Leadership Practices that Promote Innovation
The times are changing, and so is the organization with the aim of achieving sustainability in the business model. The present day business organization is highly dynamic and flexible in approach and is fostering innovation and creativity at the workplace. Leadership or the management has an important role to play in this case. It is the leadership at the organization which nurtures and harvests the culture of innovation at the workplace. Leadership in its true essence can be understood as the ability to influence, lead, motivate and inspire the individuals to achieve the goals of the organization. It is the leadership which evokes the feeling of oneness in the organization and creates shared goals for the individuals in the organization (Johnson et. al. 2016, p.28).
Innovation can be understood as a new idea, device or a method which is viewed as the application of better solutions which meets the new requirement, unarticulated needs and the existing market needs. In the present era of globalization, technological revolution and emergence of Internet has forced business organization to innovate to stay competitive in the industry and also to better meet the insatiate needs of the demanding customers. Considering the above introduction to be the preamble for the assignment, the report will address and discuss the key leadership practice which supports the innovation and to identify the practices which suppress innovation at the workplace. The report will help the readers understand the leadership practices in depth by emphasizing the critical elements of leadership practice which promotes and supresses the innovation at the workplace.
Innovation is driving business across the globe and consistently pushing the curve of development and growth of the organization, in turn benefitting the communities and societies around the world. The section here will focus on the practices of leaders which nurtures and promotes innovation in the business organization
Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame, who is also known for his valuable contributions to the world in terms of creating high end technological products, believes that innovation is placed at the centre of Amazon’s culture. Jeff Bezos believe that the only sure shot way to survive in the competitive world is by focussing on consistent innovation. Drone Delivery, Amazon Alexa, Amazon Chime, Amazon Firefly and Amazon Go Store are some of the innovation of Jeff Bezos. According to Jeff Bezos one of the most important ways to foster innovation at the workplace is by conducting tens and hundreds of experiments with technology and products until they come up with a sustainable idea, product or a device (Khalili et. al 2016, p.2288). The more one experiments with the existing technology or product, the better are the chances of innovation in the organization. This practice of experimentation is infused in the team and the organization. The company also promotes innovation by significantly rewarding the team or the person behind the innovation in the organization. Thus, one of the basic practices which leaders in the present day conduct in order to foster innovation at the workplace is, experimentation.
Leadership Practices that Suppress Innovation
Workforce diversity has helped leaders and business organizations to create a talent pool which specializes in plethora of skills. The aim of the company is to keep a right balance in the skill set of the candidates and to ensure they are fit with the culture of the organization. Leaders involve in recruiting practices and give preference to the candidates who are highly innovative and creative in their approach. Leaders quickly pick up such candidates and stack up the organization with people who appreciate innovation and practice the same (Kim & Yoon 2015, p. 150).
Leaders are aware that innovation is an integral part of business management cycle. Thus, in order to promote innovation at workplace leaders engage in different types of creative and innovative partnerships in the organization. The aim of such teams or partnership is to indulge in innovation by creating positive synergies within the teams (Odoardi et. al 2015, p. 550).
Another important role of leaders in fostering or nurturing innovation at workplace is to empower the employees and give them a strong sense of purpose in their work. The employees are motivated and are shown a clear path and their value in the organization; they are also inspired to focus on the output of their work. This gives rise to a limitless mentality which fosters and drives innovation in the team (Yoshida et. al 2014, p.1400).
There is no doubt that effective brainstorming exercises result in creation of new ideas which basically leads to innovation. Leaders understand the usefulness of such brainstorming activities and advise all its employees to think outside the box. This, thinking outside the box strategy helps the employees to look beyond the obvious solution, eventually fostering innovation. Another important practice which the leaders engage in to promote innovation is by creation of informal groups and plenty of networking activities. People get to know a lot and learn a lot by meeting and discussing things with other people, thus promoting innovation (Weng et. al. 2015, p.442).
Nokia, which until 2003 was the market leader in the mobile phone category, but the company failed to match up with its own pace due to lack of innovation at the business organization. It was an accumulation of lack of research, inability to feel the pulse of the evolving customers and lack of innovation which resulted in failure of Nokia as a business organization. Leaders in the present day engages the employees and advices them to focus on research and try to think of the next big thing or disruption which would sweep off the market by a storm. The culture of what’s Next helps the employees and the organization to have a forward looking approach, thereby promoting innovation at the workplace (Paxton & Van Stralen 2015).
