Many creative organizations try to reduce formal hierarchy. They expect managers to take a less prominent role and their teams to be as self-managing as possible. In principle, this is not a bad idea, because a formal hierarchy can constrain creativity. But even in self-managing teams a hierarchy does develop – an informal hierarchy, which may not be as limiting as a formal one.

The presence of these different types of hierarchy therefore raises the question of how teams can best achieve creativity. Together with my colleagues Floor Rink, Frank Walter and Gerben van der Vegt, I researched what the best combination of an informal and formal hierarchy is for team creativity.

An informal hierarchy may have a negative effect on team creativity because less influential team members are less willing or able to speak out. They are less likely to express their opinion and when they do it is not taken as seriously as the opinion of the more influential team members. This means that some of the knowledge, ideas and points for improvement in the team go unheard – whereas these might be the key to creativity.

Our research results do indeed show that the right combination of informal hierarchy and formal leadership is crucial to team creativity. This means that if there is a weak informal hierarchy (this is a hierarchy in which all team members can influence each other) everything is fine – all team members can participate equally in group discussions and share their ideas, which makes the group as a whole creative. However, if there is a strong informal hierarchy in the group (that is, a hierarchy in which there are significant differences in influence) the formal role of the manager becomes important. If this person is not empowering (i.e. if they do not actively encourage all team members to express their opinion and fully participate in the group) the group as a whole becomes less creative. The team members lower in the hierarchy are less likely to be able to share their ideas, so some of the ideas in the group are lost. In this situation, it is therefore important that the manager takes an active role, by ensuring that everyone does participate, even those who rank low in the informal hierarchy.

Previous research has shown that an informal hierarchy with strong differences in influence can be beneficial for efficient team task performance (for instance, Bunderson et al., 2016). If we combine this finding with the present findings on group creativity, it appears that teams with a strong informal hierarchy stand to benefit twice: the informal hierarchy ensures that team members are efficient, and the team leader ensures that the team can also be creative.

Jacoba Oedzes is a PhD candidate in the HRM & OB group, and conducts research into the antecedents and consequences of formal and informal hierarchies in work groups. Contact: j.oedzes@rug.nl