Harnessing More from Highly Creative Workforces Through Regulation and Championing

for MALS 4902 Interdisciplinary Capstone Seminar

Master of Arts

Arts and Culture Management

Levi Roberts

University of Denver University College

August 16, 2020

Faculty: Michelle Kruse-Crocker, PhD

Director: Joseph Hutchison, MFA

Dean: Michael J. McGuire, MLS

Abstract

As arts organizations continue to globalize, this paradigm shift exerts pressure on leaders to recognize technology, improving entertainment show quality, and cultural implications while maintaining daily operations, all of which require solving ill-defined problems. The practice of leading a creative workforce while making decisions based on indistinct information is prevalent in the arts. In an effort to mitigate these problems, this capstone proposes a hybrid approach of two leadership practices, the Regulation Control Model of Creative Leadership (RMCL) and championing. Provided are several tools for the leader as a champion, including mission-based delegation, idea selling, and ways to more appropriately deliver feedback; All with the intended goal of highly creative organizations harnessing more from the highly creative workforce.

Background

Films, theater, performance art, and live entertainment organizations, to name a few, are creative in nature. These creative organizations are unique places, as most who work within them would agree.

Organizations hire professional artists for their expertise and vision, though they are regular employees, they function more like independent contractors.

In most cases, highly creative workers are hired based on their previous work and professional history, which align with project goals, rather than their competency to complete pre-defined tasks (Mumford et al. 2014). Immediately, this poses unique challenges to leadership within the arts. For example, in manufacturing workforces, the product is designed, and hired workers carry out that design, utilizing only some creativity within production. However, in highly creative workforces, artisans are employed for their vision to create and implement while providing creative input from idea conception through implementation. Throughout this process, leaders need to make enough space for this creativity to happen while considering the overall organization or project goals. Leaders’ efforts to mitigate these challenges need further exploration as it is a critical issue facing arts organizations in the current decade.

Importance to Field

Highly creative workspaces, or workplaces where the output is artistically creative, have their own set of specific needs from leadership. Traditional leadership styles, including those based on authority, conformity, and even organizational commitment, may not be successful in motivating highly creative workforces effectively (Vessey et al. 2014). Generally, highly creative workforces consist of eccentric individuals who fare better and are attracted to organizations that allow for autonomy in the highly creative workspace (Vessey et al. 2014; Hunter, Cushenbery, and Friedrich 2012). There is a difference between a general lack of leadership and visionary leadership with allotted space for autonomous work; creative organizations thrive in an autonomous work environment (Vessey et al. 2014). These preferred environments require leaders to develop overarching goals and make space for the highly creative workforce to create freely within those goal’s constraints.

Problem Statement

The climate of arts organizations is rapidly shifting from self-isolated practice to a practice recognizing global influence (Keeney and Jung 2018; Adler 2007). This paradigm shift affects all creative organizations, including for-profit and non-profit. Global advancements including improved entertainment quality, culture shifts, as well as the implementation of technology, promotes change to all creative organizations from independent operators and regional venues, to large corporations. Tailored leadership can harness more from the highly creative worker and mitigate potential problems, which is paramount for a creative organization’s ability to keep up. Effective leadership like this starts at the top of any organization and works its way down from executive leadership to middle managers and then to front-line leaders as part of successful downward communication (Newstrom 2015). However, this is not always the environment within creative organizations. Implementation of arts specific leadership strategy is unknown and understudied within arts organizations. While many creative organizations manage success within the leadership strategy they currently have in place, some organizations are more effective than others. Unspecified factors of successful organizations lead to increased leadership efficacy, fostering a workplace more conducive to creative idea-sharing.

In non-artistic industries operational efficiency ranks supreme and managers view creativity as a threat that could reduce productivity (Vessey et al. 2014). However, in the creative workforce, creativity is not only beneficial but requisite for arts organizations’ outputs and operations.

Leaders need to set up an overarching framework and vision that regulates and controls when and where creativity can take place, referred to by Vessey et al. (2014) as the Regulation Model of Creative Leadership (RMCL).

