Leadership Matters: The key to leading an innovative organization
Fostering creativity from the top down—and lots of practice—results in innovative and effective problem-solving.
There are two things that leaders must do if they want to lead an innovative, resilient and future-focused organization: Be a creative leader and be creative.
1. Be a Creative Leader
In the early 1990s, Swedish researcher Dr. Goran Ekvall studied the effects of leadership style on the climate for creativity in organizations.
Ekvall studied organizations that were, by industry standards, innovative. These companies produced new products and services, were profitable and were known as great places to work. He also looked at stagnant organizations. Those were the companies that were experiencing declining market share along with declining morale.
He found that of all of the factors (e.g., workload, schedules, marketing activities, meetings, reward systems) that contribute to a company’s internal makeup, the leader’s behavior alone amounts to 67% of the influence in determining if the organization will be creative.
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