Creativity is not overrated. The world as we see it today, is a product of continuous creativity; immensely benefiting from decades of innovations by creative minds. From electricity and transportation, to internet technology and aerospace. We are blessed with civilization just by the creativity of a few people who took initiative with the use of their imaginations and ideas to create something new. However, on the surface, it seems quite natural to applaud innovators and creators for their creativity, thereby leaving out their most important trait which is their initiative.

The ability to start something new by themselves without being coerced is the biggest trait of creative people. They are natural self-starters, who are self-motivated to put their imagination to work and inspire others to join them on a chosen path. This is what is called the ‘proactive personality,’ which he believes is one of the big 5 personality traits shown to correlate with entrepreneurial success. There are six elements of this proactive personality which includes bias towards action, finding and solving problems, taking personal responsibility, perseverance and persistence, tolerance to change and uncertainty, and personal development orientation.

All of these elements show strong links with emotional intelligence, in the way the individual manages himself, as well as the people and situations around him. In fact, a 2012 study published in the Human Relations journal found that people with this proactive personality were more likely to execute their jobs better by building better structural and social job resources. Since creative people are highly proactive, this study gives credence to the fact that creative individuals are highly emotional intelligent, as they possess the ability to communicate effectively with people, deal with different situations and create the right environment for everyone to thrive.

However, the study concludes that even though individual creativity can be directly linked with emotional intelligence, there is a caveat as relating to environments where the creative individual has less control or is subject to stringent rules, such as in corporate settings. Because the majority of creative people like being in control, their expression can quickly become crippled in environments which stifle their creative freedom. So, creativity will only translate to emotional intelligence if the individual possesses a proactive personality and works in an environment that supports or encourages that personality.

This is quite difficult today, due to the structure of many organizations which are mostly geared towards making profits and avoiding risks. Creativity inevitably goes with failing, learning from mistakes and iterating, and only few creative people ever achieve anything worthy without going through phases of perseverance and trying again. To help improve emotional intelligence among workers, organizations must be willing to provide opportunities for workers to learn new things, express themselves freely, and consistently generate new ideas.

Creativity can come from many sources, but for the most part, they come from a place of deep frustration or pain born from personal experience or empathizing with others. However, this doesn’t make the path any easier. The creative process, true to its source, is quite frustrating and comes with many challenges so much that creative people have to develop important traits such as motivation, optimism, happiness, and self-regulation, if they are to have any success.

More so, new research suggests that higher creativity is linked to the sort of emotional self-awareness that allows artists and other innovators to ride the ups and downs of the creative process. The mental path of creativity is anything but a straight line; it’s a disarrayed mess of useful and useless thoughts, practical and impractical imaginations, and sometimes a mix of illusion blown out of proportion. So, creating a solid idea requires the creative individual to diverge many unproductive ideas and then converge the useful ones.

This is easier said than done, as the creator is met with frustration on the first try. At this stage, most people usually give up if there isn’t a straightforward solution and just stick to the status quo. But any successful creative project would require that the creator muster up the emotional requirements needed to ride the ups and downs of creative frustration. Managing one’s emotion throughout a creative process that obviously doesn’t have a clear outcome will need the individual to understand, assess and reset their expectation towards achieving a required result. The ability to go through that whole process in order to bring an idea to life shows a strong possession of emotional intelligence.

A recent neuroscience study proves that creative people have greater control between the area of the brain associated with focus and attentional control, and the area of the brain associated with imagination and spontaneity. However, it is their mental adaptability that makes them stand out. Even though the entire creative process can involve varying mental states, from euphoria and inspiration, to calmness and focus, creative people are not characterized by any one of these mental states alone, as they are able to easily juggle seemingly incompatible mental states to perform different creative tasks. This shows a great aspect of self-management which is closely allied with high emotional intelligence.

By encouraging creativity, individuals can develop the necessary skills to see hidden patterns and understand connections between unique situations, as well as the resilience to follow through with projects, which can help in developing the emotional capacity to solve problems and deal with people.
Creativity therefore, is not just about self expression; it changes the way we see the world and how we interact with our surroundings. More succinctly, the encompassing traits of creative individuals are captured in the Wong Emotional Intelligence Scale (WEIS), which is based on four characteristics namely; appraisal and expression of one’s emotion, appraisal and recognition of emotion in others, regulation of one’s emotion, and the use of emotion in facilitating performance.

More possibly, there is a direct correlation between appraisal and expression of one’s thoughts and imagination during creative exercise and the appraisal and expression of one’s emotion as ranked in the emotional intelligence scale. This is because emotion in the simplest form embodies one’s thoughts and feelings as relating to their environments. While expression is exercised towards an object, appraisal is done to evaluate if that exercise is conducive for the object. Since the development of the expression and appraisal of one’s self is a single mental process, it can become beneficial in improving emotional intelligence, even when developed during creative exercise.