They then need to act as a champion to foster and develop those creative ideas from their conception to their implementation. These practices will demystify leading within the arts and further codify the requirements for leading creativity in any setting, ultimately harnessing more from any highly creative workforce. Implementing qualities from the RMCL and championing promotes more frequent and higher quality creative solutions to ill-defined problems.

Approach

Anecdotal reporting of experiences has identified current gaps within the literature for creative organization leadership. There is a paucity of available research and data to evaluate effective leadership styles within highly creative workforces. This capstone refines historical approaches and seeks to identify areas of improvement within a theoretical framework for modern-day application within highly creative workplaces. However, there has been a marked increase in interest in recent years (Vessey et al. 2014).

Secondary research ensued to inform a literature review that outlines vital definitions and brings to the surface two significant leadership principals the RMCL, and the practice of championing. Half of all cited sources were authored within the last decade, with a strong preference placed on finding the latest and most up-to-date research where possible. All references cited were reputably published or published within peer-reviewed journals. For each significant assertion, at least three peer-reviewed studies must corroborate the findings. The focus area of leadership within creative organizations remains understudied, leaving research sparse. However, there has been a marked increase in interest in recent years (Vessey et al. 2014). Keywords such as cultural intelligence, emotional intelligence, champion, idea generation, promotion, idea selling, arts administration, and leadership narrowed the scope of the research effectively. Results from keywords such as management, human resources, and communication returned material that was closely related but outside the scope of the research question. The use of search engines, including Google Scholar and the University of Denver Compass Search, produced results. This process includes limitations such as access to the currently available research, limited resources when synthesizing data, and mostly anecdotal and qualitative results. Again, this capstone seeks to serve as a baseline and fill a gap in available literature by developing a conversation about leadership in highly creative workforces through the combination of the Regulation Control Model of Creative Leadership (RMCL) and championing.

Literature Review

Introduction

Defining the problem is the initial challenge of reaching creative solutions. In the case of arts organizations, their creative workspaces are often dealing in abstraction that has ill-defined problems requiring creative solutions (Mumford et al. 2014). Creative solutions can include the creation of art to fit a storyline, or even problem solving when selecting a program series for a target audience. In most cases, creative solutions draw on the artist’s vision to provide an output. In contrast, traditional leadership models based on authority require subordinates to complete defined tasks, and the leader tracks the progress (Vessey et al. 2014). Non-creative focused business operations resist creativity as innovative ideas, or process improvements can temporarily slow the regular production procedures, thus leaving little room for the employee to be creative (Vessey et al. 2014). In the highly creative workspace, two leadership practices stand out, the Regulation Model of Creative Leadership and championing. These two models, combined with the tools of idea selling, purposeful delegation, and project management, have been identified as successful approaches to leading creativity.

Defining Creativity in the Workplace

Creativity is a broad and general term. In the context of this capstone, it refers explicitly to the output of a creative professional within the working environment of arts organizations. Arts organizations are highly creative workspaces in this context. Creativity within an arts organization is the production of viable and workable solutions to complex and ill-defined problems (Mumford et al. 2014). Ill-defined problems are those where the outcome is unknown, and the highly creative workforce seeks to solve and implement solutions in real-time. It is important to note that creativity does not stop merely at the idea generation but it encompasses its subsequent implementation as well (Mumford et al. 2002; Howell and Boies 2004; Cray, Inglis, and Freeman 2007). This broader definition of creativity develops a two-fold process to creative workplaces, beginning with idea generation and ending after the successful implementation of those ideas.

Understanding the Highly Creative Worker and Communicating Feedback

The highly creative worker presents a unique challenge for leadership because creative persons’ achievements relate to their extensive practice as an artisan. Creative persons often hone their craft through extensive practice, often to the detriment of other life tasks (Mumford et al. 2002; Mumford et al. 2014; Peterson et al. 2013). Highly creative workers operate under intrinsic motivation requiring leaders to offer tailored feedback within the context of the project and the implementation of their work (Mumford et al. 2014). Marcella and Rowley (2015) define stakeholder goals as paramount to the project manager in the creative industry. When delivering feedback regarding the artist’s contribution to projects, leaders should act as boundary spanners between the stakeholder goals, project mission, and the highly creative worker (Mumford et al. 2014). Lastly, feedback delivery is relevant to the project manager when working to develop the culture of an organization as a whole.

