Proceedings of 11th International Business and Social Science Research Conference
8 - 9 January, 2015, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Dubai, UAE. ISBN: 978-1-922069-70-2
Transformational Leadership and Follower Creativity:
Mediating Role of Follower Intrinsic Motivation
Radha Ravikumar* and Venkat R Krishnan
In the current business scenario, organizations are facing a lot of problems to
compete in the market. To even maintain their positions in the market, they are
forced to concentrate on product and service innovation. Creativity is an important
ingredient in problem solving and in developing new ideas. Organizational
creativity involves a new process, product, person, or situation. Organizations are
trying to foster creativity among their employees to bring in innovation and gain
competitive
advantage. Creativity is a process by which individuals or groups develop unique
ideas or novel solutions to emerging problems. Creativity involves developing new
ways of thinking about existing and emerging challenges. To be creative,
employees should be sufficiently interested in a certain problem or outcome.
Researchers link creativity to a variety of factors, like conceptual skill, behavior,
ability, technology, empowerment, process of experience, and external influences.
Generating new ideas or creativity in problem solving can be best increased
through intrinsic motivation. Motivational orientation towards a task is an important
requirement to do it with creativity. People who approach a task with intrinsic
motivation will be consistently more creative than people who are extrinsically
motivated. Intrinsically motivated employees explore new pathways and take
greater risks. Therefore, a person’s level of creativity will depend on his or her
level of intrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic motivation of employees can be best enhanced by transformational
leadership. Transformational leadership refers to the process whereby an
individual engages with others and creates a connection that raises the level of
motivation and morality in both the leader and the follower. Transformational
leadership differs from transactional leadership (i) by elevating degree of needs of
the followers, and (ii) by developing followers into leaders. Transformation can be
achieved by raising the awareness and consciousness about the importance of
designated outcomes. It can also be achieved by transcending one’s own selfinterest for the sake of team, group, or organization.
Transformational leader attempts and succeeds in elevating followers from a lower
level to a higher level of need according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. When the
highest need of self-actualization is activated, the lower needs will no longer drive
that human being. Creative contributions will be highest in an organization when
the members feel themselves to be self-actualizing. Enhancing employee creativity
depends on enhancing their intrinsic motivation. Providing a work environment that
will allow them to retain their intrinsic motivational focus, will support them to
explore new ideas. By fostering transformational leadership, organizations can
promote intrinsic motivation among employees, so that employees can become
more creative.
Intrinsically motivated employees are more likely to find many alternatives to solve
a problem. Intrinsically motivated individual will exhibit high level of creativity.
Transformational leaders by their individualized consideration will focus on
follower’s need, and development. Because of this focus, followers are likely to be
interested in the task itself instead of external fears. This enhanced interest in the
task itself will arouse employees’ intrinsic motivation.
We propose that follower intrinsic motivation will fully mediate the relationship
between transformational leadership and follower creativity.
Field of Research: Management
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*Assistant General Manager – Kotler-Srinivasan Center for Research in Marketing, Great Lakes
Institute of Management, Chennai, India, Email: radha.ravikumar711@gmail.com
Director, Center for Oneness and Transforming Leadership, Chennai, India.
Email: rkvenkat@temple.edu