Why do leadership teams shut down creativity? We asked four creative leaders

We say we want creativity. So why do leadership teams shut it down?

A few weeks ago my wife and I had a disagreement. Nothing dramatic. But instead of talking it through, we both did something interesting.

She asked Claude, and I asked ChatGPT.

We came back more certain than before, and both convinced we were right. At some point in the disagreement we said, “what if we just talk about this?”

A lot of people already struggle to find their voice in difficult conversations. To stay with disagreement, uncertainty and emotion without becoming defensive or certain.

AI can all too easily reinforce the idea that we don’t need to sit with that discomfort, that we can outsource our self-expression to a machine.

And that raises a bigger question; what happens to our capacity to think originally, debate honestly and create something genuinely new together if we increasingly outsource the process?

Because if leadership teams lose the capacity to stay with difference, discomfort and uncertainty, creativity doesn’t just weaken.

It disappears.

Leadership Insights from over 30 Global Leadership Teams

At CoCreate, we’ve analysed more than 30 leadership teams using the iEQ9 Enneagram Team Report (a psychometric that surfaces the motivations behind behaviour).

Across those teams, one pattern keeps showing up.

Of the nine core team motivations, Creative Originality (Enneagram Type 4) is consistently the least represented. Across more than 250 senior leaders, fewer than 6% show a preference for Type 4.

As we explored this pattern further, I asked clients and colleagues who strongly identify with Type 4 energy to reflect on what this perspective brings into organisations, and why it can be so difficult for leadership teams to hold.

The responses came from very different contexts. A CEO within Burda Media Extra in Czech Republic; a Chief Transformation and Digital Officer working for NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICB; and two CoCreate associates who work with leaders, teams and systems across sectors.

And yet despite those differences, their insights all pointed to a clear challenge:

Qualities that most organisations claim to value – such as originality, authenticity, emotional honesty and challenge – are often the ones leadership teams unconsciously suppress.

The voices organisations often struggle to hear

One of the strongest themes from the CoCreate associates was that the absence of Type 4 energy in leadership teams is not surprising.

In many ways, organisations seem designed to squeeze this perspective out.

Most organisations say they want innovation, challenge and diversity of thought, yet many leadership teams are still heavily optimised for certainty, alignment and pace.

Which means that people who introduce ambiguity, emotional honesty or challenge can quickly be experienced as disruptive rather than valuable.

And “disruption” is an interesting word because, outside of business, we almost always use it negatively.

As I write this on the train to London, the guard has just announced (to groans) that there is disruption on the line. At a recent parents’ evening, a teacher told me my daughter was being disruptive in maths.

I didn’t respond with, “you must be delighted she’s such a disruptor.”

And yet in business we talk about disruption almost reverentially, as if it’s something everybody welcomes.

The reality is most organisations are designed for efficiency and optimisation.

Which means that disruption, especially the kind that slows things down, introduces uncertainty or challenges direction, is often unwelcome.

What Creative Originality contributes at its best

Creative Originality is not about creativity in a superficial sense. It’s not about beanbags, brainstorming or trying to make executives more “creative”.

Type 4s bring something much deeper to teams. The willingness to:

• Notice what isn’t being said.
• Challenge the dominant narrative.
• Be guided by a clear sense of purpose.
• Name what is happening in the organisation.
• Tell the truth about the dynamics in the team.
• Voice frustration, resentment or whether people really buy into the direction.

One of the strongest themes running through all of the reflections was that Creative Originality is deeply connected to authenticity.

Not just the ‘be yourself’ kind of authenticity, but a more courageous, risky kind of authenticity that involves the willingness to say what others may be avoiding.

And that kind of honesty can feel profoundly disruptive in environments built around pace, certainty and execution.

Magda described Type 4 as functioning like an “authenticity sensor” within teams, and I really love that phrase.

Because the Type 4 perspective is not just about original thinking, it’s about reconnecting leadership teams to meaning, honesty and emotional truth.

And I think this matters more than organisations realise.

Because when leadership teams lose the capacity for emotional honesty, they often become highly functional while slowly disconnecting from what’s actually happening underneath.

Conversations become cleaner. Safer. Better optimised.

But also less real. And eventually, the difficult conversations happen outside the room, if they happen at all.

