Leaders as creators: Leader performance and problem solving in ill-defined domains

Abstract

The cognitive competencies of individuals often provide a useful basis for the description, prediction, and understanding of human performance. It has, however, proven difficult to specify the cognitive competencies contributing to the performance of organizational leaders. In the present paper, it was argued that organizational leadership calls for discretionary problem solving in ill-defined domains. Because creativity also requires discretionary problem solving, it was argued that our understanding of creative thought might be used to specify how cognitive capacities contribute to leader performance. The nature of these capacities was then discussed, along with their implications for understanding leader performance. Some practical applications of these observations for the development and facilitation of leader performance were then considered.