Leading for Innovation

Few organizational efforts are as critical to long-term survival as innovation. Leaders play an integral role in facilitating innovative efforts at multiple levels and across multiple stages of the creative process. However, research about the interventions that leaders may engage in has not produced consistent results. It is proposed that these inconsistent findings are a result of innovation being treated as a single phenomenon rather than multiple constructs. In this study, we review several influences that leaders may have on the innovation process across multiple levels, the individual leader and the group and organizational levels, and evaluate them with regard to different types of innovation, product and process innovations and complex and simple innovations. Interventions evaluated include the expertise and creative problem-solving skills of the individual leader, diversity and mission definition at the group level, and the organization's structure and scanning and monitoring activity. Propositions are made for the effects of "leader influences" across the different types of innovation.