LEADERSHIP AND INNOVATION: TRAITS OF INNOVATIVE LEADERS Innovative Leaders today are Conductors, Problem-Solvers and Positive Influencers. Leadership is one of the most written about yet still mystical topics in management literature. The terms leadership and management are very often mixed up and corporate environments are too often dominated by bureaucratic management systems instead of empowering leaders. Yet leadership is essential for successful innovation since not just processes, methods and techniques are relevant but the key is the creation of the right environment. This has a far greater impact on the success of innovation projects than jumping on the next creativity technique to generate new ideas. The problem that large corporations face is not that their employees don’t have good ideas – the problem is that they are reluctant of sharing them because the environment doesn’t support them. Leaders for innovation projects should ensure that the environment allows the emergence of these ideas. The first step to better understand leadership is to understand the different types of leadership. A good innovation leader must be like a conductor leading the orchestra with a not yet completely written symphony. Creativity, openness for the new ideas, out of the box thinking and very strong capacity of a rapid integration and digestion of abundant information all come from various sources (technology, service, business, financials...). Also an innovative leader has a skill to extract and impart learning from any situation, successes as well as failures, humor, mainly self-humor. It’s also important that innovation leaders and innovators understand both the technology they are using to serve customers and the strategy of the business. It’s key to combine technology knowledge with business understanding. Innovative development team members exhibit qualities that make them better able to generate or discover good ideas, have the judgment to know what’s important, and have the leadership ability to deliver. The leaders in innovation today are problem-solvers, who have to create, manage, and exploit innovation networks and business eco-system. Leaders who can recognize innovative ideas, fight for resources and political cover, and connect ideas and teams together to deliver an innovative result are also critical to achieving innovation excellence. In order to select the right people to drive innovation projects, you must recognize that in today’s environment you’re no longer sourcing all the innovation inside your company. Innovation is a process that is cross functional and non-industry specific. It is, at its heart, a problem solving process - and as such you need to find someone who is able to network the firm to uncover the problems, to get problem owners on board with the innovation program, and then to devise the appropriate mix of processes, people, and tools to solve the problem and execute the solution. Innovations result from unique ways of looking at problems that produce original solutions. Another approach to innovation takes existing ideas and combines them into unique solutions. In retrospect, the outcome may seem obvious, yet is highly original. Like iPad is an example, combining iPod, iPhone, and iMac etc to create a breakthrough product. 1. Because research and innovation require long time frames, the pressure on business-unit leaders to produce near-term success often results in funds being shifted from innovative projects to product development and product extensions. 2. Large organizations that are heavily dependent on previous successes frequently squeeze out innovative ideas and the innovators who create them. Not infrequently, the most innovative ideas run into significant difficulties in their infancy and get killed or underfunded in favor of high-profitability development projects. Making things happen requires vision and leadership. As opposed to managers, who focus on task accomplishment, leaders strive to inspire action and innovation. They’re people who detest complacency and always try to tackle the status quo. Like Mr. Sunday Reuben Jnr. CEO/Principal Consultant with Brainstorm Leadership Academy, Nigeria, proves that Leaders who advance large ideas are usually gambling with the future. Inevitably, some ideas will fail, but the best leaders are not paralyzed by fear of what may go wrong... Brainstorm Associates have to commit the fundamental resources of people, time, money, and intellectual property. This sounds pretty elementary. But the fact is that many Research Organisations, Government Commission, companies etc under-invest in some or all of these areas. They often cite what appear to be good short-term reasons, especially given the security economic crisis of the past three years: “Brainstorm Associates dont have time to think too far into the future now because were just trying to survive the next four year. This isnt the right time to add more head count. We need to hold our spare cash in reserve in case things get even worse. And so, out of an excess of caution or the demands of more immediate priorities, Brainstorm Associates may end up limiting or delaying our innovation efforts from the start. Over time, as those fundamental resources erode, we fall behind on the new processes, Training, Learning/Consulting, products, and markets required for sustained growth. A failure to invest in new ideas contributed significantly to the present economic depressions and it can run individual organisation, companies or entire industries out of business today. Mr Sunday is focusing on why Brainstorm Associates take action, instead of what’s the action’s result, Brainstorm Associates are able to inspire and take lead both in leading in innovative leadership management, business computing and life science practices. He proves that most of people know what they do, but don’t know why. It’s the leader’s role to emphasize it and directly guide his staff towards common goals. With the right resources and attitude toward risk, the next step toward innovation involves changing how we think—individually and collectively as an organization. In facing the kind of new and complex challenges presented by todays economy, Brainstorm Associates often turn right away to traditional business thinking, with its heavy analytical emphasis on deep research, formulas, logical facts, and taking challenges apart piece by piece. This approach has its value. It also has its limits, the chief of which is that it often doesnt lead to radically new results. To overcome these pitfalls, organizations need innovative leaders at the top willing to sacrifice near-term financial results to support their innovators through success and failure. The characteristics of great innovative leaders are dramatically different from traditional business managers. Here are five essential qualities they must have to lead innovation: 1. Passion for innovation. Innovative leaders not only have to appreciate the benefits of innovation, they need a deep passion for innovations that benefit customers. Just approving funds for innovation is insufficient. Leaders must make innovation an essential part of the companys culture and growth strategy. 