Successful business leaders have a lot of characteristic and behaviour attributes which might vary from a person to person. However there is one characteristic or behaviour which all the leaders display, which is openness in communication or communicate with the purpose of learning. Leaders by virtue of communicating openly in the business organization advise the employees to have an entrepreneurial mind-set. It is the tone of communication which helps the employees to break the barriers for innovation and makes them come up with something innovative. It is the communication ability of the leaders which makes the employees or the teams view themselves as innovation lab (Stephans & Carmeli 2017, p.273).
Role of Communication in Innovation at the Workplace
Leaders have to ensure that they engage the employees in the organization by giving them tasks which are out of their comfort zone. The purpose of giving challenging tasks to the employees is to open up their minds and condition them to think of new ways to solve a problem. Similarly giving freedom to the employees in terms of their work, working techniques and providing them resources which enhance their capability also helps in fostering innovation at the workplace (Boekhorst 2015, p. 250).
These are some of the practices which leaders engage in with the aim of fostering and nurturing innovation in the working team. It is the consistent innovation which helps the business to stay sustainable in the longer run and march ahead of its competition.
The section here will focus on the practices which hinders the growth of innovation at the workplace.
While many business organizations due to the changing business environment are getting decentralized in nature, most of the organizations are still following a centralized decision making. Centralized decision making puts all the power in the hands of the management and the employees have no say in any decision of the company. This prevents the employees from innovating as they have to follow and work according to the management; this thus curtails their ability to innovate (Bason 2018).
As mentioned earlier that openness in communication is one of the strong factors behind fostering innovation at the workplace. At the same time, presence of only top down communication means that the business owners are the ones who are communicating with the employees whenever needed, with little or no role of the employees in giving any kind of feedback or suggestion. This lack of Lateral and Bottom up communication is one of the biggest hindering factors for innovation in the business organization (Balasubramanian et. al. 2015, p. 31).
Some of the business leaders are extremely close and they are of the opinion that sharing of information with the employees will do no good. Thus they contain themselves and do not share critical information with the employees. This lowers down the morale of the employees and they too become disinterested in innovating at their business organization (Hauck & Prugl 2015, p. 110).
Many business organization still very rigid and follow a highly formalized process in the business organization. The extensive formalized process requires the employees to strictly follow the process and the pattern which is not innovative and contemporary in nature. This, adversely impacts the ability of the employees to focus on motivation as the organization does not value it, and it wants the employees to follow the process as defined by the organization (Palm, Lilja & Wiklund 2016, p. 42).
Fixed and well defined job roles makes the employees focus only on his job, and he became specialized in his job duties. However, after a certain period of time, due to lack of new opportunity of challenging task, the works becomes highly mundane in nature, which thus limits the innovation in the organization. These kinds of jobs where the employee has no opportunity to go beyond his normal and defined job roles limits the ability of the employee to think or to innovate (Ingram 2016, p. 170).
Importance of Fostering Innovation in Organizations
Flat hierarch is the order of the day in the present day business organization; however there is still plenty of organization which still follows the practice of high rigidness in the organizational hierarchy. This rigidness in the hierarchy closes the door for the employees to think out of the box, and also present to the employee with a lot of challenge at the workplace. This adversely impacts the employee and he becomes on his routine job and does not give much head to innovation (Goodyear & Casey 2015, p. 200).
Amazon can be easily seen as one of the most innovative company on the planet earth, one of the prime reasons behind this is the culture of the organization. Jeff Bezos with his transformational style of leadership translates his vision into the culture of the organization. His vision which is inspired to become the most customer centric company on earth is based on consistent innovation at the workplace. Thus, for innovation to be nurtured, grow and develop it is extremely important for innovation to be at the centre of organizational culture. Leaders who fail to set up innovation in the culture of business organization or focus on innovation limits or restrict the ability of the team to innovate for the present and the future. Thus, the lack of innovative culture is a big hindrance towards the growth of innovation in the business organization.
Hence, these are some of the practices of the leadership which hinders or supresses’ innovation at the workplace and in the teams (Bigliardi & Galati 2016, p. 875).
Conclusion
Amazon, Netflix, Apple, Airbnb, Google, Tesla are some of the most innovative companies in the world. These organizations have understood that in order to sustain in the competitive world they have to engage their teams with consistent innovation. It is consistency in innovation which keeps these organization stay ahead of the race and also push the envelope of advanced learning and development in the organization. The important role in setting the practice of innovation or treating the teams as innovation labs helps in promoting the culture of innovation in the business organization. Contrary to the practices such as rigid hierarchy structure, decentralization, lack of communication, limited information sharing are some of the factors which limits innovation in the business organization, and hence needs to be eliminated.
References
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