Innovative leadership — Supporting creative team interaction

Creativity-stimulating leadership is necessary for successful innovation in groups and organizations. Such leadership requires deep and extensive knowledge and expertise in the field of creation, as well as general and specific leadership abilities and skills that promote creativity in a team. By applying the emergence perspective, social dynamics in leadership and in the creative team may be understood as the interplay between team members´ interaction that organizes the work. This paper argues that the essential competencies for the team emerge in the interaction between all the members of the team, including the leader. Creative developmental phases demand other kinds of attitudes and qualities of interaction between group members than production on a daily basis. Team members need to develop creative thought styles and creative action patterns, combined with the ability to temporarily change those patterns.