2. A long-term perspective. Most investors think three years is long-term, but that wont yield genuine innovation. Major innovations can change entire markets as the iPod and iTunes did, but they take time to perfect products and gain adoption by mainstream users. Leaders cannot stop and start innovation projects as if they were marketing expenses; they must support innovation regardless of the companys near-term prospects. 3. The courage to fail and learn from failure. The risks of innovation are well known, but many leaders arent willing to be associated with its failures. However, there is a great deal to be learned from why an innovation has failed, as this enhanced understanding can lead to the greatest breakthroughs. At Medtronic, our failures with implantable defibrillators in the 1980s led to far more sophisticated approaches to treating heart disease in the 1990s. 4. Deep engagement with the innovators. Innovative leaders must be highly engaged with their innovation teams: asking questions, probing for potential problems, and looking for ways to accelerate projects and broaden their impact. Thats what HPs founders Bill Hewlett and David Packard did by wandering around HPs labs and challenging innovators. 5. Willingness to tolerate mavericks and defend them from middle management. The best innovators are rule-breakers and mavericks who dont fit the corporate mold and are threatening to middle managers following more typical management approaches. Thats why innovative leaders must protect their mavericks projects, budgets, and careers rather than forcing them into traditional management positions. How can companies develop innovative leaders capable of ascending to top management? They need to identify these emerging leaders and then give them their most challenging projects, while protecting them from failures and organizational conflicts. A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified “creativity” as the top leadership skill needed in the future – how do leaders who are creative come up with brilliant ideas that fuel innovation and business success in the 21st Century? One of the things we know from research in forensic psychology is that if you ask any crowd of people whether creativity is a genetic endowment or if it’s something that’s learned, 90% will say it’s genetic. We believe we either have it or we don’t. Being creative does not just happen easily – most people view creativity and innovation as something special that other people are good at, but they don’t know how to do it themselves. Everyone knows the demand for creativity is high in business – so many people just say they are – as highlighted by many social media site’s recently when they defined it as one of the most overused words in job profiles on the site. a. Innovation leaders emerge from many functional backgrounds, to network into non-conventional connections, out of the teams discipline and usual networks; with the ability to irradiate inclusion. Successful innovation team leaders offer the ability to: a. Clarify the opportunity and articulate the vision b. Develop and manage the process of innovation c. Promote a healthy climate for innovation d. Inspire team members to create a portfolio of new ideas, concepts and scenarios (through exploratory thinking methods) e. Coach team members on innovation management practices and how to overcome the barriers to innovation The innovation leaders’ skills are varying. The first question is what type of innovation your companys seeking. You need different types of people for various innovation objectives (incremental, breakthrough, etc.) for different types of companies (solutions versus products, etc.). Aptitudes and skills will vary from front-end to back-end. Typically no one has them all and the first sign of a good innovation leader is he/she will recognize his/her limitations and build a team to compensate The desired skills may include: 1) A real capability to listen & integrate each functions inputs so that the projects get enriched & solid while progressing in its development 2) A deep understanding of key consumer/ customer insights. An excellent memory & courage not to forget those key findings when moving ahead in the execution when facing adversity 3) Communication to promote ideas: An effective leader needs a large and deep structure of soft skills like ability to communication, conflicts resolution, empowerment, motivational skills, control of criticism, etc. 4) Project and Program Management skills. so they may champion how new initiatives get framed and then expertly guide engineers/managers/ marketers through cross functional development and commercialization stage gates to produce real results in a timely manner that lead to the creation of new business value. 