COURSE FILE

Innovative Leadership
Bukidnon State University-Alubijid Campus
F.C. Paurom

Innovative Leadership Description

As a Philosophy, innovative leadership consists of techniques that combine different leadership
styles to influence employees to produce creative ideas, products, and services. The key role in
the practice of innovation leadership is the innovation leader (Gliddon, 2006). The author
developed the competency model of innovation leaders and established the concept of innovation
leadership. As an approach to organization development, innovation leadership can support
achievement of the mission or the vision of an organization or group. With new technologies and
processes, it is necessary for organizations to think innovatively to ensure continued success and
stay competitive (Dess, GG; Picken, JC, 2000; McEntire, LE; Greene-Shortridge, M, 2011;
Sarros, JC; Cooper, BK; Santora, JC, 2008; Shipton, H; Fay, D; West, M; Patterson, ans Bird,
2008; Tyshman, M; O Reilly C, 1996) to adapt to new changes, “The need for innovation in
organizations has resulted in a new focus on the role of leaders in shaping the nature and success
of creative efforts (Mumford and Licuanan, 2004). Without innovation leadership, organizations
are likely to struggle (McEntire, L. E., Greene-Shortridge, T. M., 2011).  This new call for
innovation represents the shift from the 20th century, traditional view of organizational practices,
which discouraged employee innovative behaviors, to the 21st-century view of valuing
innovative thinking as a “potentially powerful influence on organizational performance”
(Mumford, M. D., Scott, G. M., Gaddis, B., & Strange, J. M. (2002).
In order that an organization can innovate, various factors are required: a certain culture shared
by all employees, a process that makes it easier and a strategy to guide and prioritize the use of
resources. The most recommended way to get t is to have a leadership that promotes by itself  the
style, culture, and necessary efforts to align resources and strategies. A winning strategy is about
driving innovation from the top of the organization. This self-learning module shows what
leaders should do to create the change that is always implicit in innovation, stimulate enthusiasm
in the organization to do new and challenging things that help them to go further ahead and to
make this philosophy reach the whole organization.

Learning Objectives:
 To know what is the organization leaders’ role in order to promote a different way of doing
business
 To understand the importance of inspiring innovation from the top
 To identify the key skills to be an innovative leader
 The objectives planned for this training module are to learn the different known practices to
develop leadership that really inspires confidence and commitment throughout  the whole
organization for a so strategic task nowadays  as it is innovation
 The following competencies for Innovation leadership will be developed:
o To communicate the importance of innovation to the rest of the organization 
o To show commitment to the natural barriers to innovation
o To challenge established conventions
o To inspire through leadership

Course Content

Week Topic Coverage Modality

Week 1- 2 Innovative Leadership Philosophy: F2F/Virtual
 Types of Innovation and leadership
Week 3-5 Foundation of Innovative Leadership F2F/Virtual
 Path-goal theory
 Leader-member exchange theory
 Innovative Organizational Culture
 Other theories/models
Week 6-8 Organizational Impediments to Creativity F2F/Virtual
 Creative Work
 Creative Workforce
Week 9 Midterm Examination
Week 10 -12 Leadership Attributes/Characteristics F2F/Virtual
 Types of innovative leadership
 Key activities of innovative leadership
 Innovative leadership and Influence
Week 13-16 Models for Innovative Leadership F2F/Virtual
Week 17 Paradoxes of Innovative leadership F2F/Virtual
 Internal/localized
 Dual expertise paradox
 Generation Evaluation Paradox etc. F2F/Virtual
Final Examination

To have a clear understanding of what innovation leadership involves, one must first understand
the concept of innovation. Although there is some controversy over how it can be defined,
through general consensus in the literature, it can be described as novel ideas of viable products
that are put into operation (Benner, M. J., & Tushman, M. L. (2003). It includes three different
stages, which are all dynamic and iterative (constant):

