Be a better boss by not stifling employees' creativity

By Dawn Sagario

Your boss's lack of "emotional intelligence" could be sapping your creative juices at work.

Researchers at Rice University say that supervisors with high levels of this EI smarts can play a pivotal role in spurring creativity among their workers.

Emotional intelligence, as described by Rice researchers, includes how well people perceive and express emotions. It also involves how effectively leaders manage their own emotions, as well as those of their employees.

In today's economy, fostering employee creativity is critical for companies to remain viable, giving businesses an edge over their competitors, said Jing Zhou, associate professor of management at Rice's Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management.

"Employees' creativity is becoming more and more important as a competitive advantage," she said.

Zhou, who worked with Jones School colleague Jennifer George, collaborated on the study, which appears in an article in the Leadership Quarterly titled, "Awakening Employee Creativity: The Role of Leader Emotional Intelligence."

So why specifically focus on the emotional intelligence of bosses? (Because we all probably know at least one horrendously deficient co-worker who could use some tips.)

Zhou, who has been researching the factors involved in employee creativity for the past 10 years, said she targets managers because employees consistently mention leadership as a key factor in encouraging creativity.

Supervisors who have high emotional intelligence are not only empathetic to workers' feelings, but they know how to elicit fresh ideas from employees, the researchers say.

These leaders are also better in managing conflict among those working on creative projects, and can more effectively help employees transform negative feelings into opportunities for improvement.

So can people be taught to raise their emotional intelligence?

Zhou said that while some emotional intelligence is innate, most of it comes from life experience and training.

Raising your emotional intelligence level, she said, is comparable to learning how to be a more effective leader.

"This is something that can be learned," Zhou said. "With the right training, it can be improved. It's like playing tennis — if you want to be really good, you have to learn the right technique, and practice."

But what's still lacking, Zhou said, is knowledge of the right process or environment in which to help managers effectively execute the EI principle.

"That's why we need to do research to inform the managers what they need to do," she said.

What researchers definitely do know, Zhou said, are the factors that stifle creativity: Bosses who micromanage, emphasize company traditions, show unwillingness to experiment with new ideas and focus too narrowly on the company's bottom line.

According to the March 2004 Center for Creative Leadership e-newsletter, "Leading Effectively," managers would also do well to avoid the following surefire creativity-killing phrases during brainstorming:

• A good idea, but ...

• We've been doing it this way for a long time and it works.

• Why hasn't someone suggested it before if it's such a good idea?

• Let's sit on it for a while.

• Be practical.

• We've never done it that way.

• You're ahead of the times.

• Costs too much.

• Too hard to administer.

• Let's take a survey first.

Zhou boils it down with this advice: "If you want to stay competitive, you have to find more and better ways of doing things. That's creativity."

Dawn Sagario writes for The Des Moines Register.