5) Facilitation skills to explore; promote and even translate new conversations to stakeholders at all levels that lead to new service/product programs 6) A high level social intelligence. Add in the elements of collaboration and social network experience. If youre doing this as a collaborative process (which any self-respecting innovation program should be nowadays), you need to to be able to build, maintain, and engage internal and external social networks to provide new sources of insights, experiences, and ideas that drive value for the company. As true innovative people have a certain drive and energy about them that you like to be around. They are always full of ideas and looking for ways to improve things. Keep in mind that they aren’t born as black belts in these mental traits…they’ve developed them over time. You can, too, by spotting weaknesses in each area and focusing on strengthening that mental trait. With just a little focused work on that trait everyday…say twenty minutes…and you will begin to achieve mastery in it. Most people stare straight ahead and look for the obvious. That can leave you open to missed opportunities, allowing competition to jump on them instead…or take advantage of weaknesses that you have. Great innovative leaders instead develop what is called peripheral vision. This is the ability to look not just ahead, but up and down the vertical you are working in and across into very different verticals. Here are some tips to help you do that: i. Try to find information that could change the way you do business or the way your industry does business. ii. Look past all of your current boundaries. iii. Create networks of people who are also looking out at the peripheral to help you scan for opportunities. These reciprocal relationships work best with people not in your industry. Let’s face it, traditional models of leadership are obscure. Naturalistic concepts of God given authority are no longer applicable. Outdated, functional models where the boss orders and employee delivers seem pretentious and childish. Autocratism works well in the army, whereas consensus and participation should be the goal of top business decision makers, for example board members. However it won’t work in a call center. One thing that I love about innovative thinkers and leaders is that they never give up. Even when they’ve failed or fallen to their lost point, they get back up and try again. They have faith in themselves to succeed and work hard with razor sharp focus on tasks. The downside is that sometimes they are the last ones to give up…even in the face of certain defeat. But for the most part, innovative leaders will stick with it until they win. i. Set time limit goals that will help stretch your normal level or risk and work. A good deadline will give you something to shoot for and motivate you to keep working even when you don’t feel like it. ii. Have someone hold you accountable to results. This could be a spouse or a good friend. This person should have the courage to tell you the truth. iii. Remind yourself that success takes a really long time, and each time you feel like things are working remind yourself that success could be just over the hill. True innovative leaders are people who are positive. In some cases they are near insane in their optimism, believing they and their team can do the impossible. They may seem crazy but these are the people who will create the billion dollar company or solve the most stubborn problem. In a lot of ways, you either have optimism or not. You may be a natural born pessimist, but that doesn’t mean you can’t become more positive with these techniques: a) Avoid bad news and negative opinions. Instead, focus on reading and watching about successful people. This includes people who’ve overcome huge odds whether it was physical, mental or financial. b) Challenge your pessimism. When you get cynical about a situation, try to look for the silver lining. Is there something you can take advantage of in that circumstance? c) Hang out with people who are optimistic and will hold you accountable when you are negative. Therefore as true innovative thinkers know that you are never going to get everyone on board all the time. It’s so rare, so you need to make sure it is safe for everyone to discuss issues and ideas out in the open, building trust with your peers, those below you and those above you. This minimal collaboration will lead to efficiency and spread of ideas. This is how you pull that off: a. Discover other people’s motives and goals, both professionally and personally. When you understand their agenda it is easier to coordinate. b. Confront difficult issues no matter how hard it may be or how uncomfortable you may make people. c. Make sure you know the risks behind your ideas in detail so you can share and explain to other people who you will need to depend upon to build your support. In perusing these projects reporting, I did not find a simple answer or recipe for leadership. As suspected, leadership is a part of all us at home, in our business, and our community. What was extremely beneficial to me was that reading through the various theories, and case studies, I was able to identify with many of these examples and situations. It had enriched me with an insight about myself and those I interact with. Frequently, after reading a paragraph, I would relate a particular situation or method to a behavior that I or someone I know was engaged in. It is that very awareness of both my personal and other peoples behaviors that makes leadership possible. I am the first to admit that learning about all these approaches to leadership does not automatically make one a good leader, but they give a tremendous insight and the possibility to become a better one. Though Mr. Sunday Reuben Jnr. has already proves that Leadership is a process to change or create something from what otherwise would be chaos. It must be highly flexible and demands awareness, skills, and sensitivity. It is highly dependent on situations. Leadership is being human. Now going back to the main point, In my view, the combination of the majority of these approaches and theories is the true leadership theory. They are all equally eye opening for everyone in the organization. Like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. helped the civil rights movement because he wasn’t afraid of voicing the opinions of those who were too afraid to speak. Regardless of the size of the group, be it a large community or a small team, they both require outspoken leadership and the attitude to follow and accomplish the common goal. All I’m saying is simply this, which all life is interrelated, that somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality. —Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. People who constantly are questioning things tend to be really good at other mental traits — like observing, recognizing patterns and experimenting. Of