How to get radical creative ideas into a leader’s mind? Leader’s achievement goals and subordinates’ voice of creative ideas

In the present research we investigated when and why leaders tend to oppose or adopt radical creative ideas voiced by their subordinates. In a field study (Study 1, N = 127) we showed that leaders’ performance goals were positively related to their tendency to oppose radical creative ideas, whereas leaders’ mastery goals were positively related to their tendency to adopt them. We replicated these findings in an experimental study (Study 2, N = 90), in which we showed that performance goal leaders were more likely to oppose radical creative ideas voiced by their subordinates than mastery goal leaders, whereas mastery goal leaders were more likely to adopt those ideas than performance goal leaders. In Study 2, we further showed that the effects of leaders’ achievement goals on their oppose and adopt responses were mediated by the leaders’ interest in exploration. Finally, in Study 3 (N = 91), we experimentally demonstrated that oppose and adopt responses of performance goal leaders, rather than mastery goal leaders, were sensitive to the behavioural mode by which subordinates voiced their radical creative ideas. That is, performance goal leaders were less likely to oppose and more likely to adopt radical creative ideas when subordinates voiced them in a considerate mode rather than an aggressive mode.