Experiential Development and Mentoring Processes for Leaders for Innovation

Leading creative people is particularly challenging. Leaders of creative people must have the expertise and skill set required for creative endeavors to understand and communicate with this specific group of people. Yet, to lead, they must also have additional skills that often contradict the first set of skills. An integrative literature review was conducted to identify what responsibilities and skills are needed from these leaders, what types of experiential development could best develop them, and specific strategies that Human Resource Development (HRD) professionals might employ to develop leaders for sustained innovation in their organizations. HRD professionals are asked to perform a particularly challenging feat by developing these unique leaders of innovative efforts. HRD professionals, or scholars and practitioners engaged in training or leader development may find interest in this article.