Personality Correlates of Exceptional Personal Influence: A Note on Thorndike's () Creators and Leaders

It has become customary to treat creativity and leadership as if they are rather separate behavioral phenomena. This separation is reflected in the fact that leadership is a favorite topic of social and organizational pyschologists, whereas creativity is more likely to be investigated by those in personality, developmental, and educational psychology. Nevertheless, circumstances do arise when it seems proper to discuss both phenomena as if they belong to some larger, generic phenomenon. For example, once we acknowledge that individuals can only be considered “creative” after they succeed in persuading others that their contributions exhibit the requisite originality and usefulness, then the connection between the creator and the leader becomes more intimate (Simonton, 1988b). If we operationally define a leader as that group member whose influence on group performance and decision-making far exceeds that of the average member of the group (Simonton, 1985a), then clearly creators may be reasonably viewed as true leaders, given that the impact of creative individuals surpasses that of their less conspicuous colleagues—as evinced by the phenomenal productivity displayed by notable creators (Simonton, 1984b). Both leaders and creators exert exceptional personal influence over others, the main contrast being the domain of achievement: Leadership is exercised in politics, war, business, and religion, whereas creativity is demonstrated in the arts, humanities, and sciences.