1. Idea Generation
 2. Evaluation
3. Implementation
The two types of innovation include exploratory innovation, which involves generating brand
new ideas, and value-added innovation, which involves modifying and improving ideas that
already exist (Benner and Tushman, 2003; Jansen et al, 2006; March, 1991; Jansen, et al, 2009).
Ideas generated must be useful to be considered innovative. Innovation should also not be
confused with creativity, which is merely the generation of a novel idea that may not necessarily
be put into operation—though these words are sometimes used interchangeably in research
literature when speaking about innovation leadership. Innovation leadership is a complex
concept, as there is no single explanation or formula for a leader to follow to increase innovation.
As a result, innovation leadership encompasses a variety of different activities, actions, and
behaviors that interact to produce an innovative outcome.
Value-added Innovation
Exploratory and value-added innovation require different leadership styles and behaviors to
succeed (Oke et al, 2009). Value-added innovation (PwC, 2010) involves refining and revising
an existing product or service and typically requires minimal risk taking (compared to
exploratory innovation, which often involves taking a large risk); in this case, it is most
appropriate for a leader for innovation to adopt a transactional form of leadership (Jansen et al.,
2006; He, and Wong, 2004). [15] This is because a transactional leadership style does not use
open leadership behaviors such as encouraging employees to experiment and take risks, but
rather uses closed leadership behaviors that do not condone or reward risk-taking. Companies
whose innovation leaders use transactional leadership for value-added innovation purposes
include Toyota Motor Co., General Motors Corp., and Ford Motor Co. examples of these
companies’ value-added innovations such as making improvements on existing cars by making
them faster, more comfortable, and getting better gas mileage.
Occasionally a value-added innovation may require a completely new way of thinking and
possibly taking new risks. An example of this scenario can be illustrated through Aspirin; this
was an existing product, traditionally used as an analgesic to alleviate aches and pains, but has
been introduced into a new and different market by extending its uses to help prevent heart attack
and reduce blood clot formation. In this example, the usage of an existing product was re-worked
and introduced into a new market. While an existing product is being changed and/or improved
upon, characterizing it as a value-added innovation, outside-the-box thinking, research, and risk-
taking are now required since it is being introduced into a new market. In this case,
a transformational leadership style is a more appropriate style to use.
The innovation leader must gauge if (and how much) risk and radical thinking are involved in the
value-added innovation to determine which leadership style to use in a situation. The leader must
be flexible—able to switch leadership behaviors when necessary.
Exploratory Innovation
Exploratory innovation refers to the generation of novel ideas, strategies, and solutions through
the use of strictly open behaviors exhibited most often by transformational leaders. The
foundation of exploratory innovation is characterized by search, discovery, experimentation, and
risk taking. It is the organization's focus on generating new ideas, products and strategies; in
contrast to exploitative innovation, which focuses on building and extending already existing
ideas. Some studies have shown that explorative and exploitative innovation require different
structures, strategies, processes, capabilities, and cultures (Oke, 2002).  See Innovative
Organizational Climate/Culture. Exploratory innovation requires flexibility, opportunism,
adaptability, and for leaders to provide intellectual stimulation to their subordinates (Jansen et al,
2006). In this approach to innovation, the leadership style that is primarily used is
transformational. The behaviors exhibited are believed to achieve the desired creative outcome
from employees through the application of individualized consideration, charisma, and
inspirational motivation.
For example, in one study of the innovation practices at AXA Insurance in Ireland, the CEO
John O’Neil engaged in transformational leadership behaviors and introduced the “MadHouse”
program that combined workers from different departments and levels of the organization to
work together in a creative way. The result of this experiment after six months was 150 new
business ideas for products and services`(Wolfe, 1994). Explorative and Value-added innovation
are often referenced together, but surprisingly little research shows an interaction between the
two. However, there is an understanding that in some circumstances a ‘balance’ must be attained
to achieve superior employee performance (Tushman and O’Reilly, 1996.). For example, not all
novel ideas are implemented, and may be resurrected later. The organization may need to switch
gears and adopt exploitative strategies to revise and refine the idea to match present needs.

