Leadership

What advice would you give a leader who wants to increase innovation in his/her department?

Leaders who want to increase innovation in their departments must be open to creativity. They would need to encourage creativity and have an open mind about it. To accept these ideas, the leaders would have to have some sort of “suggestion box” where employees can write down the ideas they have and submit it, or have an open communication policy where employees can share their ideas directly with leaders. Many people do not like sharing their personal ideas because they believe management does not take it serious. For this reason leaders need to assure their employees that all ideas are taken into account.

The best advice to give a leader who is seeking to increase innovation would be the five elements of innovative organization. These five elements help determine the type of individual the leader is dealing with and can act accordingly to get the best results. The first innovative organization is alignment. This procedure helps to create benefits that align with the organizations purpose, goals, vision and interests. In this approach, many organizations use the “idea incubator” which is a great way to gain employee’s thoughts and ideas throughout the organization and can be delivered without any bureaucracy or politics. From here leaders can pick a number of certain ideas per month and get them to higher management faster since the leaders will be passing it forward. There is definitely a better chance for high management to look at these ideas if they are carefully sought out by leaders and fit the organization.

The second innovative organization strategy is creative values. Leaders can use these creative values in many ways, since they allow their employees to feel freer, and there is no hierarchy. There is no going through management because it does not exist in this atmosphere. With this, employees are more open minded and leaders instill values of curiosity,...