How stewardship can impact a civilization

Discuss the relationship between stewardship, creativity, and innovation. Note: this video by Daniel Pink on intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation will provoke additional thoughts on this topic.

Stewardship, creativity and innovation all have direct and indirect influences on motivation. Within the context of an organization, these influences often coalesce to both intrinsically and extrinsically motivate individuals. For one, managerial stewardship often is used to help invigorate employee creativity. A study of nearly 200 middle and senior managers by Kupplewiser, found that relational and motivational support has a very strong impact on stewardship (Kuppelwiser, 2011). More importantly the study found that simply having a strong influence of the individual does not support a corresponding growth in stewardship. The study further established the correlation between stewardship and employee creativity. Studies by Caldwell and Hayes further established this relationship, by adding an additional element of “trust within the equation. Here, in order for leaders to inspire a certain level of creativity and innovation within the organization, they must also have the ability to garner the trust of those they are looking to lead. If a person is perceived as trustworthy, trust increases throughout the organization allowed the other individuals to be ethical stewards who honor the behavior of the leader (Caldwell, 2010). This concept is directly related to the theory of servant leadership which looks to leverage trust as a means to generate a culture of stewardship.

Here, the concepts of trust and integrity help provide the foundation for stewardship. In order to be a steward of capital, those providing the capital, materials, goods, or services, must trust in the persons ability to maintain the overall value of said item. This level of integrity is necessary for innovation and creativity to become involved. For one, innovation allows for certain amounts of risk to be taken in order to maintain the value of certain items. We see this often in the stock market, where stewards of capital often use public money to enrich themselves at the expense of others. However, there are capital managers such as Warren Buffet at Berkshire Hathaway that instill trust in capital providers. Here, the concept of stewardship is often a derivative of trust. The reseasch conducted by Blowers substantiates these assertions. In his research, Blowers found that even from a biblical perspective innovation and creativity is based heavily on trust on a particularly entity (Blowers, 2016). In this instance it was the trust in God to be a steward and Shepard of his people. It is this concept that allows innovation and creativity to maintain this design to look after assets as it they were ones own. This according to Blowers occurred throughout the bible and also occurs in modern society as well. Noah’s Ark is a classic example of stewardship which leverages innovation and creativity. The ability to build a boat, sail for 40 nights and house a majority of the worlds life shows how an individual was a steward of the assets of the planet. The same concept, as noted earlier occurs in business as it relates to capital investment into businesses. This concept can even be utilized when it comes to the concept of familial relationships. Here, parents want to be stewards of the future and to provide their children with a better life. This is done through many of the grass roots movements occurring in the world today. Elements such as global warming, black lives matter, and women’s rights all are conducted as stewards of the earth and civilization. In these instances, members are using creative solutions to help foster a better future for those who would benefit. As such, innovative solutions such as electric vehicles and other products have be used to help usher in a better future.