Leaderships Role in Innovation

Leadership plays an intricate role in innovation. Effective leaders recognize the importance of embracing people’s differences to get the best outcomes from the team. This is what fosters constant improvements, initiative and innovation within the workplace. Innovation begins with individuals who touch the business across all functional and departmental areas and is not dependent on the participation of high-ranking executives, but rather on any individuals within the business who know their customers and their specific needs. Innovators are those who can see, sow, grow and share opportunities.

Leaders need to take the required actions and make the right investments in resources and people to bring innovative ideas to full bloom. Innovation requires individuals that are passionate explorers in search of endless possibilities. They need to be courageous enough to take a leap of faith and follow it through. For example, Elon Musk, who is the founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors went through a journey to reinvent the automotive and aerospace industries. Despite Musk nearly running out of money, he carried on investing his own money while selling his vision to new clients and investors that committed to contracts which allowed Musk to carry on with his pursuits. For Elon Musk, it is the talent of his people and the trust he has in his team as well as a blend of teamwork, determination and resiliency that keep his visions and innovations alive. In the end, that is the ultimate role of the leader in innovation – to keep companies, industries and economies alive through innovation (Forbes.com, 2017).

The innovation approach to leadership means bringing new thinking and different actions to how you lead, manage and go about work. Leaders must learn how to create an organizational climate where others apply innovative thinking and solve problems, and develop new services and products.

Leadership is important as a leader creates a purpose for the organisation. For leaders to foster innovation, they must take the time to establish a specific purpose and be open to questions. They need to be able to listen to ideas and risk experimentation (Forbes.com, 2017).

For Blu Betty, Colleen has the role of fostering innovation within the organization. Colleen is Blu Betty’s founder and co-owner. Zappiro is Blu Betty’s other owner, and together, the two of them work to foster innovation throughout Blu Betty’s team. They encourage team members to brainstorm and come up with new ideas that could be beneficial to the organization. These ideas are openly shared and team members feel free and comfortable to communicate their ideas to Colleen and Zappiro. This encourages innovation within Blu Betty and allows for ideas to constantly be generated.

When an organization cultivates a culture of innovation, bright minds are effectively given the tools to generate and organize ideas and make them useful. They can then act on those ideas. Fostering an innovative workplace is therefore a fundamental role of leadership and human resources. Innovation would not exist if the world were perfect. An innovative workplace runs on ideas and the leaders’ role in this innovation is to fuel creativity by encouraging team members to think, try and do (Halogen Software Talent Management Blog, 2017).

“When all think alike, no one is thinking.” – Walter Lippman.

Many organizations lack a systematic approach to building a culture of innovation. Leaders should encourage innovation and reward creative minds within the organization for contributing to new ideas. The leader should establish a clear process for tracking, organizing and executing ideas, and failure should be part of the creative process (Halogen Software Talent Management Blog, 2017).

Blu Betty’s owners Colleen and Zappiro encourage open-mindedness within Blu Betty and urge their employees to come up with new, innovative ideas. These ideas are then considered and after proper market research is done, if the idea has good potential, Blu Betty pursue it.

Great innovation ideas will not come from environments in which leaders take full control and micromanage employees, but will rather come from members who are free to think and openly express their thoughts. Halogen Software Talent Management Blog, 2017).

How leaders behave correlates with how freely organizational members pump out new products and ideas, and therefore leaders are the key factors in establishing environments conductive to innovative thinking.

Preparing for the future, fostering an innovation culture within the organization and investing in productive research and educating employees to understand organizational purpose are all related – and their common denominator is leader behaviour (Dike, 2017).

References:

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Anon, (2017). [online] Available at: http://www.ccl.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/InnovationLeadership.pdf [Accessed 29 Apr. 2017].

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Dike, D. (2017). Leadership, innovation and the future. [online] Management-Issues.com. Available at: http://www.management-issues.com/opinion/6533/leadership-innovation-and-the-future/ [Accessed 1 May 2017].

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Forbes.com. (2017). Forbes Welcome. [online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2014/04/07/5-ways-leaders-enable-innovation-in-their-teams/#4cc27bb18c4c [Accessed 26 Apr. 2017].

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Forbes.com. (2017). Forbes Welcome. [online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevincashman/2013/08/21/7-ways-leaders-can-foster-innovation/#5f01e59129a9 [Accessed 1 May 2017].

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Halogen Software Talent Management Blog. (2017). 5 Ways Leaders Can Cultivate a Culture of Innovation. [online] Available at: http://www.halogensoftware.com/blog/5-ways-leaders-can-cultivate-a-culture-of-innovation-to-shine-in-todays-market [Accessed 1 May 2017].