How Leaders Can Prioritize Creativity At Work: Yale Professor

Forbes

15-05-2025

Business leaders should adopt concepts like problem finding, rather than problem solving, to help ... More teams be more creative.
In some business situations, the need for creativity is obvious: research and development, new business pitches, user experience strategies. Yet creativity is also an imperative in situations like organizational structure or other instances that can elevate a team's output while also improving its work experience.
'The point is to value creativity in places you wouldn't expect,' said Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, PhD, a Yale professor and author of The Creativity Choice: The Science of Making Decisions To Turn Ideas into Action. Pringle argues that both the agency creative director and the food service supervisor have the potential to be deeply creative—if their workplace allows it.
'Creativity is doing something new and original, but it also has to be effective,' Pringle said in our recent interview. Creativity is not just about finding the breakthrough idea — it's about improving outcomes, whether you're launching a new product or finding a better way to deliver meals to hospital patients.
We discussed how leaders can intentionally build environments that invite and sustain creativity. Here are five takeaways for leaders who want to help their teams turn ideas into action.
Many leaders default to the approach of 'don't bring me problems, bring me solutions.' Pringle warns that this is a mistake. As study of successful teams indicate they spend 53% of their time deeply exploring and questioning the nature of the problem before stepping in to solve it.
'If you skip problem finding,' she said, 'you risk solving the wrong problem.' She encourages leaders to reward thoughtful inquiry, multiple perspectives, and even the discomfort that comes with lingering in ambiguity. 'Creativity isn't just idea generation— it starts with defining what really needs solving,' she said.
Creativity isn't confined to product development or marketing. Pringle shared a story from her consulting work in a hospital, where a food service supervisor noticed his team was burning out. Instead of simply pointing them to a wellness program, he realized that the burnout was caused by physical fatigue. He redesigned their workflow, minimizing repetitive bending and reaching, which reduced stress and mistakes. That simple shift improved job satisfaction and patient outcomes, yet required an approach to thinking outside the standard approach.
'This was physical creativity,' Pringle said. 'He saw a problem, acted like a leader, and made the system better.' Leaders should empower teams to reimagine how work gets done, even in roles that don't seem 'creative' on the surface.
Pringle conducted a study of over 14,000 U.S. workers across all industries where she found a clear connection between emotionally intelligent leadership and employee creativity. When leaders acknowledge and respond to emotions in the workplace, what Pringle calls 'emotion management,' employees are more motivated, less frustrated, and more creative.
Ignoring emotions doesn't neutralize them; it simply leads to what she calls 'emotional leakage.' That unspoken frustration or tension shows up in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that impact results.
'Emotion contagion is real,' Pringle said. 'A leader's mood can spread through a team, influencing everything from morale to innovation.'
Inspirational leadership gets attention, but sustaining creativity over time takes more than a great pep talk. Leaders must also create the conditions for long-term creative work, including adequate time, resources and, yes, rewards.
'There's a myth that paying people undermines creativity,' Pringle explained. 'That might be true in short-term lab studies, but in real work, people need to know their efforts are valued. Pay, recognition, and support all matter.'
This doesn't just mean occasional bonus checks. Acknowledging someone's contribution publicly or giving them room to grow creatively can also have a lasting impact.
One reason emotional and creative expression gets stifled at work is a lingering idea of 'professionalism' that discourages vulnerability or emotion that comes with bringing forward untested ideas. Pringle believes those norms are outdated and counterproductive.
'You can't leave emotions at the door,' she said. 'Pretending to leads to suppression, and suppressed emotions don't stay hidden.' Leaders who model authenticity and invite safe emotional expression create workplaces where people feel seen—and are freer to take creative risks.
Creativity isn't a special skill reserved for 'creatives.' As Pringle's research and examples show, it can flourish anywhere—if leaders create the conditions. That means slowing down to define problems clearly, responding to emotional signals, and rewarding not just results, but the creative process that makes them possible.
As Pringle put it, 'Creativity doesn't live only on inspiration. It lives on support.'