Fostering a culture of innovation WMBA 6020

Having a leader that can motivate a team’s ability to be creative and innovative is key to long-term business success. There are some key traits that a leader will need to have to foster creativity and innovation. The first two that come to mind are trust and ownership. The team needs to have confidence in leadership to guide them down the correct path. Having ownership allows for the leader to take responsibility for good and bad outcomes. Communicating the vision of the company in a way that everyone understands what the objective and final product will be. Employees need to feel inspired for innovation to occur; as a leader, you must have the ability to motivate and inspire your team (Zenger & Folkman, 2014). A leader should always set the example and be willing to get their hands dirty to better the team. Having a team that is creative and innovative, there is a chance of failure. As a leader, you must be willing to talk about your past failures and learn from your mistakes (H. Soken & Kim Barnes, 2014).

Holding onto the past can cripple innovation and creativity. Leaders need to encourage multiple points of view and be willing to step outside their comfort zone. By stepping out of one’s comfort zone, you allow the growth of creativity and innovation. When a goal is reached, a leader needs to celebrate the progress with the team. These are just a handful of traits that a leader would need to promote a culture of creativity and innovation in a business environment.

Explain how leaders and organizational rules, standards, and processes can inadvertently inhibit creativity and innovation. Your description needs to include five traits or behaviors from individual leaders that can inadvertently inhibit a culture of creativity and innovation in the workplace. Then include five organizational standards, rules, and processes that can inhibit a culture of creativity and innovation in the workplace. Please be sure to label which are individual leader traits and which are organizational standards, rules, and processes.

Often leaders and organizations can hamper the creativity and innovation of employees and not even know it is happening. First, let us focus on what an individual leader can do to increase creativity and innovation. Lower fear and increasing trust among staff will elevate and encourage creativity (Hamel, 2009). As a leader, sometimes, too much importance is placed on discipline, forcing employees who are creative to become fearful of getting into trouble and reducing their creative drive. Leaders need to find creative and innovative employees who will self-discipline. When leaders lack passion, it causes disengagement among team members. When team members are disengaged, creativity and innovation do not grow. Often older leaders become comfortable with the current business plan; they do not like change and dismiss new and creative ideas of younger employees. These leaders fail the team by no looking to the future. A leader should empower team members with the ability to make decisions.

Let us look at how organizations hamper the creativity and innovation of the team members. When a business or organization focuses on a single path and do not look at the boarder picture, they lower the creativity of their employees (Tushman et al., 2011). This will also limit an organization's customer base. More times than senior management is not involved with the innovation team causing the innovation team not to have a voice. Funding for innovations can be difficult. Many businesses pull money away from the innovation team to fund current products that make a profit and not future ideas of products. Another common failure is when the innovation team does not report directly to the CEO. Many of these problems discussed could be solved by having the innovation team report directly to the CEO.

A leader that I admire for his innovation is John "Jocko" Willink. Jocko is a retired Navy SEAL Commander. Jocko commanded SEAL Team Three Task Unit Bruiser. Under Jocko’s command, Task Unit Bruiser was one of the most highly decorated military units of the Iraqi War. Task Unit Bruiser was featured in the movie “American Sniper,” which followed the life of Chris Kyle, an American sniper who was under Jocko’s command.

Jocko retired in 2010 after 20 years in the military and now writes books on leadership and a podcaster. Five of his six books are New York's best sellers. One of them being Extreme Ownership. Jocko is the CEO/ co-founder of Echelon Front, a leadership consulting firm he founded with another retired Navy SEAL, Leif Babin. Jocko believes that "Good leaders do not make excuses. Instead, they figure out a way to get it done." and one must take complete ownership of what went wrong and Ego clouds and disrupts everything (Willink & Babin, 2017). Jocko instills trust among his team, allowing innovation to grow. When Jocko assigns a task for his team to complete, he expects results but allows the team to find the best way. I found it immensely powerful that Jocko takes extreme ownership of everything in his life. Having extreme ownership is a rare trait in today's world, where everyone seems to think it is someone or else fault for their failures.

The first gap is in communication. If a business does not clear communication, then the employees will know what they need to improve on (Montgomery, 2008). I plan on improving my communication with my team by asking team members at the end of a team meeting to explain the new goals that were established during the team meeting. The team should be able to explain the vision and future of the company. If they are unable, then I would need to improve on my delivery of the goals. The feedback from the team will help me improve my communication skills. The Second gap that needs improvement is setting an example. If the team is to be creative and innovative, they must be motivated, and as a leader, I must set the example. During the quarterly team meeting, I will improve on one process.

The third gap is holding onto the past. Getting everyone to have a voice no matter how long they have been with the company will encourage forward-thinking. During meetings, I will seek out newer employees and ask for their input. The fourth gap is in celebrating progress with the team. I will send out an email when goals and objectives are met, giving praise for a job well done, and hand-deliver $5 gift cards to Amazon. Hopefully, with the increase in recognition, there will be an increase in production by the team. To ensure that this goal is being met, I should improve the current timeline of completion. The Fifth and final gap is ownership. This is the hardest and has the most significant gap. If the team fails, I will take ownership and not blame anyone else. I will look at the process and try and find out where I failed them as a leader, how did I not support them. Did the team need more time? Better equipment? More staff? Hopefully, by focusing on these five gaps first, I can improve my leadership style and create a better atmosphere for innovation.

References

H. Soken, N., & Kim Barnes, B. (2014). What kills innovation? Your role as a leader in supporting an innovative culture. Industrial and Commercial Training, 46(1), 7-15. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict-09-2013-0057

Hamel, G. (2009). Moon shots for management. Harvard Business Review, 89(6), 74-80.

Tushman, M. L., Smith, W. K., & Binns, A. (2011). The ambidextrous CEO. Harvard Business Review, 89(6), 74-80.

Zenger, J., & Folkman, J. (2014). Research: 10 Traits of innovative leaders. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2014/12/research-10-traits-of-innovative-leaders