71 Proactive Vitality Management and Creative Work Performance Practical Implications The current findings may be useful for many working individuals (i.e., employees, freelancers, managers). Individuals may proactively use various vitality management strategies to improve their own levels of creative performance. Besides professions that are generally seen as ‘creative’, such as writers, filmmakers or artists, there are many work-scenarios conceivable in which creativity is warranted. For example, when the CEO of a large company has to pitch a new organizational strategy to the board that will ensure innovative advantage to stay ahead of competition; when an intensive care nurse wants to protect patient healthcare in times of reorganization and budget cuts by coming up with more efficient work procedures; or when a school teacher has a classroom full of unfocused students and tries to come up with a novel and exciting way to motivate them to do their homework and to learn new things. Our results corroborate earlier studies in which (aspects of) vitality have been linked to creative performance (e.g., De Dreu et al., 2012; Fredrickson, 2001; Kark & Carmeli, 2009) and emphasize the importance of a proactive approach in the creative process. To stimulate this, interventions may be developed to encourage people to proactively work on their levels of vitality and to stimulate awareness of personal needs and preferences in this process. Moreover, supervisors may facilitate this process by encouraging their employees to use proactive vitality management, and by providing them with the opportunity to engage in preferential strategies (e.g., providing a certain degree of job autonomy). In addition, our findings show that self-insight may play a valuable role in boosting the influence of proactive vitality management on creative work performance. Being unaware of, or unable to assess personal feelings and potential needs regarding physical and mental energy may weaken the effectiveness of proactive vitality management. These insights suggest that people may benefit from engaging in self-reflection or other forms of training (cf. Saunders et al., 2007) to promote their own levels of self-insight. Third, besides being aware of one’s own state, the current findings suggest that social support for creativity in the workplace may facilitate the proactive vitality management – creative work performance relationship. An unsupportive work environment (e.g., having uninterested, overly conventional, critical, or even undermining co-workers) might diminish the relationship between proactive vitality management and creativity. As a manager, it may thus be valuable to take the current findings into account and promote a social work environment in which individuals 3
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