Foundations of Innovation Leadership

Innovation leadership has roots in path-goal theory and leader-member exchange theory. Certain
elements within an organization are also needed for innovation leadership to succeed. Wolfe
(1994),[18] as cited by Sarros, Cooper, & Santora, (2008) has pointed out that one antecedent
factor for innovation is organizational culture. Likewise, Isaksen, Laver, Ekvail & Britz
(2001) concur that innovative endeavors fail without a supportive climate. This antecedent of a
supportive organizational culture/climate encompasses encouragement of creativity, autonomy,
resources, and pressures. Additional foundational elements for innovation leadership include
creative work, a creative workforce, and certain leader attributes (Mumford et al, 2002).
Roots in Path-Goal Theory
The basis of path-goal theory uses a similar view of leadership, in that it advocates different
types of leadership (e.g., participative, supportive) behaviors, much like innovation leadership
does. However, it is contingent on employee and environmental factor to be effective (Evans,
1996; Basu and Green, 1997).  The idea of a single leader using different leadership behaviors
originated in path-goal theory, and has been associated with the framework underlying
innovation leadership, which also allows the creation of a work environment conducive to
innovative thinking—which is the cognitive process of generating novel and useful ideas.
Creating this type of work environment through innovation leadership involves open leadership
behaviors that resemble some leader behaviors proposed by Path-goal theory—for example,
upward influence and supportive/considerate behaviors (Evans, 1996). In innovation leadership,
these behaviors encourage the creative team to generate as many novel ideas as possible and lead
to evaluation and implementation of these ideas (Jansen, 2006).
Roots in Leader-Member Exchange Theory
Leader-member exchange theory (LMX theory) is another one of the building blocks of
innovation leadership. It follows the same idea as Path-goal theory and innovation leadership,
that multiple leadership styles are necessary in managing multiple subordinates but takes it a step
further. LMX involves adopting a unique leadership style for each employee. Past studies
indicate that LMX theory has been shown to have an effect on innovation. (Tierney et al., 1999).
Studies have also shown that leader-member exchange relationships can predict significant
organizational and attitudinal variables including higher job satisfaction and higher job
performance.
Basu and Green (1997) found that innovative behavior is related to the quality of the leader-
member exchange where high quality exchanges include contributions from both the leader and
the follower. However, in a study by Jean Lee (2008), only the loyalty aspect of LMX (LMXL)
was shown to be related to innovativeness. Leadership styles, transformational (positively
related) and transactional (negatively related), were found to have an effect on innovativeness.
Innovative Organizational Culture/Climate
Some studies have shown evidence of organizational culture as the mediator of the relationship
between transformational leadership and organizational innovation [25][26][27][28][29] and performance
(Xenikou and Simosi, 2006; Parnes and Noller, 1972). In other words, for transformational
leadership to affect organizational innovation, an organization must have a strong innovative
culture in addition to a leader with a transformational leadership style.
Organizational culture refers to an organization's deep structure, normative beliefs, and shared
behavioral expectations. This culture is fairly constant and can influence inter-organizational
relations. Climate refers to the way that individuals perceive the extent to which the
organizational culture impacts them. The two essentially are interrelated. One proposed model
for assessing a creative environment in organizations includes the following dimensions
(Deshpande et al., 1993).
Encouragement of Creativity
Encouragement of creativity is the most frequently mentioned dimension in the literature. It
operates at three major levels, each level containing multiple aspects. Conceptual Model
Underlying Assessment of Perceptions of the Work Environment for Creativity (Deshpande, et
al, 1993).
Organizational Encouragement
The first level is Organizational Encouragement. This involves encouragement of risk-taking and
idea generation from all levels of management, fair and supportive evaluation of new ideas,
recognition and reward of creativity, and collaborative idea flow across an organization. Each of
these are equally important aspects of organizational encouragement but the third aspect,
recognition and reward of creativity, may have adverse effects if the sole purpose for engaging in
an activity is to gain reward.
Supervisory Encouragement
The second level, Supervisory Encouragement, highlights the roles of supervisors and project
managers in goal clarity, open interaction between supervisors and subordinates, and supervisory
support of a team's work and ideas. This level of encouragement points to the concepts of
transformational leadership and LMX that emphasise the importance of the interactions of
supervisors and subordinates in innovative performance.
Work Group Encouragement
The third level of encouragement is Work Group Encouragement. Diversity in team members’
backgrounds and openness to ideas affects creativity because individuals are exposed to a variety
of novel and unusual ideas and such exposure had been demonstrated to have a positive effect on
creative thinking (Kimberley, 1981).
Autonomy
Autonomy is believed to foster creativity since studies have revealed that individuals produce
more creative work and experience increased intrinsic motivation when they have a sense of
control and ownership over their work and ideas and they perceive themselves as having a choice
in how their goals are accomplished, whether those goals are given to them by their supervisor or
chosen by themselves.
Resources
Resources have been suggested to be directly related to creativity in organizations. Individuals’
perceptions of the availability of resources may lead to increased beliefs of the likelihood that the
ideas they generate have a possibility of reaching the implementation stage.
Pressures
The little evidence that exists on the dimension of pressure suggests somewhat paradoxical
influences. Some degree of pressure could have a positive effect if the pressure originates from
the challenging and intellectual nature of the task itself, increasing intrinsic motivation.
However, if the pressure experienced is perceived extreme it could counteract creativity.
Amabile et al. (1996)  identify two forms of pressure: excessive workload pressure and
challenge. They suggest that the first should have a negative influence on creativity while the
second should have a positive one.
Organizational Impediments to Creativity
Although there has been little research on the work of environment factors that undermine
creativity, some research suggests that these impediments include internal strife, conservatism,
and rigid, formal management structures within organizations (Kimberley and Evanisko, 1981;
Besemer and O’Quin, 1999).). This dimension is seen as working against autonomy and tends to
have an inverse effect as individuals may perceive a more controlling environment (Deshpande
et a., 1993).
Creative Work
Creative work can occur at any job but more specifically it can occur in jobs where there are
complicated, ill-defined problems requiring innovative solutions (Ford, 2000; Mumford and
Gustafson, 1988; Ward et al., 1999; Collins and Amabile, 1999). The fact that the creative
problems are ill-defined makes the creative work uncertain, and it may involve risky efforts
(Mumford et la., 2002). It is also resource intensive, demanding, and time consuming work
(Mumford et al, 2002).  requiring high levels of motivation  (Pelz, and Andrews, 1966) and often
requires collaboration (Cagliano et al, 2000; Dunbar, 1995; Vincent et al., 2002). This type of
work must also involve both novel idea generation and novel idea implementation (Rostan, 1998
and requires expertise on the part of the workforce (Mumford et al, 2002).
Creative Workforce
A creative workforce is needed for innovation leadership to be successful. Creative people have
expertise on the subject requiring innovation and tend to use work as a source of identity.
[45]
 Because of this, they are powerfully intrinsically motivated by professional achievement
opportunities and recognition. Creative workers are also commonly characterized as highly
valuing their autonomy; additional dispositional attributes include openness, flexibility, cognitive
complexity, self-confidence, dominance, and introversion (Fiest and Gorman, 1998). The
patterns of characteristics creative workers exhibit typically allow them to confidently explore
alternative ideas under ambiguous conditions (Fiest, and Gorman, 1998).
Leader Attributes/Characteristics
Successful innovation leadership requires a leader with certain characteristics. These include
expertise in the domain, creativity, ability to carry out transformational leadership behaviors,
planning and sense-making, and social skills (mumford et al, 2008). Innovative leaders can be
recruited and hired through professional networks and referrals or alternatively found through
succession planning, which involves identifying innovative leaders who are already working
within the organization (McEntire and Greene-Shortridge, 2021).

