The Relationship Between Creativity and Leadership Traits Among Dietetic Professionals

The health care system is rapidly changing. In order to survive as a profession, dietetic professionals need to know about health care innovations and adapt to them. Leadership theories, such as transformational leadership may facilitate this adaptation. Transformational leaders are persuasive, creative, intuitive and have the ability to enhance these skills in others. This type of leadership facilitates organizational change and may be enhanced by creativity. Zemel and colleagues found that in Public Health Nutritionists the performance of both the innovator and broker roles were performed significantly less often than other leadership roles. These roles are paramount to dietetic professionals adapting to the ever-changing health care system. An assessment of the performance of innovator and broker roles associated with creativity among health care professionals may provide an understanding of how to adapt to future changes in health care.

To measure transformational leadership role performance, the Competing Values Leadership Profile was used. It is based on the Competing Values Profile Conceptual framework developed by R. E. Quinn and it combines several management theories. This model describes the interrelationship among eight leadership roles. Four roles depict traditional transactional roles (monitor, coordinator, director, and producer) and four transformational leadership roles (facilitator, mentor, innovator and broker). To measure creativity a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator-Creativity Index was utilized. For the purpose of this research project creativity was defined in terms of personality. Creativity has been found to be related to increased independence, nonconformity, receptivity to new ideas, and lower anxiety levels.

Data were obtained during the Advanced Public Health Nutrition Professional Leadership Education (APPLE) project; there were 342 participants. Analyses were performed with the Statistical Package for Social Science software for IBM PC (version 7.5, 1996, SPSS, Chicago, IL) using a .05. significance level.

Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were used to determine the relationship between MBTI-Creativity Index and performance of innovator and broker roles. T tests and ANOVA were performed to identify differences for MBTI-creativity index and performance of innovator and broker roles based on selected characteristics of participants. Tukey's mean separation technique was used to detect differences when F was significant.

Dietetic professionals with twenty five or more years of experience were found to perform innovator and broker roles more frequently than those with less than fifteen years experience (P < .05.). Respondents with master's degrees were found to be more creative and performed innovator and broker roles more frequently than dietetic professionals with bachelor's degrees (P = .01.). Registered Dietitians were found to perform the broker role more frequently than non-registered dietetic professionals (P = .02.). There was a positive correlation between creativity scores and the performance of innovator (r = 0.38; P = .001.) and broker roles (r = 0.27; P = .001.).

These results indicate a need for professional preparation for leadership, that fosters creativity development. This study has also shown a need to improve retention of experienced staff and to provide educational opportunities for dietetic professionals. Additionally, more research is necessary to identify factors that contribute to creativity and the performance of innovator and broker roles.