It is not out of the ordinary for creative people to utilize their feelings and emotion in creating ideas and new ways to solve problems. This is common in areas such as arts, engineering and humanities, where emotion becomes the underlying force inspiring people to express themselves in diverse creative ways towards community impact. To this end, it is arguable that one’s creativity alone cannot be equated with having high emotional intelligence unless coupled with empathy and intuition. According to him, the trio of creativity, empathy and intuition offer a notable advantage when dealing with uncertainty, decision-making and problem solving, which are core instruments for evaluating high emotional intelligence.

The question then is if creativity and emotional intelligence follow similar development pathways, how do one utilize creativity in a way that improves emotional intelligence? The simple answer is that the social element must be present. Because the process of lateral thinking mostly involves sole participation, it’s very easy for a creativity exercise to turn into an isolated and selfish endeavor. Creative people could find themselves going down the rabbit hole of thinking in ways that differ from daily routines of life and engaging in activities that are not immediately useful, just for the vanity of doing something different or creating a new experience.

To translate creativity into emotional intelligence, one has to go beyond the expression and appraisal of one’s emotion, thoughts and ideas, towards the recognition and appraisal of other people’s emotions, and channeling one’s thoughts and ideas towards creating impact that will benefit others as well as self. More reason why it is believed that there is an inherent social aspect to creativity. This is because true creativity thrives on feedback from the environment and other people because its goal is to make a meaningful impact.

But more importantly, creativity is expressed to stir up emotion in others. Throughout history, the most prevalent creative endeavors have provided a sort of healing or life changing experience for people and the environment. The creative process is a concerted one, where the creator purposefully channels his emotions and life experience into his creation in the hope that the piece of creation, idea, art or innovation can in turn affect the emotions of others rather positively. It takes the understanding of others and a great amount of emotional intelligence to achieve this.

In practice, the creative stage where elements beyond self are considered, is where emotional intelligence blossoms. Past scholars in the field of evolutionary psychology have argued that human creativity largely evolved for social purposes, to demonstrate dispositional features of oneself to others. As such, creativity shows a direct link to emotional intelligence, as it considers the emotion of others to find true expression and achieve a corresponding increase in the quality of one’s creative output. This “affective engagement” is regarded as a better predictor of artistic creativity than IQ.

Thus, it is possible to develop and utilize creativity in several ways that improves emotional intelligence. First is learning through collaboration. This is one of the fastest ways to develop creativity and emotional intelligence concurrently, as almost all the development elements are in place. Andrew Ng, formerly a product lead at Google and adjunct professor at Stanford University believes that innovation is not just due to unpredicted flash of genius, rather, that creativity and innovation is developed systematically. There must be some sort of control, assessment, and management of thoughts and ideas.

According to Ng, when he wasn’t sure what to do next on a project, he would go on and learn more about the problem, read more about it and talk to experts. He is of the opinion that ideas start appearing only when there is enough collaborative input and learning from others. This qualifies the argument that creativity is better developed through a collaborative process rather than an isolated process.

At the boundary of the collaborative process of creativity, it is important that the right emotions are in place so as to get the required result. It then becomes important that creators do something they are passionate about. There must be some form of emotion to ensure that creativity doesn’t suffer. In one of his letters to his son, Albert Einstein provided a good dose of fatherly insight to address his son’s interest in playing the keyboard. The letter buttressed the need of losing self in the creative process by doing only that which is pleasing to oneself.

"I am sometimes so wrapped up in my work that I forget about the noon meal." "That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don't notice that the time passes," He wrote. The feeling of passion adds an emotional touch to creativity, which gives expression the soul it desires. This use of emotion in creative pieces can help one understand and express their deep-lying emotions as well as identify, assess and evoke the emotion of others. That is what emotional intelligence is all about.

For creativity to be impactful, there must be a connection between the giver and the receiver. This could be through having allied passion, sharing the same pain or being able to have close communication. In fact, communication is one of the essential aspects of impactful creativity. The creator must constantly ask for and be on the lookout for feedback. It is all too easy for creators to get too familiar with a problem that their proffered solution takes a one-sided approach.

Asking for feedback is the foundation for all creative iterations, so it’s not a sign of weakness for creators to ask for feedback, help or advice from people who they trust and respect. Rather, it is indicative of emotional intelligence when external feedback or fresh perspective is incorporated into the creative process.

On a final note, even though creativity is all too often spelt out as an active process, little is said about finding creativity in downtime. The words of Alan Cohen holds even more true in the process of creativity, “there is virtue in work, and there is virtue in rest.” While great ideas can be conceived in the heat of the moment, that vital part of the puzzle could show up in an aha moment while hiking or watching the sunset.

The fact is, to develop creativity in a way that improves emotional intelligence, creators must know when to find their own downtime and unplug. Taking time off to relax or having a good night rest shouldn’t be a guilty pleasure, as that could be the fuel needed to improve productivity in the creative process. More importantly, finding the right downtime away from creative activity proves one’s capacity to understand their physical and emotional needs, as well as the importance of mental preparation for efficient emotional self-regulation. And that is a big part of emotional intelligence.

Credit: Nairaland.com/NAVwriters