Types of Innovation Leadership Styles

In addition to these foundations, various styles play an important role in innovation leadership,
each of which are used at different stages of the innovation process or for different types of
innovation (value-added vs. exploratory). Frequently associated leadership styles
include transformational leadership (Jansen et al, 2006; Wolfe, 1994). transactional Leadership
(Oke et al., 2009) and ambidextrous leadership (Jansen et al, 2006). The type of leadership most
strongly associated with innovation is transformational leadership (Jansen et al., 2006)

Key Activities of Innovation Leadership

Idea Generation

As mentioned above, different leadership styles and behaviors may be more appropriate at
different stages of the innovation process. Current research supports the notion that in the idea
generation process, innovation leadership requires a leader to use a more transformational style
of leadership (Vise and Malseed, 2005). During this stage, a leader needs to promote a safe
environment for employees/team members to voice novel ideas and original thinking as well as
provide workers with the resources to do so effectively (Hunter and Cushenbery, 2011).
Research has also found that leaders who engage in unconventional behaviors, associated with
transformational leadership, were seen as stronger role models and, as a result, increase creative
performance in their subordinates. For example, the founders of Google have been known to
wear capes and jump-shoes around the office (Finke et al., 1992 ; Hunter, et al (2011). thus
inspiring more outside-the-box thinking in their employees. These open leadership behaviors
convey that unorthodox and unconventional ideas and behaviors are not only accepted but also
encouraged.
Idea Evaluation and Implementation
In addition to providing a climate for idea generation, innovation leadership also requires leaders
to ensure that the process of idea generation does not overshadow the evaluation and
implementation processes. During these phases of leadership, leaders must support some ideas
while discarding other ideas and put the supported ideas into production. The role of the leader
must shift away from a transformational style to a more transactional style of leadership, which
involves being more direct and critical toward the ideas generated. A leader now needs to ensure
that constructive discussions of innovative ideas are taking place among their subordinates. This
serves to evaluate the usefulness of each idea, eliminate those that do not appear viable to the
organization or goal, and push the ones that do appear viable into the production phase. The
leader must adopt what are known as closed leadership behaviors to achieve this. Instead of
stimulating idea generation, the leader must shift focus from generating new ideas toward fine-
tuning existing ideas to achieve progress toward the goal, and ultimately implement the idea.
This challenge of balancing differing leadership styles when appropriate is called the generator
evaluator paradox. It is important to consider the role of ambidextrous leadership, since a leader
must be able to switch between leadership roles and styles when necessary to successfully lead
for innovation. Paradoxes of innovation leadership are discussed below.