Regulating Creativity

The RMCL is a method by which leaders can control when and within what parameters employees operate creatively (Vessey et al. 2014). Simon (2006) refers to leaders as someone who defends the borders of the playground. The playground metaphorically represents the space where creativity is allowed. When enjoying time on a playground, the ability to make decisions freely and have personal control over your actions are favorable, yet boundaries remain. Personal control defines the same practice in the context of transformational leadership (Tse, To, and Chiu 2018). Regulating creativity in this way is vital as the leader can keep teams on track with the structure of projects and still allow for creativity within the creative professional’s discipline. In most situations, leaders must act as project managers in the creative world (Simon 2006; Marcella and Rowley 2015; Petrovi?, Mili?evi?, and Sofronijevi? 2017). Early on, leaders must act as sense makers of the creative idea and build it into a vision that defines the overarching goals that become the RMCL (Simon 2006). In doing so, leaders prevent creative tension, or the decrease in efficiency caused by innovation (Perez-freije and Enkel 2007).

Leaders should demonstrate professional understanding and development of expertise within the fields they lead, earning them respect based on their skills and expertise (Abfalter 2013). Expertise requirements include an understanding of the production process, artist personal practice requirements, and time demands. However, expertise is not the only factor in developing an authentic leadership persona. Excellent leaders are self-aware, optimistic, and foster transparent relationships (Mumford et al. 2002; Abfalter 2013; Keeney and Jung 2018). Relationships are critical, as strong relationships afford the leader the ability to have more genuine and open communications with subordinates as well as greater efficacy when idea selling (Mumford et al. 2002). Leaders need to maintain systems intelligence, or the ability to develop and sustain many relationships simultaneously. Keeney and Jung (2018) link systems intelligence and emotional intelligence. Understanding the interactions and relationships of your organization (Systems Intelligence) as well as being able to communicate through a lens of self-awareness and empathy (Emotional Intelligence) informs where there is need and the reaction necessary (H?m?l?inen et al. 2010). Both systems intelligence and emotional intelligence allow leaders to act and impose a change in a lasting and effective way, an important ability for the leader as a champion (Keeney and Jung 2018).

Defining Champions

Systems exchange, not to be confused with systems intelligence, is an understanding of leadership that views the leader as a champion interacting within the context of the situation at hand (Vessey et al. 2014).

Champions are individuals who emerge to actively and enthusiastically promote innovations through all of their developmental stages

(Howell and Boies 2004; Taylor et al. 2011).

Champions rely on targeted interactions with their workers and advocacy on behalf of the workforce’s ideas to provide what is best for the organization as a whole.

Contextual understanding of external factors such as cultural influence, emotional intelligence, and systems intelligence play a vital role in the leader effectively acting as a champion (Keeney and Jung 2018; Taylor et al. 2011). Emotional Intelligence allows leaders to understand their workforce through lenses of self-awareness and empathy. Emotional Intelligence combined with championing (systems exchange), fosters relationships built on trust. As noted by Patrick Lencioni (2002), trust is a crucial element to building a team that is comfortable sharing ideas, an essential component to championing. According to Abfalter (2013), champions make space in their leadership for the highly creative workforce to create using the RMCL as a framework. Champions recognize that highly creative workers require autonomy and tend to reject the strict structure of other leadership models (Abfalter 2013). In summary, champions use context, the RMCL, and autonomy to develop a project management environment where the free-flowing of ideas is possible.

Champions as Project Managers

Champions must act as agile project managers that make decisions in a different setting than traditional project managers. Project managers of creative projects face several challenges including the oversight of experts from various fields, ever-changing scope of oversight, and probably most frustrating, the requirement to make decisions based on incomplete information (Petrovi?, Mili?evi?, and Sofronijevi? 2017). As the landscape is continuously changing in these ways, champions must remain with their team every step of the way so they can continue to develop and interpret the context related to the project and its implementation.

