This study examines why proactive employees are more creative. It proposes a model to verify the relationship between employees’ proactive personality and their creativity, as mediated by leader-member exchange \(“LMX”\). Two moderators, supervisor proactive personality and supervisor power distance, were also examined as they related to the relationship between an employee’s proactive personality and LMX. To assess these factors, a two-wave survey was conducted with 152 employees from a company in mainland China. The results indicated that 1\) employee proactive personality was positively related to both of employee creativity and LMX; 2\) LMX was a mediator between an employee’s proactive personality and creativity; 3\) neither supervisor proactive personality nor supervisor power distance was a moderator between an employee’s proactive personality and LMX. The findings of this study extend the literature on proactive personality, LMX and creativity. These results will be useful for companies and supervisors when selecting and motivating employees, and also suggest directions for future research.