Innovation Leadership and Influence

Depending on the type of leadership style that is adopted by the innovation leader, the leader
may have either a direct or indirect influence on your employees.
Direct Influences
Direct forms of influence in leading innovation include:

 Providing creative input and idea suggestion to employees

 Providing employees with clear and concrete goals
 Allocating organizational resources (i.e. research and development spending; manpower) for
implementing ideas
Indirect Influences
Indirect influences get the same results without providing explicit guidance to employees. These
types of influences include:

 Establishing a supportive climate for creativity within the organization

 Acting as a role model for innovative thinking
 Providing employees with rewards and recognition for innovative thinking
 Hiring and team composition (i.e. putting together teams with specific skill sets needed for
innovative thinking, or hiring employees with creative personalities without planning what
they work on).

Proposed Model for Innovation Leadership

A proposed model for innovation leadership has been a multilevel process model of innovation
(Hunter and Cushenbery, 2011) which uses the direct and indirect leadership on the processes of
innovation mentioned in the above section to promote the innovation process. In the model,
indirect leadership influences affect the individual creativity (generation phase) and team
creativity (evaluation phase) process. Direct leadership influences affect the team creativity
(evaluation phase) process and the organizational innovation process (implementation phase).
The individual creativity (generation phase) box in the model represents the process of the
individual generating the initial idea or ideas and proposing them to their team. The team
creativity (evaluation phase) box represents the process of the team taking that idea, making
alterations and fine-tuning it to the point of making prototypes, formalized sketches, or
simulations. The organizational innovation (implementation) box represents taking
those prototypes, sketches, or simulations and testing, evaluating, and possibly mass-producing
them.
Figure 1. Model of direct and indirect leadership influences on the process of innovation [9]
Two very important key features of this model should be mentioned:

1. The three stages of innovation (idea generation, evaluation, and implementation) are not
independent of one another.
2. The stages in the model should not be viewed in a “lock-step fashion,” meaning that there
are both backward and forward influences and activities affecting each of the three
stages. For example, ideas are generated, discussed, and tested only to feed information
back into the system, starting the process from the beginning again. [55] The forward and
backward arrows between individual creativity and team creativity, the forward and
backward arrows between team creativity and organizational innovation, as well as the
arrow from organizational innovation to individual creativity visually represent this key
feature.

Paradoxes of Innovation Leadership

Innovation leadership is complex, as can be seen from the model (Hunter and Cushenbery,
2011) and often paradoxes emerge that require leaders to strike a delicate balance between two
conflicting roles (e.g. encouraging innovative ideas vs. limiting innovative ideas to include only
those that are most viable and useful to the organization). A balance must be struck, not only
within the leader and their behaviors, but between conflicting interests of involved parties as
well. These include conflicting interests between the leader and the employees/teams, between
leaders and situational/contextual factors, and between the employees/teams and the
organization. Critical potential paradoxes that are often faced by leaders of innovation have been
provided by Hunter, Thoroughgood, Meyer, & Ligon (2011).
Internal/Localized Paradox
Internal/Localized paradoxes entail conflicting roles experienced within the leader.
Dual Expertise Paradox
The Dual Expertise Paradox postulates that a leader must have or acquire domain expertise while
at the same time obtaining the necessary leadership skills to manage his/her employees and
resources.
Generation Evaluation Paradox
The Generation Evaluation Paradox stipulates that a leader must encourage a supportive climate
for the generation of new ideas and thinking outside-the-box while evaluating these ideas and
realizing that not all creative ideas are useful and many may even fail (while not being too
critical and negative of those ideas).
Team-level Paradox
Team-level paradoxes entail conflicting interests between the leader and the employees/teams
Creative Personality Cohesion Paradox

