Challenge 6: Is your leadership style the right one for encouraging and fostering innovation?

Diagnosis

Unlike managers, leaders think in longer time frames, they see the big picture, including company departments in broader realities, identify and understand the benefits of having a clear vision, company values, organizational renewals when necessary and skills that help them deal with different stakeholders. A leader is more of a visionary, he has the rare ability to effectively lead people toward innovation implementation.

Communication is the basis of the interaction between the leader and subordinates. When it comes to communicating innovation, the challenges leaders face are quite complex as the implications for the company and for each individual employee can be barely estimated at the time of the implementation of the innovation process.

The less you, as a leader, consider the importance of the social and emotional context of innovation, the less you can explain and translate new ideas so that they are easily understood by your employees. Also, the less you can communicate the innovative spirit to your employees, the less you contribute to the development of the appropriate culture and climate that empower your team members.

To try to understand the leadership style that best fosters innovation, please analyse the aspects presented in the table below.

Positive aspects	Negative aspects
Are you able to communicate to everyone in your organization, make each member feel important for the company and keep all employees aware and involved?	You do not feel comfortable to communicate with all your employees. You prefer talking to managers only and tell them what to communicate further to their subordinates
Are you able to communicate the vision while generate awareness and enthusiasm among your employees making them enthusiastic about the coming challenges innovation brings?	You are not very good at presenting in a very understandable way the company vision to your employees. You consider it difficult to motivate them to follow you into the innovation challenge
Do you use your imagination to create innovative concepts and envision them at realization point? Do you also imagine the steps to be taken to achieve your goals?	You are not an imaginative person. You act in the present and like tangible results. You do not get enthusiastic at the thought of achieving goals. You act and save the celebration mood for the finish line
Do you easily embrace new ideas and opportunities? What about changes in the company processes necessary to implement innovation? Do you usually look at the big picture or focus on details?	You can take into consideration implementing new ideas and taking opportunities, but only after analysing them in detail. You do not feel comfortable to look at the company as a whole but make a detailed analysis of all departments
Do you consider yourself an efficient worker and motivator, with focus on getting things done?	You work more than your subordinates most of the time, trying to give them an example while struggling to achieve goals. You are convinced that you are the only person who can deal with important tasks and control others.
Do you have a high-risk tolerance? Do you take into consideration every possible risk beforehand and prepare yourself to address them all?	You are usually very cautious and meticulous in analysing every possible angle that comes with a certain situation
Do you enjoy having an out of the box thinking and encourage this trait among your employees?	You are more of a conservative person. You like things done in a certain order, after taking well analysed decisions
Do you set targets to give your employees an objective to work towards? Do you establish an efficient reward system that encourages the team members to participate in challenges?	You do not consider that organising a reward system for your employees could be a good activity to spend your budget on

1. Fill in the table with your initial assessment regarding each aspect and the way it is reflected in you as the company leader.

2. Take a step back and analyse all aspects you must work on to develop an innovative leadership style.

3. Find a training company or a business couch that can best help you identify your current weaknesses and work together with you to develop a new leadership style that will help you implement innovation within your company.

Actions for implementation

If you observe that negative aspects are common in your behaviour, while positive aspects are barely present, you must take seriously starting the process of learning to be an innovative leader, together with a professional coach or trainer.

Your objective should be to become the leader who brings people together as a team, shows empathy and has the necessary skills to get things done, including creative innovating ones. As a leader, you should figure out how and when to bring added value to your company, permanently learn and adapt to constantly changing environment, and have the ability to engage others at a deeper, emotional level.

Actions to be implemented to reach your goal can include:

1. Exercise your imagination muscle. When you need to shift perspective during your day, just think about additional solutions to a challenge you currently face. Ask yourself (and your team members) to find out five alternate ways to address a certain problem or think about 10 things that are working well in your job or organization now.

2. Challenge assumptions consciously to refresh your thinking. You can think about an entirely different way of handling a certain situation. Let yourself experiment with different possibilities trying to find a better way than the current status quo that initially was considered to be the best or the only way possible.

3. Try to understand the market you are active on at a deeper level. Show empathy for your employees and your clients and try to understand their point of view. Actively listen to what your customers have to say, what problems they face, and what solution you can help them with. Change perspective and put yourself in the shoes of your stakeholders.

5. Practice paying attention to what is around you and mostly, practice recognizing creative ideas. Organize the space around you as creative as possible, both at work and at home. Start seeking inspiration outside your office, offer positive feedback to people showing creativity in their work and encourage them to continue to do so.