course if you used nothing but conventional thinking then you would never rock the boat or risk anything…but you would never score the ultimate killer product. Instead, you lose your competitive edge, if you ever had one. Innovative leaders question everything. And to develop this certain skill, you have to do this: a. Instead of looking at surface problems, try to figure out what is the root cause of that problem. You are more likely to uncover a profitable solution that way than the other way. b. Challenge established and popular mindsets and beliefs. This includes your own! c. Do not stand for hypocrisy or manipulation in your organization, especially when it is related to the creativity and execution of ideas. Note here that, true innovative thinkers will land upon a project and see it to it’s completion. They may have dozens of ideas in their head or paper, but there are single-minded about one or two specific projects. To do this mental trait well, you need to: i. Count the cost carefully before you jump into any new project. This may be as simple as writing down pros and cons. I’ve found that the act of writing an idea down will sometimes help me to dismiss it immediately so I can move on to more productive things. ii. Be comfortable when you don’t have complete information in some situations and make a decision. Whether they are naturally outgoing or not, innovative thinkers tend to be really good about meeting people, especially those they have little in common with. They see the value in knowing lots of people with different backgrounds and experiences. It’s like they view that network as their extended brain and creativity power that they can tap into any time. If you want to make this mental trait more effective, do this: 1. Join different clubs and association in your local area. And don’t forget that they don’t have to be all related to your business. You can join a science fiction book club or a rock climbing gym. Both of these will expose you to different people who you wouldn’t normally meet. 2. Join social media and use it. Just as I like to connect with people on facebook and then follow up with a reason why I wanted to connect with them. Leaders have different roles to accomplish. On becoming a leader” Brainstorm Associates showcase that the differences of leaders and managers as follows: a. The manager has eye always on the bottom line; the leader has his eye on the horizon. b. The manager imitates; the leader originates. c. The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it. d. The manager is the classic good soldier; the leader is his own person. e. The manager does things right; the leader does the right things. f. The manager administers; the leader innovates. g. The manager is a copy; the leader is an original. h. The manager maintains; the leader develops. i. The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses on people. j. The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust. k. The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective. l. The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why. Pay attention here that these roles are: 1) Innovator Role: The innovator is creative and inhibitions, encourages, and facilitates change. 2) Broker Role: The broker is politically astute, ex-virus resources and maintains the units external legitimacy through the development, scanning, and maintenance of a network of external contacts. 3) Producer Role: The producer is the task — oriented, work — focused role. The producer seeks closure, and motivates those behaviors that will result in the completion of the groups task. 4) Director Role: The director engages in goalsetting and role clarification, sets objectives, and establishes clear expectations. 5) Coordinator Role: The courting Nader maintained structure, does to scheduling, coordinating, and problem solving, and sees the rules and standards are met. 6) Monitor Role: The Molitor collects and distributes information, checks on performance, and provides a sense of continuity and stability. 7) Facilitator Role: The facilitator encourages the expression of opinions, seeks consensus, and negotiates compromise. 8) Mentor Role: The mentor is aware of individual needs, listens actively, a sphere, supports the to be made requests, and attempts to facilitate the development of individuals. Looking at this will it becomes obvious which kind of leadership style is supportive for innovation, change and empowerment off employees. Let’s dive a little bit deeper with another framework for leadership functions. Another approach to better understand the different types of leadership is to focus on the functions that leaders provide. Pearce et al. analyzed scientific literature and identified four types of leadership: 1. Directive leadership 2. Transactional leadership 3. 3. transformational leadership and 4. 4. empowering leadership For each of these leadership types they have identified typical functions that are aligned with it: a. Directive leadership its function is to organizing, Problem solving, Clarifying roles and objectives, Informing and Monitoring. b. Transactional leadership its function is to Recognizing and Rewarding c. Transformational leadership its function is to Planning, Motivating and inspiring/Networking d. Empowering leadership Consulting its function is to Delegating, Supporting, Developing and mentoring, Managing conflict and teambuilding Hereto, it should be clear that leadership can be defined in many different ways. As you read about theories and research on leadership in later sections, you will recognize that the theorists and researchers each had his/her own definitions of leadership, and that they focus on somewhat different aspects of the job requirements of a leader. An example of a theory that is not covered in the upcoming sections, but is worth noting is the decision tree approach. Brainstorm Associates decision approach with the ongoing Leadership in Community Development Project 2014 continue to focus entirely on whether leader chooses to make a decision on his/her own or if the group should be involved in the decision. In this approach, you ask a series of yes/no questions and based on the response to each to each branch, the decision tree takes you to the next question or to a final decision. The