Culture is like the wind. Its effect may be invisible, but it can be felt. Culture plays a significant role in an organization’s success. All winning enterprises are innovative. It keeps the employees on their toes and pushes them to give their best. Fortune 500 lists for 1955 and 2017 highlights the importance of innovation.
Even though innovation is essential on each level, here, we will focus on innovation from a leadership perspective and how leadership ensures innovation that goes beyond just a couple of new ideas but brings about a grand shift in the organization’s culture. Leaders are accountable for assembling teams that bring about optimum performance. An effective leader recognizes and embraces the differences among his people and tries to get the best outcome. This cultivates an environment of continuous improvements, innovations, initiatives. Leaders foster an environment where they are committed to an innovative mindset where everyone learns each other’s differences for their success and that of the organization. Here are three ways in which leaders can bring about a shift toward an innovative mindset.
Freedom to fail
Change doesn’t happen on a large scale. Change is brought about on individual levels, which then can be seen on a broader structural level. As a leader, one should allow and encourage employees to act and engage differently. This will enable employees to consider the work they are invested in as their own, as it will be happening according to their wills and wishes. As a leader, allow this mindset to thrive by giving your people space to fail.
Communicate to Learn
To have a strong rhythm, a team needs active communication. If you cannot trust your team, it won’t thrive. As a leader, ensure communication happens in a tone that propels people into thinking in various directions. These thoughts often lead to innovations. Think of your team as an innovation lab, where everyone challenges each other to learn and grow from other people’s ideas. These sow the seeds for future innovations.
Hold judgments back
We all infer and process ideas and data through our own lens. As a leader, one needs to consciously suspend their natural inclination to add layers and meanings to how one is thinking. Critical remarks early on close down innovative thinking. A leader should suspend their assumptions and remain receptive to new ideas.
A leader plays a vital role in bringing about an innovative mindset. Innovations help cultivate a culture of trust and ownership, which inevitably leads to higher productivity.