Acting as a project manager, champions regularly practice the process of scanning by gathering and maintaining professional relationships, keeping updated contacts, and monitoring competing and neighboring organizations (Mumford et al. 2014). Champions contribute to the creative process and help carry the idea through its implementation, specifically noting that the creative process starts for the champion before idea generation and ends after implementation. (Howell and Boies 2004; Taylor et al. 2011). In the early stages, immediately following the identification of a creative idea, champions must shield that idea from premature scrutiny (Howell and Boies 2004). Taylor et al. (2011) refer to this as the initiation phase, a time to incubate ideas and present them, preventing negative first impressions caused by the presentation of an underdeveloped idea.

The nature of arts and entertainment organizations requires that leaders remain flexible when defining their role(s). Having a flexible role orientation or a comprehensive understanding of one’s purpose within the company allows leaders to be more effective champions as they are more likely to develop strong relationships that, in some cases, function outside their strict job description (Howell and Boies 2004; Parker 2007).

Lastly, champions must set incremental goal deadlines. These deadlines comprise the overarching structure of the RMCL; this setup acts as a fail-safe, as failure isolated to one small point and corrected quickly, keeping efficiency steady (Cray, Inglis, and Freeman 2007). Deadlines, as described, can help the highly creative worker navigate autonomously as well as the leader when making job assignments.

Mission-Based Delegation

Leaders regularly delegate tasks to their staff, champions do as well but in a more appropriate way for the highly creative workforce (Mumford et al. 2002). As a means to maintain motivation, champions practice mission-based delegation, or thoughtful job assignment (Mumford et al. 2002; Simon 2006). They can do this by aligning the delegation of project tasks based on previous work and skills with the overarching mission (Simon 2006). In doing so, the leader harnesses mission valance, which is the use of an attractive and relevant mission to increase the saliency of the highly creative work (Caillier 2016). Simon (2006) refers to creative project managers operating in this capacity as web-weavers or someone who is taking into account an individual’s skill and ability when delegating. Managing in this way can lead to higher engagement on the part of the creative worker and lower turnover overall (Caillier 2016). Often, this leads to the highly creative worker participating in tasks beyond their job description simply based on their motivation (Cray, Inglis, and Freeman 2007). Following idea generation, the champion must sell the idea to the rest of the team and top leadership.

Idea Selling

Following the shielding and incubation of an idea, champions must then decide how to present the idea to the rest of the team and top leadership. This crucial next step of idea selling is referred to as the endorsement phase by Taylor et al. (2011). Researchers discuss idea selling as an important tool to get subordinates, stakeholders, and top leadership to subscribe and buy-in to an idea ensuring its early success, as ideas require energy and some form of cost for implementation (Dutton and Ashford 1993; Mumford et al. 2014). Champions tailor their approach to each situation. Dutton and Ashford (1993) suggest that leaders pay particular consideration to the selling channel. For example, ideas can be sold one on one, in a group setting, or a public presentation. Taking time to consider how the idea will best be received carefully is essential in the early stages of creative idea championing (Dutton and Ashford 1993; Mumford et al. 2014). Ultimately, the selling channel used is reliant on the idea proposed and the climate of the organization. Leaders must make a choice based on the context surrounding the idea.

Once again, contextual knowledge of the organization and the situation surrounding the creative idea is an important consideration (Dutton et al. 2001; Abfalter 2013). Dutton et al. (2001) discuss contextual information in three parts: relational, normative, and strategic. The relational context is understanding how the championed idea will affect the project and those working within it. Whereas normative is understanding the formal and informal norms of the organization so that you can implement creativity seamlessly; this includes getting the appropriate buy-in amongst peers before presenting to the larger group. Lastly, taking time to apply strategic contextual knowledge and make a decisive plan to implement within these considerations will increase success (Dutton et al. 2001; Howell and Boies 2004). Dutton and Ashford (1993) note that leaders should also consider timing as fiscal period and other date-based variables may play a role in the adoption of ideas. These considerations are an appropriate tool when applying an idea to the organization or individual projects.

