Your manager and colleagues regard you as a creative genius, leading to thoughts of a promotion in your head.But if you're harboring ambitions of harnessing your skills to land a leadership role, you could be in for a tough climb, according to new research.

People who express creative ideas are less likely to be identified as having leadership potential, according to a forthcoming study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology."In theory creativity is a positive thing and everyone wants it," said Jennifer Mueller, assistant professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and lead author of the study.But in practice, "creativity causes a lot of problems in the sense that you don't know if it's going to work, if it will be accepted, or viewed as weird or crazy," she said. [Read the full article]

But if you're asking for a pay rise the day after a company-wide pay freeze is announced or sending out your résumé with your Christmas cards, chances are your timing might be a little off.Globally, January is the best month to secure a promotion, according to a recent data analysis by business networking site LinkedIn. But it isn't the only window of opportunity.LinkedIn found that July and September are also popular times for business professionals to move up the corporate ladder.Furthermore, Marcus Alexander from Appleby Associates, a career consultancy, says promotions are generally tied to people's own journey within an organization, or are linked to the business year.Top tip: Find out when your company's financial year starts and ends (e.g. April 1 to March 31 or January 1 to December 31) and make sure you prepare for opportunities which might get built into the budget, Alexander says. [Read the full article]

The message of music mogul Russell Simmons' latest book, "Super Rich: A Guide to Having It All" (Gotham), may seem contradictory: A person can become "super rich" by reaching the state of needing nothing.Simmons, the self-made millionaire often credited for putting hip-hop on the map with Def Jam Recordings, is one of the wealthiest black Americans in the country, but he argues a person can become rich not by obsessing about money but by giving to others.Slender and with a kind smile, the 53-year-old still looks youthful, part of what he attributes to a strict vegan diet he embraced 10 years ago."The last book helped change so many people's lives. I wanted this one to do the same," he says of the new book he co-wrote with Chris Morrow. [Read the full article]

Successful business leaders are well aware of the power of body language, but new research is suggesting that "powerful" body language could be more important than your rank in an organization.A recent study by researchers at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and Stanford Graduate School of Business found that a powerful posture "activates a sense of power that produces behavioral changes in a person," regardless of their job title.Participants in the study were assigned a high or low-ranking role and asked to adopt either an "expansive" -- legs apart and one arm spread out over an adjacent chair -- or "constricted" -- legs together, shoulders slouched and hands under thighs -- body posture.Three separate experiments were conducted which all showed that individuals in the open body position took more action than those who were constricted. [Read the full article]