Susan Moger

Creative Leadership Processes in Project Team Development: An Alternative to Tuckman's Stage Model

We propose that theories of project team development and of creativity can be integrated into a new conceptual framework. The framework proposes two structural barriers that bear on team performance, and modifies the well-established team development model of Tuckman. Creative leadership is suggested as an important means of breaching the barriers. Its differentiating feature seems to be its effectiveness in establishing protocols that sustain the creative efforts of team members. We have designated the protocols ‘benign structures’. Empirical evidence is provided from a range of studies of project teams in industrial settings.

Development of a Self‐Report Instrument for Exploring Team Factor, Leadership and Performance Relationships

Claims have been recently made for a seven-factor model that ndifferentiated performance levels in project teams. We have tested the model with results from a self-report inventory. Forty-four opportunities for data collection were taken and a total of 1103 useable inventories collected from participants across European, Asian and African locations. Teams reported on were predominantly work-related. All seven factors correlate as predicted with leadership and team-performance criteria. We report results supporting the original proposition that team effectiveness, including its creativity, can be interpreted as arising through leadership interventions of a transformational kind, which impact on a set of theoretically-derived team factors.

How Benign Structures can Support and Retain Creative Performance in Teams

We suggest that the concept of benign structure is important in understanding how creative leadership can intervene to support and sustain creative performance. We describe this insight with reference to the leadership observed in project teams of various kinds. Our interpretation of the evidence is that creative leadership produces benign structures which help teams pass through two structural barriers (‘press’) that bear on team performance. The weaker barrier requires help on inter-personal relationships. The stronger barrier requires help so that performance levels go beyond established and accepted norms. The benign become most obvious in the application of creative problem solving techniques.

Special Feature: The second great industrial revolution

In this issue we are pleased to celebrate the building of the world’s first computer – a machine that could hold a user program in electronic storage and process it at electronic speeds. The first program worked at 11.00am on 21 June 1948. The development took place at the University of Manchester, and has been celebrated by the reconstruction of that first machine and a re-running of the original program, in the city on the same date, fifty years later. In this feature we look at the events that led to this momentous discovery, and at the careers of the developers, Tom Kilburn and Freddie Williams. Chris Burton, who led the reconstruction project, gives a fascinating account of the work required to bring ‘The Baby’ back to life. The material produced for this feature was written at the University of Manchester, as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations. We would like to thank the editorial team of ‘This Week, Next Week’ the newsletter of the University, for access to the material which appears here, with slight modifications.