Conclusion

There is consensus that leadership in the creative sphere must allow for autonomous work (Perez-freije and Enkel 2007; Parker 2007; Abfalter 2013; Jani?ijevi? 2017; Tse, To, and Chiu 2018). By imposing the RMCL, leaders can offer the highly creative workforce a defined space for creativity and autonomy (Simon 2006; Perez-freije and Enkel 2007; Townley, Beech, and McKinlay 2009; Vessey et al. 2014). Leaders should pay particular attention at the onset to effectively isolate creative ideas with the highest potential for success and protect ideas from premature judgment. They then champion the idea from conception to implementation, taking part in every step of the process, including the sale of ideas to top management and the wider team through a decidedly appropriate selling channel (Howell and Boies 2004; Vessey et al. 2014; Dutton and Ashford 1993; Mumford et al. 2002).

Research shows that highly creative workforces require feedback delivered within the context of how their work will better serve the mission and stakeholder goals (Mumford et al. 2014; Perez-freije and Enkel 2007; Howell and Boies 2004). In addition to feedback, jobs and work functions should be assigned based on the worker’s past and thoughtfully aligned with the project’s mission; alignment adds salient sentiment to work and fosters intrinsic motivation among the highly creative workers (Caillier 2016; Mumford et al. 2002; Simon 2006). All told, these best practices could overlap and be used in a hybrid manner to generate sound leadership strategy for highly creative workspaces.

Solution

There are best practices to leading highly creative workforces that can be applied at any scale and across any genre of output. Implementing a hybrid strategy between the RMCL and championing will produce higher quality and more frequent creative solutions to ill-defined problems. The regulation provided by the RMCL develops an overarching framework that aligns the organization’s ideals and project or company benchmarks. Regulation can and should be applied to daily operations as well as short term projects just in an abbreviated manner. Essentially, the RMCL provides the roadmap to the finished product, and the regulation provides the team with the blurry definition of the indistinct problem that the team and leader are going to continue to solve.

The leader, as a champion, takes ideas that form within the regulation and nurses them to reality or sends them back for further development. Acting as a referee, the champion selects ideas with good odds for success and begins to invest in them. Champions enthusiastically support ideas and decide how to present them to the rest of the workforce in a way that will be most effective. Champions also work to shield new ideas from premature evaluation, carrying them from conception to implementation—all while-providing feedback in a specific form that is conducive to the highly creative professional. Leaders who combine the RMCL and championing are far more effective in building strong leader-member relationships and harnessing the creative outputs of their staff.

Controlling Innovation Through Regulation

Building the Sandbox

Regulation is all about setting overarching goals that both foster idea creation and allow for their successful implementation. There must be a vision portrayed by the leader. In many ways, this is like building a sandbox for your workforce. First, construct the walls to prevent overspill where there shouldn’t be. The sandy space between the walls is the autonomous zone in which creative workers use resources to develop and implement ideas. Creativity transcends idea generation and continues through an idea’s implementation. Leaders, in this application, should serve as someone to add context, be a sense maker, and act as a referee. As the project develops, or the organization grows, the leader can adjust the walls of the box to narrow the scope of creativity or offer additional resources and space for creativity. Incentivizing the overall vision that drives the project forward and serves the stakeholders. Leaders must view their project management in this way to prevent micro-managing as the highly creative worker needs autonomy as a resource.

The Leader as a Champion

Ever-Changing Job Description

Leaders must maintain a flexible understanding of their roles. The leader needs to be dynamic and recognize that their job description is ever-changing; flexible role orientation allows for studier relationship development and better outputs from teams. Working within the RMCL, leaders should plan ways that they can guide and intervene with their teams every step of the way, viewing themselves as a facilitator of the project and a point of contact.

Project Planning

Deadlines are essential to the team and serve as points for the leader to intervene. The leader, as a project manager, should provide written documentation of regulation with deadlines and flexibility clearly shown. Leaders should build time into the schedule for a review process and feedback delivery. Leaders should utilize early deadlines as an opportunity to isolate ideas that both serve the stakeholders and have the best odds of success.

Protecting the Pertinent: Shielding Ideas from Premature Scrutiny

When a valid idea emerges from the highly creative workforce, leaders must immediately protect it and prevent it from early scrutiny. The saying “first impressions are everything” applies here, as you may lose useful ideas due to a negative first impression.

