Cambridge Judge Business School (CJBS) runs a number of seminar series, including those organised by the individual subject groups and research centres. Seminars are posted here as and when they are arranged, and tend to only take place in term-time. Sign up to our seminars mailing list to receive invitations.
While fear and courage are acknowledged as relevant to many constructs of interest to organisational researchers – such as voice and silence, innovation, and psychological safety – relatively little organisational research directly explores either of these topics, or how the two are related. The same is true in how leadership is generally taught – namely, without explicit attention to the role of fear in people’s willingness or ability to engage in many important workplace behaviours. In this talk, I will briefly share how I arrived at my current focus in both research and teaching activities on the role of fear, and then describe some related in-progress studies and developmental approaches.
Popular images of creative leaders often depict them as difficult to work with and yet, worth the struggle because of their ability to innovate: the “jerk genius.” Leading creative group work requires, by design, managing differences in perspective, vision, and ideas – creating some level of friction within the group, while also facilitating the collaboration so that the differences sparked by creativity do not lead to impasses. In this multimethod study, we examine what happens when the creative process breaks down and the leader can no longer work with the group. In a qualitative study of Hollywood insiders, we discover how creative leaders attempt to keep a collaboration moving forward while also revealing the process of creative vitrification that explains the underlying social dynamics that harden and subsequently break creative collaborations, leading to “creative breakdowns.” We then examine the long-term career impact for creative leaders associated with a creative breakdown using an archival sample of Hollywood directors leaving projects due to “creative differences.” Empirical evidence reveals that creative leaders leaving projects due to “creative differences” experience drop offs in future employability and creativity success. Together, our multimethod findings breaks new ground, challenging prevailing notions of the value of disagreeable creative leaders by revealing the long-term consequences of these behaviours while also elucidating the often obscured process of creative vitrification that leads to breakdowns in collaboration.
Maria L. Goranova, Professor in Organizations & Strategic Management, Ronald E. Pawasarat Faculty Scholar, Lubar School of Business, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
More information on this seminar, including how to join online, will be available nearer the time.
