Leaders undoubtedly play a crucial role in fostering team creativity. However, the impact of interpersonal complementarity between leaders and followers on their joint creativity remains largely unexplored. While supplementary fit (where individuals share similar traits) has its benefits, complementary fit—where one person's traits fulfill the other's needs—has been shown to enhance collaboration and negotiation. This study addresses this gap by applying the interpersonal circumplex (IPC) model. Specifically, leaders with high agency paired with followers high in communion tend to generate more creative outcomes compared to pairs where both exhibit high agency or high communion.
Grounded in shared reality theory, this effect occurs when followers' epistemic (information-related) and relational (connection-related) needs are met. Our findings reveal that leader-follower pairs with this complementarity achieve greater creative outputs. Furthermore, the effect is mediated by followers' subjective experiences, including informational satisfaction (epistemic), liking toward the leader (relational), and overall task satisfaction. These results emphasize the critical role of leader-follower complementarity in creative collaboration. Importantly, we utilized polynomial regression with surface response analysis for a more detailed evaluation of these dynamics, offering a nuanced perspective on how interpersonal complementarity influences creativity in dyadic contexts. This research underscores the value of balancing differences between leaders and followers to optimize creative performance, particularly in tasks requiring collaboration.