What shuts creative originality down

One of the clearest patterns across all four perspectives was how quickly creativity gets squeezed out under pressure.

Not intentionally.

But through speed, efficiency and over-optimisation. Through the constant pressure for certainty, alignment and immediate answers.

And I think psychological safety sits right in the middle of this tension.

We know how important psychological safety is to organisations today. The research linking it to innovation, agility, learning and performance is overwhelming.

But I sometimes wonder whether we’ve also made it more palatable than it really is.

I know I’ve been guilty of this myself at times, making psychological safety accessible without fully acknowledging the stretch it demands from leaders and teams.

Because psychological safety is about interpersonal risk.

The willingness to say something uncertain, unpopular or emotionally honest. The willingness to challenge the direction of travel. To admit doubt. To name what others are avoiding. To risk being wrong, disruptive or misunderstood.

And maybe this is where organisations struggle. As my colleague Patrick said:

“Sometimes ‘psychological safety’ can be reduced to whatever allows the majority to feel comfortable.”

That line really struck me.

Because in many organisations, psychological safety quietly becomes calibrated around cohesion, politeness and maintaining momentum, rather than around challenge, honesty and creative tension.

Which means the very people most likely to disrupt groupthink can become the people teams unconsciously marginalise.

In our conversation, Magda reminded me of Steve Jobs’ famous description of “the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers”.

Organisations might still add that quote to a slide deck for inspiration, but I’m not convinced many executive teams actually know what to do with those people once they stop agreeing with the dominant narrative.

The leadership challenge underneath all of this

There are several uncomfortable leadership questions sitting underneath these reflections.

Firstly, how we think about creativity itself. I’ve lost track of the number of times exec leaders and board members say “Oh, I’m not creative at all.”

That belief is very convenient – and, by the way, also categorically false.

Yet it allows organisations to treat creativity and self-expression as belonging to a few individuals, rather than something leadership teams have to actively create the conditions for.

The second challenge is around who and what gets rewarded.

Because most organisations still reward confidence, momentum and alignment far more readily than honesty, ambiguity or emotional depth.

And perhaps that explains why so many leadership teams slowly become more homogeneous over time, not necessarily in background or experience, but in how safely people learn to think, speak and behave.

Then there’s a third challenge, which is about how leaders respond in moments of discomfort.

Those moments matter far more than most leaders realise.

A defensive response to challenge. A joke to diffuse tension. Moving on too quickly from inappropriate behaviour. An unwillingness to confront the difficult issue.

Teams notice all of it.

Over time, those moments shape whether people bring honesty, challenge and originality into the room, or quietly decide it’s safer not to.

And perhaps that is the deeper leadership challenge underneath all of this.

Not whether leaders say they value creativity.

But whether they can stay open when creativity arrives in forms that feel inconvenient, emotional, disruptive or difficult to control.

The real challenge for leadership teams

Most leaders already know that psychological safety, creativity and authenticity matter. The harder question is whether we actually create the conditions for those things to emerge.

Because creativity rarely arrives neatly packaged. More often, it arrives as discomfort. As challenge. As somebody slowing the conversation down when the rest of the room wants certainty and momentum.

And in organisations already stretched by pace, targets, transformation and now AI, it’s becoming easier than ever to retreat into efficiency, optimisation and reinforced thinking.

That’s the risk.

Not that AI replaces creativity, but that we slowly stop exercising the muscles creativity depends on. Curiosity. Debate. Emotional honesty. Sitting with ambiguity long enough for something genuinely new to emerge.

Most executive teams don’t lack intelligent people. They don’t lack ideas either.

What they often lack is the capacity to stay with difference once it becomes uncomfortable.

Steve Jobs’ words are quoted so often they’ve almost lost their edge:

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”

But maybe the real question for leadership teams is this: Do we genuinely want those people in the room once they stop agreeing with us?

And, as Magda Kudějová from C3 in Prague reflected:

Curious to explore this further?

To learn more about Type 4, Creative Originality and how the Enneagram can help leadership teams strengthen trust, challenge and original thinking, get in touch.

We use the iEQ9 Enneagram with executive teams, boards and leadership communities to help organisations better understand the motivations and dynamics shaping how teams lead, decide and work together under pressure.