Understanding the Skills of the Innovative Leader

Introduction What is innovation? For businesses, this may mean renewing, changing, creating more effective processes or implementing new ideas, products or services. Being innovative does not mean you have to invent a new product that will revolutionize the way the world works. Innovation could be nothing more than a business changing their business model to adapt to an ever changing and growing market to provide a better product or service. Why is innovation important? Innovation is a key element in an organizations ability to improve and grow their business. The old adage of “larger companies are eating the smaller” no longer applies in today’s technological society. Today’s adage would be more like the “faster passing the slower”. Technology is advancing and is advancing rapidly. For example, the Internet, once only accessible from your home or work computer, is now available through the creation of mobile technologies such as smart phones and tablets. With this technology, more and more firms are turning to these apps to enhance the way customers interact with their products and services and even boost their bottom lines. Between documenting expenses and processing credit cards from just about anywhere in the world; smartphone applications have changed the way many businesses operate. For many organizations, structuring, managing and measuring innovation can be one of the firm’s greatest challenges. So how do companies encourage innovative behavior? “Think of innovation as the sequential process of 1) identifying problems, needs, or opportunities; 2) generating ideas to address selected problems, needs, or opportunities; 3) moving the best ideas to completion; and 4) generating value from those ideas. While the sequence or steps may sometimes differ, innovation always involves the generation of an idea and the shepherding of that idea into successful usage” (Link 2013). To put innovation in perspective, companies in today’s business environment that do

References: Doyle, M. E., & Smith, M. K. (2001). Classical leadership. Retrieved from http://www.infed.org/leadership/traditional_leadership.htm. Dyer, J. H., Gregersen, H. B., & Christensen, C. M. (2011). The Innovator 's DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing. Hitt, M., Haynes, K., Serpa, R. (2010). Strategic Leadership for the 21st Century. Business Horizon, 53(5), 437-444. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com.library.capella.edu/science/article/pii/S0007681310000662 Link, J. (2013, March) Idea-Links - The New Creativity, Creativity vs. Innovation: Yes, there is a difference. Retrieved from http://thenewcreativity.com/creativity-vs-innovation-yes-there-is-a-difference/#sthash.toR65rtf.dpuf Nayar, V. (2010). A maverick CEO explains how he persuaded his team to leap into the future. Harvard Business Review, 88(6), 110–11. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.library.capella.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=56c2bd7a-67e6-4106-b913-32afe6a2abca%40sessionmgr113&vid=5&hid=120