Remembering that enthusiastically cultivating creative ideas conception to implementation is the job of the champion. Ultimately, they are the backer of the idea when proposing it to upper management and the broader team alike. Choosing the best way to introduce the idea to the team and upper management is important and can be the deciding factor.

Idea Selling

Considering the context, leaders should utilize idea selling techniques to ensure that creative ideas have the best success rates. To do this effectively, leaders must select the selling channel that is most appropriate. Selling channels include a one-on-one meeting, group meeting, or public presentation. Group meetings consist of achieving wider buy-in by choosing several peers to sell to initially and then broadening the rest of the team. In some scenarios a public presentation may be effective if there is need to inform a large audience at once. In addition to selling channel, timing can be an important factor. Leaders must consider if the organization’s fiscal period, social-climate, and coexisting projects allow for the project they are championing, as these factors may inform the selling channel. Leaders taking into account the organization’s norms, timing, and the sensitivity of the project, should be able to make decisions on how to sell and begin championing.

Mission-Based Delegation

Once the leader sells an idea and has achieved the appropriate buy-in, leaders must resort back to the regulation imposed at the project’s onset. At this point, leaders assign tasks as well as reassess and adjust all deadlines.

When assigning tasks, the leader should view themselves as a talent weaver. Assuring that they know, in detail, all their highly creative worker’s backgrounds and work on previous projects. This information should inform how the leader makes calculated job assignments.

The mission also is of great importance during this process. Leaders should use the mission of the organization or project to foster a sense of duty when assigning jobs. Highly creative workers will adopt this sense of duty, and it will fuel their motivation for the project. Another component of mission-based delegation is aligning this newfound motivation with the highly creative worker’s previous experience. Leaders can achieve this alignment by explanation, beginning with the worker’s job assignment. The leader needs to outline the assignment as an ideal situation by explaining how they included consideration of the worker’s background and previous work history. In addition, the leader should reassert the mission of the project, and align the mission with the job assignment, noting their assignment as an essential component to achieving the mission. This small conversation can truly set up a tone for the project going forward, as well as develop trust and dialog between the leader and the highly creative worker.

In many cases, highly creative workforces receive their assignments and leadership offers little context as to how they make assignments. When making assignments and delegating tasks, leaders need to take time to offer context regarding the worker’s role. After all, creative organizations hire highly creative experts. Leaders need to allow them to function as such while regulating creativity, navigating goals, and remaining true to the mission in a way that generates intrinsic motivation.

Feedback

When leaders deliver feedback, it needs to be in a way that does not impose on the creative process. Interactions that impose on the creative process should be considered micro-management. Often these interactions arise from too frequent feedback delivery, or delivery of feedback that insults the creative worker.

Instead, leaders should view themselves as boundary spanners. Boundary spanners serve the mission and stakeholders of the project by delivering feedback from a third-person perspective, as well as keeping the interaction away from the realm of personal critique.

When the leader acting as a champion must address an underperformer, it is important first to describe what the problem is, as observed, then explain how it could better serve the mission and the stakeholders. Champions must also ensure that the delivered feedback is within the context of the highly creative worker’s trade, and there is sufficient time for correction before the next deadline. At this point, leaders should not suggest specific solutions until no acceptable outcome is possible. Ultimately, the champion works to mitigate these issues beforehand through mission-based delegation. However, when situations like these arise, partnering underperformers with colleagues that fully grasp the mission and stakeholder goals is advisable.

Conclusion

Leading creative organizations poses unique challenges. Research shows that leaders who make space for their highly creative workforce to create autonomously ultimately harness more creativity. Autonomy, however, is not the only concern.

Leaders must also help their workforces navigate through the whole project by setting boundaries, protecting new ideas, selling the ideas to the team and upper management, and ultimately championing those ideas to their implementation.

These objectives are only possible when leaders maintain a flexible description of their job, make good job assignments at the onset based on mission and background, and enthusiastically support their staff while championing them and their ideas. The bottom line, leaders need to make excellent assignments, provide resources along the way, deliver feedback as a boundary spanner, and make space for the highly creative worker to work.