questions of the decision tree involve whether the leader has the information necessary to make the decision, whether the decision has quality requirements, whether the followers have the information necessary, whether they are likely to accept the decision if the leader makes it alone, and so forth. The process is designed to help the leader make or delegate the decision. This approach clearly focuses on one aspect of leadership (decision making) This is an example of a contingency theory of leadership One distinction to keep in mind while reading the material is the difference between emergent and assigned leadership. Many of the approaches and theories set forth deal with emergent leadership and few of them talk about the assigned leadership roles. Brainstorm Associates e-discovery on taxonomies of leadership styles had help Brainstorm Associates to understand which type of leadership is supportive for innovation. A flexible, internal oriented, empowering leadership style is necessary to help innovation teams achieve high performance where as a monitoring, controlling stability oriented leadership style will limit the emergence of breakthrough ideas. Nevertheless concluding that externally focused, controlling leadership styles are useless would be superficial. A corporation is not just made up of departments delivering innovation but also of operations departments that staffed with managers who ensure that the corporation and administration keeps working. And there are enough projects in an organization that require a rigorous control and analysis as well as strategic projects that require externally oriented directors that present an organizations interest. Yet when you are aiming for innovation, when you are aiming to develop breakthrough products and services you will not succeed but creating a tighter controlled environment with more milestones and better reporting and a leader who wants to make decisions by himself. Empowering employees, facilitating idea creation and experimentation as well as individual development of employees are necessary to lead an innovation team towards success. With these frameworks in mind it becomes easier to understand why it might be hard for managers in an organization to create innovative environments but it will also help to understand which group of managers can act as leaders for innovation projects and which group of managers is better in managing operational aspects within an organization. FOOT NOTE: There are many common leadership qualities or skills shared between a good Innovation leader and any good leader or any creative team member. However, being innovative leaders take more courage, creativity, collaboration and concentration. An innovation leader must walk the tight rope between diplomat and maverick. On one hand, he/she will get faster results by respecting people, getting the best effort from the people. Listening and orchestrating as fast as possible. On the other hand, to deliver the innovation on time, he/she must be willing to take risks, and jump through some hoops. Knowing that success will reward and failure will punish. You cannot make omelets without breaking some eggs. Walking that tight rope, makes the innovation leader a likable acrobat; a true artist; in short, an Innovation Leader. Innovation is about people; the leaders who champion, defend, drive and help to develop and organization’s innovation capability are special people indeed. However, their traits can be acquired; none were born exceptional innovation leaders, rather, many have adjusted their skills, communication styles, work disciplines and cognitive capacity to get to where they are today. Here are the DNA of Innovative Leaders: 1 Self-awareness: successful innovation leaders have an above-average awareness of their strengths or weaknesses, and thus how to build teams, processes and agendas to get the most done in complex large organizations 2 Eclectic experience: it may sound hackneyed, but these are Renaissance women and men. MBAs are optional. Many have enjoyed numerous seemingly disparate career facets, only to learn that their point of view or perspective can embrace many situations or many types of people. This might be called extreme common sense or super context. 3 Mission-driven: often confused with provocateurs who seek change for its own sake, successful Innovation Leaders share a deep understanding of the organization’s strategic thrust. They latch all initiatives or projects onto the strategic pulse of the business, to ensure relevancy, funding and valued outcomes. 4 Synthesizing: on a cognitive level, successful innovation leaders have developed (not necessarily born with) the analytical capacity to extract trends and patterns from many requirements, trends, ideas and outcomes. This ability to see the Forest AND the Trees is extremely important for prioritization, setting directions, and often killing projects with speed when they no longer are capable of delivering on the organization’s strategy. 5 Story telling: it may not always seem like a story is being told, but the communication style of successful innovation leaders helps associates, partners, management and colleagues to understand why innovation change is imperative, how it will or has been achieved, the risks and benefits, and the roles of all stakeholders in making progress. For many, this can be a difficult capability to develop without considerable practice. 6 Business case ready: successful innovation leaders rarely assume funding will be assured, resources or staffing will be granted, or that the organization understand or values the outcomes generated. Instead, these women and men relentlessly make the case for projects and initiatives with a keen eye towards jobs to be done, risks to be managed, results to be achieved, all in an easy to understand style that aligns with the organization’s strategy and value metrics. Therefore, the effective innovation leaders should well mix the soft leadership qualities and hard business/technology expertise, with strong focus, perseverance and capabilities of doing the opposite of the crowd with confidence! SOURCES: M. G Nelson- Social Media Consultant at Sunstar e-Vision Project Development Centre
Posted on: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 23:54:27 +0000