3 Crucial Behaviors for Successfully Leading Innovation. White Paper

Does innovation matter? In a 2015 survey, the authors asked the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL®) clients about innovation. Not surprisingly, nearly all of them--94%--said that innovation is important. People are living in a time when technology is advancing at a blistering pace, creating new possibilities for individuals and organizations that could hardly have been imagined a generation ago. The global political and economic environment is also shifting faster than ever, often moving in unpredictable directions. It seems clear that innovation will be a defining trait--perhaps the defining trait--of those organizations that thrive over the next few decades. In this white paper, the authors lay out the essential leadership behaviors that are required to successfully lead innovation. To better understand those behaviors, the authors interviewed people on the front lines of innovation work and interviewed their bosses. The authors looked closely at the interactions between bosses and those responsible for driving innovation, investigating which boss behaviors encouraged their direct reports and which discouraged them. The interview subjects came from various industries, and all had been involved in multiple, successful initiative projects. From those interviews, the authors identified the critical leadership behaviors exhibited during successful innovation efforts, as well as behaviors that worked against innovation. The lessons from these interviews are broadly applicable to managers at multiple levels. But the authors are especially focused on the leaders charged with overseeing innovation projects--often in addition to other responsibilities--and those working on and directing innovation projects on a day-to-day basis. The actual job titles these individuals hold vary widely from one organization to the next, so for simplicity the authors are calling leaders who oversee innovation projects "leaders." Those working in and directing that innovation work on a day-to-day basis and reporting to those leaders are labeled as "innovation managers."