The Two-Part Mindset that Made Leonardo So Creative

Research finds that both parts are necessary for creativity to flourish.

“Study the anatomy of the wings of a bird together with the muscles that move those wings,” Leonardo da Vinci wrote in his notebook around 1490. “Do the same for man to show the possibility that man could sustain himself in the air by the flapping of wings.” 

For more than 20 years, Leonardo did as he had commanded himself, producing more than five hundred drawings and thirty-five thousand words in a determined effort to produce a “flying machine.” His work ultimately provided the foundation for the invention of airplanes and helicopters some 400 years later. But how was it that Leonardo kept up this extraordinary stream of creative energy?

The researchers C. Dominik Güss, Sarah Ahmed, and Dietrich Dörner have a theory, which they described in an article in Perspectives on Psychological Science in 2021. They hold up Leonardo as an exemplar of the creative mindset—which, they say, pairs a high need for certainty with a low need for competence.

How do these two inclinations propel creativity? In brief, it works like this: You find a problem that you really, really want to solve. At the same time, you work on developing a tolerance for not knowing the solution—yet. Both dispositions are necessary to move the creative process forward.

As the authors note, creativity is largely about motivation. We rely on a powerful need for certainty to drive us forward, to generate the irresistible urge to pursue our vision. Güss et al. note that Leonardo had this quality in spades: “As soon as da Vinci was confronted with a phenomenon, he became interested in understanding it and took immediate action to do so,” they write. In his exquisite 2017 biography of the artist, Walter Issacson observed that Leonardo possessed “an omivorous curiosity, which bordered on the fanatical.”

But this need for certainty, which is the engine that drives creativity, can easily propel us in the wrong direction. Say we have a high need for certainty and a high need for competence—for feeling like we know what we’re doing. Then, write Güss and his coauthors, we are likely “to engage in anything that could restore competence quickly, rather than in explorations of a new domain.” If we can’t deal with our temporary lack of competence, the need for certainty will drive us toward safety-seeking behaviors that make us feel competent again, right now in the moment—but that steer us away from creative solutions.

So how do we deal with that very uneasy feeling of not knowing, not being competent? As a devotee of mindfulness, my belief is that it’s important first of all to simply be aware of these feelings, to accept them and work alongside them, instead of allowing them to impel us blindly toward the refuge of a neat (but conventional) solution.

Güss and his collaborators suggest another possibility, one that also makes sense to me. I’ll quote from them here, as they return again to the example of Leonardo:

“Even when he worked in a new domain, such as flying, da Vinci could rely on his vast knowledge and skills. He had successfully created numerous inventions, drawings, and paintings and could rely on his successful strategy to divide a big problem into tiny problems that could be mastered. He had not only epistemic competence (i.e., enormous knowledge and skills) but also heuristic competence (i.e., trust and confidence in his own ability to master new situations and problems successfully).”

In other words, a sense of confidence about our global competence (“In general, I’m pretty good at this, and I know how to move toward getting this done”) allows us to tolerate the temporary feelings produced by situational incompetence—permitting us to remain open to new possibilities even as they take their time crystallizing into satisfying solutions. 

I know that I have often felt this way myself as a writer. In the middle of a project, I will have no idea how a particular article or chapter is going to take shape, and I can feel very much at sea—not a comfortable feeling. At the same time, I’ve built up a bedrock belief over the years that tells me: I’ve done this a million times and I have faith that I will find a way this time, too, even if I don’t know precisely what that way looks like right now. Score one for the value of experience and expertise!

So—as you embark on your next creative endeavor, think about cultivating these two mutually-enhancing drives: a high need for certainty (I really want to figure this out!), and a low need for competence (I’m OK with feeling kind of incompetent and not-masterful in the process of figuring this out).

How about you—how have you been able to navigate between the powerful need to know something, and the tenuous state of not-knowing-yet?