The Significance of Creative Thinking in Leadership Roles

This essay delves into the critical role of creative thinking in leadership, emphasizing its significance in fostering innovation and problem-solving within organizations. The author defines creative thinking as the ability to approach ideas and tasks in an original manner, highlighting the need for leaders to embrace and encourage new perspectives. The essay discusses techniques like brainstorming and mind-mapping, and stresses the importance of leaders supporting their staff’s ideas, balancing divergent and convergent thinking, and rewarding creativity. The author uses a personal experience from a job interview to illustrate the practical application of creative thinking. The essay concludes by underscoring the importance of leaders who stimulate and challenge their groups to find opportunities and embrace challenges, while also contrasting these leaders with those who are resistant to change. The essay references several academic sources to support its claims and provide context to the topic.

Running head: IMPORTANCE OF CREATIVE THINKING
IMPORTANCE OF CREATIVE THINKING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors Note

1IMPORTANCE OF CREATIVE THINKING
Creative thinking is the ability or process to think in an original or new way. Human
beings are creative in nature and we constantly change our views and ideas about the world.
Through creative thinking we come up with new techniques and ideas. It is the merging of
several ideas together which has never been merged before.
Creative thinking is the method of moving from traditional ways and ideas to create
alternative solution. Brainstorming is one technique of creative thinking which is merged by
someone else ideas with our own to create and develop new one. It is art of imaginative and
personal thinking that produces new, useful and novel solution (Alghafri & Ismail, 2014). In the
current scenario, creative thinking is applied in each and every task to obtain better result.
Innovation is a must for creative thinking process. Creativity and Innovation goes hand in hand
and is life blood of any organization.
Leader should focus on the importance of creativity and actively solicit ideas. The leaders
should make time for brainstorming by allocating time for new emerging ideas. The present staff
in the organization should be trained through innovation techniques. This includes mind-
mapping and lateral thinking process for creative problem solving (Al-Zu’bi, Omar-Fauzee &
Kaur, 2017). The leaders should be supportive and challenge the method of which the staff
works. Alternative methods should be used to determine while working to achieve maximum
outcome. The leader should be more supportive and respond enthusiastically to their employee’s
new ideas. Both divergent and convergent thinking should be equally balanced. Moreover,
reward should be given by leader to encourage creativity.
Leaders having creative behavior generally stimulate and challenge its group. They lead
the group to find opportunities and embrace challenges. Creative behaviors are the process for

2IMPORTANCE OF CREATIVE THINKING
making an individual put extra effort for doing new things. This involves risks for trying new
techniques to do new things or trusting people to deliver outcomes by using such techniques
(Reiter‐Palmon, 2017).On the other hand, Individuals having status quo are unable to pursue new
challenges and techniques for carrying out tasks as they are usually afraid of failure. Leaders
having status quo type of behavior thinks more about their position and power rather than up
grading their organization using new techniques and ideas.
Last month, I went for an interview at Mc Donald’s, for my internship and the panel
asked me question to tell me about myself. This is a creative thinking as the question demands
the individual to think in creative perspective not just settling on one answer. This requires
talking about my personality, achievements and character of mine and my work experience. I just
answered straight about my name and current occupation. If would have approached the given
question from different perspective applying creative thinking, my answer could have been
comprehensive and complete. Creative thinking is thinking outside the box or thinking in new
ways (Krumm et al., 2016). A creative individual devises new techniques to carry out their tasks,
meet challenges to solve problems.

3IMPORTANCE OF CREATIVE THINKING
References:
Alghafri, A. S. R., & Ismail, H. N. B. (2014). The Effects of Integrating Creative and Critical
Thinking on Schools Students' Thinking. International Journal of Social Science and
Humanity, 4(6), 518.
Al-Zu’bi, M. A. A., Omar-Fauzee, M. S., & Kaur, A. (2017). The Relationship between Creative
Thinking and Motivation to Learn Creative Thinking among Pre-Schoolers in
Jordan. European Journal of Education Studies.
Krumm, G., Aranguren, M., Arán Filippetti, V., & Lemos, V. (2016). Factor Structure of the
Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking Verbal Form B in a Spanish‐speaking
Population. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 50(2), 150-164.
Reiter‐Palmon, R. (2017). The Role of Problem Construction in Creative Production. The
Journal of Creative Behavior, 51(4), 323-326.