “passion for positive change”. For this group, to be creative is to identify the next topic most likely to have positive impact on the digitalization at the workplace and to learn about it.
The coaches of creative employees
Under this theme, we find the leaders who see themselves to be creative in the way they support their team members to present and develop their innovative ideas. These are the leaders who like to “troubleshoot and finesse others’ new ideas”, think “about how others’ creativity plays into whatever you’re doing” or “have that open space to bring their ideas and communicate their ideas.”. With two exceptions, the respondents who showed a dominant tendency towards this category were active outside Finland.
Conclusions
The architects of innovation possibilities were the most frequently mentioned creative self-image emerging in the interviews. In addition, the digital leaders who are active in Finland seem to differentiate themselves as learning pioneers, proactively searching for the next future theme to learn about. However, this is not to say that the interviewed leaders active in the rest of the countries in this study, did not show interest in continuous learning. They show it through an adaptive style, which means that they wait for signals from influential leaders in the industry.
Two implications. First, these findings remind that the creative self-image can be multidimensional and situational, and it depends on the context when one dimension can become more salient than others. For instance, some Finnish leaders with a primary profile as architects of innovation opportunities experienced situations, like team formation, when a secondary tendency got activated, such as coaches of creative employees. Hence, in future research, it would be worthwhile to explore how proximal factors such as the team culture and project goals influence the activation of a salient facet of leader’s creative self-image in crucial situations.
Second, there can be socio-cultural influences on one’s creative self-image which can account for the observed difference in the tendency toward learning and future of interviewed leaders from Finland and the tendency towards team members’ creativity for interviewed leaders from Australia, Singapore, and USA. This difference raises the following question. Which aspects of one’s creative self-image are universal and which aspects are influenced by culture?
Last, for active leaders, why is it important to be aware of their creative self-images? The short answer; it can open the mind and heart to possible ways to boost their potential as innovative leaders, if that’s who they want to be.
For creativity researchers, there’s more to clarify about how do the organizational culture, team culture, leader identity and social network influence leaders’ creative self-images and innovative behaviours?
Would you like to see what kind of digital transformation challenges are perceived most relevant by each of the four groups of leaders’ creative self-image? Stay tuned for my upcoming paper, entitled, “Exploring Digital Leaders’ Creative Self-Images and Problem Identification: A Thematic Analysis”.
-Oana Velcu-Laitinen, postdoctoral researcher, JATKOT-research group
References:
Boldt, G. T., & Kaufman, J. C. (2023). Creativity and meaning in work. In Reiter-Palmon, R. and Hunter, S. (Eds). Handbook of organizational creativity, Individual and Group Level Influences (pp. 209-221). Academic Press. DOI: 10.1016/C2020-0-04165-4
Valverde, J. D., Thornhill-Miller, B., Patillon, T. V., & Lubart, T. (2020). Creativity: A key concept in guidance and career counselling. Journal of Adult and Continuing Education, 26(1), 61-72.
Valverde, J., Sovet, L., & Lubart, T. (2017). Self-construction and creative “life design”. In Karwowski, M. and Kaufman, J.C. (Eds). The creative self (pp. 99-115). Academic Press.
Velcu-Laitinen, O. (2024). Possible agentic mechanisms to reformulating one’s creative identity as a professional creator. Possibility Studies & Society, 3(2). 265–287. https://doi.org/10.1177/27538699241284323
Velcu-Laitinen, O. (2024, June 13). Exploring the Creativity in the Leadership of Digital Transformations. Jatkoilla Blog. Exploring the Creativity in the Leadership of Digital Transformations – Jatkoilla / After work
Velcu-Laitinen, O. (2022). How to Develop Your Creative Identity at Work. Springer Books. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4842-8680-7
Saad, G., Cleveland, M., & Ho, L. (2015). Individualism–collectivism and the quantity versus quality dimensions of individual and group creative performance. Journal of business research, 68(3), 578-586.