The Tricks to Being an Innovative Leader

The first question that needs answering: what does being an innovative leader mean? According to innovationmanagment.com “Innovative leaders are creative visionaries who have big ideas and, most importantly, can motivate people around them to turn those ideas into reality. An innovative leader does not even need to be the person who creates the idea behind an innovation.” Being a leader is one thing, but it’s far more difficult to learn to be advanced and creative, leading a team to their future success. It takes creativity and spirit to progress a team so far each and every day. “An innovative leader does not even need to be the person who creates the idea behind an innovation. Often, she simply recognizes a great idea – perhaps devised by a subordinate – and envisions the path that leads to that idea’s becoming a reality. Indeed, I would argue that creative genius is less important in an innovative leader than is the ability to form a vision around an idea or set of ideas. And once she has formed that vision, she needs to be able to share with employees, suppliers and business partners the vision as well as enthusiasm for turning that vision into a reality.”

In order to be an effective leader, one must constantly be thinking about the future instead of only staying in the present moment. Improving an organization is a number one priority for anyone in a leadership role. Medium.com says, “Innovation leadership is the ability to inspire productive action in yourself and others during times of creation, invention, uncertainty, ambiguity, and risk. It is a necessary competency for organizations that hope to develop truly innovative products and services.” There are many ways in which one can become an innovator, especially if one is already equipped to be a leader. For example, it becomes very important to set one’s goals on making improvements for the future instead of dwelling on the past. It’s also a good idea to accelerate decision-making, as states crestcom.com. “Decision making is a critical skill of the innovative leader. Leaders make decisions every day, from the important to the mundane. However, innovative leaders make decisions differently than most. They are able to make quick decisions without having all of the information because they have confidence and trust in their team. They may not completely understand the full story of the decision, and sometimes they don’t fully agree with the course of action being presented, but they are able to make decisions that rely on the experiences and expertise of their team.”