Discussion

Strengths

There is a strong consensus between researchers that autonomous work is essential for the highly creative worker to operate at their best (Perez-freije and Enkel 2007; Parker 2007; Abfalter 2013; Jani?ijevi? 2017; Tse, To, and Chiu 2018). However, autonomy is not the only consideration for the creative leader; it is also necessary to apply autonomy within an overarching guiding framework. Research provides a model that is effective when managing a creative workforce, the RMCL (Vessey et al. 2014). Other researchers allude to this model, describing a similar methodology in different ways. Simon (2006) describes this structure as the border to a playground, and the leader works to keep everyone in bounds. Perez-freije and Enkel (2007), as well as Townley, Beech, and McKinlay (2009) describe the development of an overarching framework that sets clear boundaries controlling and regulating creativity to maintain efficiency. All demonstrate the characteristics of the RMCL. The RMCL delivers the framework within which the leader acts as a champion. Howell and Boies (2004) and Vessey et al. (2014) conclude that the champion is involved in every stage of the process, including the generation of original creative ideas. Mumford et al. (2002) refer to the champion as someone who remains outside the creative team, a subtle difference from the Vessey et al. (2014) definition. However, their descriptions of how champions behave agree, developing a strong consensus of the efficacy of championing. As champions check-in with the workforce, they should deliver feedback deliberately, linking current work to how it serves the stakeholder goals and the overall mission (Howell and Boies 2004; Perez-freije and Enkel 2007; Mumford et al. 2014)—marking feedback as another strong consensus point between researchers. These strengths intertwine to develop cohesive best practices for leaders in the arts.

Weaknesses

Flexible role orientation, the first tool, serves the champion and the highly creative workforce alike. However, further research is necessary to understand its implementation fully. The variance of how leaders define their role, or flexible role orientation, contributes to their effectiveness as a champion (Howell and Boies 2004). Maintaining a flexible role orientation leads to better championing, as the tasks a champion performs are potentially outside the job description (Howell and Boies 2004). Parker (2007) states leaders who define their role with diffuse boundaries will not feel fatigued as opposed to the alternative perspective of consistently operating beyond stringent boundaries. Howell and Boies (2004) only applied these benefits to the creative workforce, not specifically leaders. Parker (2007) applied this concept to leadership, evaluating whether or not leaders feel it is their job to develop people and their ideas. In addition, Howell and Boies (2004) did not explicitly link role orientation to worker performance. Whereas, Parker (2007) concluded that flexible role orientation does improve worker performance. Flexible role orientation serves a demonstrated purpose; however, the available research requires updating and application to the arts specifically.

The second tool noted is idea selling within creative organizations. Dutton and Ashford (1993) developed a model of idea selling that outlined important considerations for persons pitching ideas to others. Howell and Boies (2004) echoed these principals specifically for arts organizations. The dates of these studies, which are outside the ideal range set in the approach, demonstrate that further research is needed to update the findings to the ever-changing landscape of creative organizations. Also, the refinement of these principals for leading within the arts would be beneficial to improving their efficacy.

Mission-based delegation, the third tool, is the product of two schools of thought revolving around delegation; Mission valance (Caillier 2016), serving as the motivating force combined with careful job assignment (Mumford et al. 2014) to increase job satisfaction. Ideally, when delegating tasks, leaders foster intrinsic motivation by connecting their workforce’s history to the mission at hand. Callier (2016) notes that mission valence does not necessarily lead to extra-role functions but does increase performance and morale which is an important part of team-based organizations. Mumford et al. (2014) are in agreement, applying the alignment of mission and task to arts organizations, specifically demonstrating mission as an important tool for the champion. The hybrid practice of mission valance and job assignment is unique to this solution resulting in limited evidentiary support of their combined efficacy.

Threats

Research presented in this capstone notes that creative ideas often lead to temporarily lowered efficiency following implementation. This remains true when altering the leadership strategy of an organization. When implementing this solution, organizations need to be prepared to absorb this potential threat of efficiency loss into their project timelines. Organizations should plan accordingly, knowing that with this investment, they will ultimately harness more from their highly creative workforces.

