The Role Of Leadership Of A Innovation

Transformational leaders have the ability to take diverse talents and viewpoints in any organization and meld them together into a cohesive, focused and highly effective force to accomplish challenging goals and objectives. The intent of this analysis is to evaluate theories of innovation and change from a leadership perspective in the first section, followed by an analysis of experiences, and finally a self-assessment of leadership skills.

Alongside the entrepreneur spirit, Innovation is the process of taking new ideas and implementing them into the market. Key word being “new”, an innovation can be sometimes viewed as the application to better solutions that meet new demand-requirements, inarticulated needs or existing market needs. Innovative ideas range from: goods, services, products, processes, services, technologies or ideas that create value for which customers will pay for. For an idea to be an innovation, it must be replicable at an economical cost and must satisfy a specific need. This means is that one must be ready and willing put their new idea to the test. On the other hand, there is recognition that “innovation is also critical to cultural, environmental, social, and artistic progress as well” (Bullinger, 2006). With this stated, high-tech innovation is ultimately the reason why we can be thankful for the many new conveniences of the 21st century. Although we might see the forefront of innovation being very prominent in today’s world, innovation is truly nothing new. From the start of modern man times, innovative ideas have paved the way for civilization to advance and develop into what we are today and at the same time, we have barely begin to chip away at the tip of the iceberg of our true human potential. Some scholars believe that innovation is a

A wise man once said, “The only permanent thing in the world is change,” an adage that rings especially true for organizations in this fast-changing era of technology and communication. Daft very deftly puts the inescapable need for change in three simple words, “Innovate or Perish” in his book “Understanding the Theory & Design of Organizations” [2].

This research intends to explore innovation at an individual level, but in a context, where the roles and functions of an organization appear eminent either as a promoter or an inhibitor of innovation.

A recent survey of the nation's top CEO's concludes that innovation remains the lifeblood of business. "For CEO's today, it's all about achieving growth and efficiency through innovation. It's not about product innovation so much anymore as about innovating business models, process, culture and management." (April, 2006).

Leading change involves an individual's ability to bring about strategic change within and outside an organization to meet the goals of that particular organization. This executive core qualification should establish an organization's vision and implement it in a continuously changing environment (OPM, 2006). Some of the competencies involved here include creativity and innovation, external awareness, flexibility, resilience, strategic thinking, and vision. Creativity and innovation helps an individual to develop new insights into situations, question conventional approaches, and design and implement new or cutting edge programs (OPM, 2006). A flexible individual will always be open to change and new information and rapidly adapt to new information. Resilience helps one to deal effectively with pressure and remain optimistic and persistent. Strategic thinking competency is critical in formulating objectives and priorities and implements an organization's long term interests.

Organizational readiness for change is subject to theoretical development and can be extensive. Strategies for creating change come in a various types and promising approaches to deliver forms of change that affect decision making, work flow, staffing, communication and collective behaviors (Metcalf and Benn, 2013). According to Metcalf and Benn (2013) when readiness for change is high, employees show persistence, give more effort and are cooperative the end result is more effective. Environmental changes can be a threat when organization cannot learn to adapt or have the knowledge to stay impartial with operations. Strategies need to be constant with change and adapting to continuous changes

“Innovation is definitely not self-starting or self-perpetuating. People make it happen through their imagination, will power, and perseverance” (Kelley and Littman.2005.p. 6). I believe that an innovation leader is a person who empower himself with knowledge and skills to support others and create a change. My personal definition of innovation is “when people work hard to create a change and transfer their positive ideas into actions.” My personal philosophy of innovation is influenced by the book The Ten Faces of Innovation. From this book I learned that people can play different roles in their lives to be a good innovators. For example, in a hospital the head nurse can play the Anthropologist role and come up with new insights to

The Breakthrough Innovation Framework, or BrinnovationTM, incorporates Kotter’s Leading Change model, while emphasizing a framework of innovation (Gupta, 2011). The Brinnovation framework accentuates the abilities and talents of those in the system, with its success depending on a change in the organization’s culture to embrace innovation (Gupta, 2011). The leadership can achieve a transformation in organizational thinking by applying Kotter’s eight-step plan, focusing on creativity (Gupta, 2011).

Innovation Architecture is the systematic discipline that integrates, configures, transforms, and aligns diverse elements resulting in the creation, design, or building of new sources of organizational growth or wealth. An effective innovation architecture process is the foundation needed to build innovation-led growth. This type of leadership establishes the framework for delivering effective innovation management by product planning, innovation portfolio management, new product development and the lifecycle of ideas to market closure. Savvy leaders shape the culture of their company to drive innovation. No one ever feels like they have time

In today’s dynamic business world, it is not enough for businesses to respond to the current customers and internal organizational issues. In order for businesses to survive, they must be able to anticipate and evaluate existing and emerging trends and develop ideas, products and services that respond to those trends. However, failing to identify and respond to trends can put the business at the risk of losing the existing customer base because innovation often determines who will be the market leader and who will be living on the margin of the market.

Tidd and Bessant (2009) argued that “Unless an organization is able to move into further innovation, it risks being left behind as others take the lead in changing their offerings, their operational processes or the underlying models that drive their business”.

Innovation refers to finding new ways to improve the existing products, services, processes, technologies, and employee performance in an organizational setup. In today's competitive business environment, organizations have to focus on bringing innovation in each and every aspect of their business operations; like products or service offerings, enterprise resource planning systems, marketing and promotional efforts, and organizational structure. The market challenges and competitive pressures also force organizations to use a blend of all these innovation processes in their business activities. Therefore, it is vital to give an equal focus on product innovation, process innovation, marketing innovation, and organizational innovation within the limited organizational resources and capabilities.

Innovation is the process by which ideas are created, selected and implemented to bring about profitable change to organisations. Innovations come as a result of an identified need for organisations to change their current processes, activities or operations. Andriopoulos and Dawson (2009) explain that organisational change is ‘new ways of organizing and working’. They explain that change occur in two dimensions – movement of state and scope of change.

Companies live and breathe innovation; or, at the terribly least, notice it basic to their success. Such companies are those that others ought to emulate for they recognize that to do business, as Peter Drucker prompt in an exceedingly recent Harvard Business review article, “Every firm—not simply businesses—needs one core competence: innovation.”