Leadership and Innovation in Organizations: A Systematic Review of Factors That Mediate or Moderate the Relationship

A leader supports teams and individuals as they turn their creative efforts into innovations (leader as facilitator) and manages the organization's goals and activities aimed at innovation (leader as manager). This review focuses on when and how leadership relates to innovation (i.e., the factors that moderate or mediate the relationship between leadership and innovation). The sample consists of 30 empirical studies in which leadership is treated as the independent variable and innovation as the dependent variable. In addition to reviewing moderating and mediating factors, we identified two factors where the findings are ambiguous. The review proposes three new factors that may mediate or moderate the relationship between leadership and innovation.