Opportunities

It is important to note, even the strongest claims about leadership models and concepts do not provide a one size fits all approach. Leadership must remain increasingly fluid as organizations introduce technology, global influence, and cultural understandings. Leaders must be willing to be a deciding force with the best information available, all while staying current and championing their people and their ideas. Organizations seeking to implement proposed strategies can do so in smaller, more manageable amounts to realize immediate results. The first immediately actionable inroad is changing the way arts organizations deliver feedback. Feedback has the opportunity to motivate the highly creative workforce and align their personal goals with the mission (Howell and Boies 2004; Mumford et al. 2014). Following the successful implementation of the feedback practices presented, organizations can begin to ensure that their employees are allowed time for autonomous work.

Trends

Leadership within the arts is ever-changing and recognizing more and more global influence (Keeney and Jung 2018), making harnessing more from highly creative workforces all that much more important. Globalization, an industry trend, is present within the arts industry, and it impacts large companies, regional operators, and independent venues alike. From technological improvements to cultural imports, arts organizations must keep pace. The only way to do this is to innovate continually, and that begins with stellar leadership. In all, if we develop a workspace tailored for highly creative people and lead for a highly creative workforce, the results will improve.

Recommendations

This solution explicitly serves arts organizations, but arts organizations are not the only operators relying on creativity; this is the reason for using the terms, highly creative worker, highly creative workforce, and highly creative workspace. Ultimately, creativity for art’s sake and creativity for innovation thrive on the same principles (Mumford et al. 2014; Vessey et al. 2014). The RMCL combined with championing, delivers a framework within which leaders can foster idea development and effectively deliver feedback. These principals are universally applicable within creative organizations, including information technology, game design, scientific laboratories, and even engineering.

Quantitative research would be beneficial when evaluating leadership models and their impacts on efficiency. Some studies consulted within this capstone use qualitative research methodology. Examples of qualitative methodology commonly used in arts research include requiring respondents to rely on memory, surveying existing literature, and anecdotal reporting. In the case of this capstone, qualitative studies support the themes of idea selling and feedback delivery. The development of metrics is necessary to study as well as record efficacy within organizations. A proposed metric being success of ideas sold per fiscal period. Understanding the fiscal norms of an organization in this way will benefit the champion in a project-based scenario. In reference to feedback, development of a metric for the employees’ understanding of the mission would be beneficial. For example, this could be a pass/fail questionnaire asking the highly creative worker to describe their role in relation to the mission. The questionnaire will inform the leader of the workforce’s understanding of the mission. Allowing the leader to act should there be a need for further explanation, primarily when delivering feedback. Therefore, quantitative data and the development of metrics to measure creativity and its surrounding components are necessary to fill a void in the literature.

To aide in the implantation of the solution, managers should implement measured parts of the solution over time, beginning with feedback. First, organizations should evaluate how often they are reviewing and providing feedback. If review meetings reveal only small amounts of progress, it is likely that these sessions are too close together, recognizing that innovation and autonomy are linked (Perez-freije and Enkel 2007). After the defining the spacing between feedback deadlines, the RMCL will begin to take shape naturally without direct efforts to impose it. Following the implementation of the RMCL and feedback practices, leaders will then work to implement championing, mission-based delegation, and idea selling in phases. Implementing too many changes at one time could result in lowered efficiency.

Conclusion

Leadership is a nuanced and challenging task in most scenarios. Excellent leaders operate within the context of their field and organization to deliver excellent results through highly efficient processes. In the arts organization, leaders must work more diligently to foster an environment that allows for creative solutions to ill-defined problems (Vessey et al. 2014). There are many models of leadership and transformational leadership that apply to the arts; however, a hybrid approach is presented within this capstone that delivers practices applicable to almost any creative workspace. Combining RMCL and championing offers a flexible and easily implementable solution to difficulties leading in the arts. The leader, acting as a champion utilizes idea selling, mission-based delegation, and flexible role orientation as tools for success within the framework set by the RMCL. Far too often, leaders get wrapped up in daily operations and lose sight of their organization’s mission. This solution continually refocuses leaders on stakeholder goals and mission, all while developing stronger relationships within the workforce, reinforcing trust, and maintaining an environment of idea-sharing. Organizations that ensure their leadership regulates in a way that leaves space for autonomous work all while acting as champions will harness more from their highly creative workforce.

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