Linking leader–follower proactive personality congruence to creativity

Abstract

Purpose Drawing from the literature on person–environment fit and proactive personality, the purpose of this paper is to empirically examine whether congruence between the proactive personality of a leader and his/her follower is facilitative/inhibitive of creativity of the follower. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected in two waves from 355 followers and 36 corresponding leaders working in a large manufacturing company in India. Hypotheses were tested using polynomial regression analysis and response surface method. Findings The results indicate that leader–follower congruence in proactive personality is more likely to encourage followers’ creativity. Moreover, leader–follower congruence at higher levels of proactive personality showed higher levels of followers’ creativity than when dyads are congruent at lower levels. Practical implications Findings suggest that human resource management in organizations should consider matching leaders’ proactive personality with that of followers’ to foster employee creativity. This is critical from the perspective of recruitment and dyad formulation for jobs that demand creativity. Originality/value Research examining why and how congruence in personal characteristics between a leader and his/her follower foster followers’ creativity is at best scant. The study is a novel attempt to examine the effect of congruence in leader–follower proactive personalities on workplace creativity of the follower.

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