Creative Personality Cohesion Paradox is based on the research finding that creative workers
generally highly value autonomy (Fiest and Gorman, 1998; Chen et al, 2012) and, as a result,
often prefer to work alone. This paradox illustrates the difficulty leaders have in providing their
employees with the autonomy they must be creative, while fostering team cohesion (or
closeness) to facilitate idea sharing. A leader must also be careful not to encourage too much
cohesion, as it may discourage group members from disagreeing (even constructively
disagreeing) with fellow group members in an effort not to offend them or “rock the boat.”
Vision Autonomy Paradox
The Vision Autonomy Paradox highlights the dilemma a leader faces between providing
structure and guidance to a team with respect to the vision of the goal, while at the same time
stepping back and providing the team with enough autonomy, especially considering the fact that
creative workers highly value autonomy. When leading for innovation, providing an
overabundance of structure may result in a backlash from employees who feel their autonomy is
being taken away from them.
Restriction Freedom Paradox
The Restriction Freedom Paradox underscores that innovation leaders need to allow employees
enough time to develop creative endeavors and provide the resources to do so. At the same time
the leader must take care to provide enough pressure that they are still motivated to complete the
task  (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997; Amabile, 2005; Mumford and Hunter, 1997) and not provide too
many resources that it has a “deadening effect” on creativity (Shalley and Oldham, 1997).
Situational Paradox
Situational Paradoxes entail conflicting interests between leaders and the situations they face.
Intrinsic Extrinsic Paradox
The Intrinsic Extrinsic Paradox holds that instead of providing more readily available extrinsic
motivation tools such as bonuses and salary increases, leaders must provide intrinsic motivation,
which generally comes from within the employee, to their employees. This paradox is based on
findings that intrinsic motivation is a key factor in facilitating creativity (Amabile, 1985);
Kruglanski et al, 1971) and extrinsic motivators may either hinder creativity (Baer et al.,2003;
Mumford and Hunter, 2005) or have an unclear relationship with creativity (Kanter et al, 1997;
Thorton, 2010).).
Local Long-Term Paradox
The Local Long-Term Paradox posits that leaders of innovation must maintain their innovative
edge by keeping an eye out for and capitalizing on potential opportunities, even at the risk of
placing those ideas above or even eliminating ideas that he or she had previously inspired in their
teams. The leader must also be capable of developing teams that are flexible enough to be
passionate about ideas that may have replaced their own idea that was facilitated, inspired, and
supported by their leader. This is where the paradox is most clearly visible (Csikszentmihalyi,
1997).
Competition Collaboration Paradox
The competition collaboration paradox involves a leader developing open external relationships
with other organizations to discover potential innovation opportunities, while ensuring the
organization's emerging ideas are protected in a competitive environment.
Feedback Rigidity Paradox
The feedback rigidity paradox involves leaders seeking out and using customer and client advice
and feedback towards innovative endeavors to a certain extent, while maintaining control of the
vision and not letting the feedback dictate to them—as clients and customers often criticize
innovations early on.
Failure Success Paradox
The Failure Success Paradox is the idea that innovation leaders must ensure a safe organizational
culture that is willing to embrace risk and failure, while at the same time making sure that the
organization is also producing successful products and services despite embracing risk and
errors.
Additional Paradoxes
Additional paradoxes identified by Hunter et al. (2011) that do not directly involve the leader but
are worth mentioning are the paradoxes that occur between teams and the organization. These
include the Insularity Cohesion paradox, the Champion Evaluator paradox, and the Creativity
Cost paradox (Hunter and Cushenbery, 2011).

Outcomes
Outcomes of innovation leadership include inspiring employees to the create and implement
novel ideas for products, services, and technologies. In addition, these novel ideas can also be
used to solve problems within an organization. What this illustrates is that innovation spurred by
innovation leadership can be translated across various industries and can be used for a multitude
of purposes (Ford, 2000; Mumford and Gustafson, 1988; Ward et al., 1999; Collins and Amabile,
1999). Ultimately, inspiring and initiating organizational innovation through innovation
leadership can serve to advance the organization it to the next level (McEntire and Greene-
Shortridge, 2011).

Real-World Examples of Innovation Leadership

Companies that use innovative leadership include 3M, which lets employees work on a project of
their choosing for 15% of their time (www.nepad.org). Similarly, Google allows employees one
day a week to work on their own project (Hunter, et al, 2011). Zappos employees are allowed to
“radically” decorate their cubicle and are encouraged to laugh and have fun at work impromptu
in-office parades. The Young Innovation Leaders Fellowship is a program now dedicated to
training young professionals from organizations on how to become innovation leaders.[67]

 Innovation
 Leadership
 Leadership studies
 Organization development