October 3, 2024
The very reason organisations have leaders is that the masses need to be guided. And it is not only about corporate organisations, even in society, we have and need leaders. These leaders have great influence over people.
A survey of Fortune 500 companies reveals that “Companies that have a culture of innovation are more likely to outperform the market by 30%.”
Why is this? Because they lead the way in developing innovative solutions to long-standing customer challenges; building trust and loyalty that drives growth.
1. Create A Safe Space To Fail, Iterate, And Learn: Make sure employees have a safe space to practise innovation and learn from mistakes to grow.
2. Provide Resources To Prioritise Innovation: Offer dedicated resources to create an innovative vision into reality.
3. Create A Culture Of Open Communication: Listen to the team to utilise diverse perspectives.
4. Recognise And Reward Innovation Contributions: Motivate employees with timely appreciation and rewards.
5. Offer Autonomy To Empower Decision-Making: Trust your employees to create a culture of innovation.
If you are also planning to do something similar, as a leader, you need to play a key role in cultivating a culture of innovation in the organisation.
Let’s understand how leadership can foster a culture of innovation in the workplace.
Leadership plays a key role in fostering innovation at the workplace by setting an example, influencing employees, and providing necessary resources. All these are necessary to innovate successfully.
Also, you need to have the mindset of innovation and embrace the change, second, you need to communicate the vision and importance of the change to the employees, and third, you need to divert and dedicate resources to the innovation.
Leadership can foster and cultivate a culture of innovation in the workplace by leading and supporting the initiatives. Here are the five ways leadership can foster innovation:
The first step to innovation is flexibility. You cannot expect innovation and absolutely risk-free business operations simultaneously. But at the same time, it also does not mean innovation at any cost.
Create a detailed project plan: what you want to achieve, allocate resources, plan for risks, and expect success. But keep in mind while navigating the uncharted territories, you will meet failure.
The right approach will be to iterate and learn from failure.
There is no innovation without prioritising innovation. And it easily reflects in your efforts. For example, many companies have funds reserved for innovation efforts. While doing workforce planning and creating schedules, they allocate time for innovation efforts or have dedicated teams working on the innovation.
The key here is not to disrupt your ongoing business operations while ensuring support for innovation.
Many leaders believe innovation flowers best with a top-to-down approach because senior people have more experience. It is somewhat true but not listening to the ideas of the employees at the operational level will only hinder the process of innovation. Knowingly or unknowingly you are suppressing innovation by not listening to the team's creativity.
By encouraging team members at an operational level, you can utilise diverse perspectives, better plan for the risks of innovative efforts, and create a culture of innovation in the workplace.
To create a culture of innovation and ensure employees are committed to making efforts, you might need to introduce a system of recognition and reward. It is because not every employee is equally engaged and motivated. They need appreciation and reward.
Recognition and reward will encourage employees to put in extra effort and participate and contribute to innovation initiatives.
Last but not least, you need to offer autonomy to the employees for innovation to happen. This is because too many levels of approvals or excessive oversight may slow down the process of making decisions and implementing innovative ideas.
However, strict quality assurance and control should be maintained to meet the business standards and innovation initiatives should be tracked to ensure alignment with business objectives.
Leadership has a direct influence on the culture of the organisation because it holds the authority. If leadership believes in innovation, the approach of the entire organisation changes; from survival to innovation. Each employee feels welcomed and encouraged to share ideas and fuel the process of innovation.
From our experience, we know innovation is the heart of business. It is the responsibility of a company's leadership and leaders to make it a priority.
Meet Sandeep Kashyap, the CEO of ProofHub who is transforming project management and team collaboration with his innovative solutions. With an unwavering passion for leading his team to success, Sandeep's mantra is simple - "keep growing, don't stop". When he's not busy at work, Sandeep loves to explore new destinations and challenge himself with trekking adventures.
