Innovative leadership is defined as the ability to influence your employees in a creative and positive way. It’s about being able to empower your employees to come up with innovative ideas, services, and products.
While this may sound simple in practice, a culture of innovation can only be developed if you create the environment for it to happen. Here are some of the elements needed to make innovative leadership a reality in your organization:
Trust. Creativity is a high-risk endeavor. Your team must understand that they have the ability to take risks and try new things without fear that their job is on the line. They must feel as if you will truly listen to their ideas about improving your company.
A focus on customers. Innovation works best in customer-centric organizations in which leaders, teams, and individual employees all have a passion and dedication to making the customer experience the best it can be. An example: Amazon.com, which focuses its innovation on customer satisfaction.
Communication. Innovation is more likely to blossom in companies with a clear strategic vision. Do your employees and teams understand your organization’s ultimate goal and what types of problems that need to be solved to make it better?