Managing and leading people

Running Head : MANAGING AND LEADING PEOPLE

MANAGING AND LEADING PEOPLE


Introduction

Earlier, leaders used to consider strategies to be the original part of forecasting, planning and

introducing the smart bets to get the success. But in present time, ambiguity is palpable. It is a

great challenge for the leaders to plan for the next quarter. In addition to this, it is harder to

commit to any particular decision that would work out in the next one to five years. According to

Çalışkan et al. (2014), the leaders could follow an innovative leadership style, which helps the

leaders to operate in challenging and erratic situations. It is imperative for a leader to create an

organisational culture where innovation exists. This innovative climate can be supportive during

uncertainties.

As per the opinion of Berry (2010), the management of the organisations demands a growth of

creative teams by the leaders to handle the competitive situation of the market. The leaders need

to engage the employees in a suitable manner so that originality can be drawn. So the leaders

need to combine an innovation leadership style along with the participative mode. The

importance of such combination results in increasing a chance of change from high employee

involvement. Therefore, the managers can function in an efficient manner by applying such

leadership styles to compete with the ever-changing situations.


Body

According to Jogulu (2010), as an approach to organisational development, innovative leadership

can prove to be a useful tool for the managers. It is essential for the organisations to ensure a

constant accomplishment and can be competitive in the ever-changing market. Innovation

leadership is an amalgamation of different types of leadership styles, which is needed to combat

with the given situations. With the advent of new technologies and advancements, the leaders

can guide the teams innovatively and efficiently. To fight with unfamiliar situations and complex

challenges, the leaders need to grasp the whole situation. To deal with such circumstance, the

head requires a particular skill beyond the everyday analysis. As per the opinion of Allio (2012),

innovation leadership works well for such mysterious forces. The creative leaders display

brilliant strategic vision that can describe the future vibrantly. The managers develop a climate of

mutual trust, which is a major influencing factor in this leadership style.

Sethibe and Steyn (2016) said that there are many pieces of evidence, which show that all

innovations are not successful, and thus, change possesses some degree of risk. So the highly

innovative leaders initiate a warm, collaborative relationship with the team members and

motivate to work competently. The leaders, in this case, are able to increase the accessibility for

the employees. This system promotes a strong teamwork mentality among the members along

with high employee engagement. The leaders undergo an explorative research on employee

psychology. This study is necessary for analysing the extent of creative thinking ability in the

team members. According to Schmid (2006), the leaders of this style create an organisational

culture where the employees learn to apply innovative thinking to solve problems. The creative

process of thinking aids the organisation to develop new products and services. The main idea of

these leaders to promote a culture of innovation in the organisation rather recruiting few creative


outliers. The innovative leaders find new ways to utilise the resources during a stress period. The

leading leaders build others through one to one interaction like mentorship or coaching. The

culture of individualization is necessary as it provides the space for the employees to try and get

the permission to commit mistakes (insights.ccl.org, 2014). The leaders also plant a faith in the

culture that sustain upward communication, and the management becomes receptive to new

ideas. Additionally, the managers also project optimism and provide elements to energise the

team members.

The leaders who follow innovative leadership never push or force the ideas to the employees

rather share the ideas on a common platform. Team willingness and conviction are the two

important parts that characterise creative leadership. The organisations apply innovation

leadership for the economic development, where the leaders connect the strength of creativity to

various elements. The components include team efficiency, healthy decision making, supervising

multiple stakeholders, balancing centralised functions, venturing new markets and product R&D.

According to Crutchfield and Roughton (2013), innovative leadership is a two-tiered approach

i.e. creativity direction and guidance for originality. Under creative direction, the leaders apply

innovative thinking to leadership activities to bring about the changes. Under leadership for

innovation, the managers direct innovations by creating a culture where staffs can share creative

ideas.

As per the opinion of Kang et al. (2015, innovative leadership has the original roots to

transformational leadership, which evolved from path-goal theory and leader-member exchange

hypothesis. Vision when converted into strategy becomes adaptive to the culture that helps the

leaders to breed innovative thinking. It has been inferred that innovation takes the little time to

infuse into the organisational culture. The vision of this style is to adopt small and achievable


creations rather than the larger ones. In almost all companies, the primary aim is to obtain little

innovations, which is operated on a daily basis and not long-term innovations (Michael and

Adeniyi, 2007). The other important outcome of innovation leadership is to inspire the

employees to implement new ideas for product development. Also, the participation from the

staffs sometimes helps in solving the problems and make appropriate decisions. This style shows

that the innovation can be transferred across the industries and is utilised for the multitude of

purposes. Through innovation style of leadership, the organisation reach to a higher level. Open

communication is one of the most important criteria for the application of innovative leadership

style.

According to Pfister (2009), the attitude of innovative leaders is always distinctive in nature. The

leaders have massive levels of self-confidence, yet belief in simple expressions. This

environment encourages the employees and other stakeholders to connect with the leader without

any hesitance. The individuals are very clear about various challenging tasks. Unlike other

chiefs, the creative leaders are always curious about learning new things. Horth (2014) said that

the core part of the day to day living structure of the leaders is to explore the world. The leaders

are always interested in engaging into various information related program to locate new ideas.

So the leaders tend to discover on the fringe of base competency and can easily connect the

outside ideas to the concerned work area. Driving innovation, the team leads are courageous,

which is not fearlessness but an eagerness to act enthusiastically even in fearful situations. There

are managers who afraid of asking questions like that can depict the lack of knowledge in front

of the team members. But the innovative leaders are always on the verge of asking queries to get

a fresh idea. The leaders also find the methods to overcome the fearful situations to opt the

excellence. According to Jogulu (2010), the great leaders also have a high degree of tenacity and


never give up. If the employees do not support any particular idea, then find the alternative

element to carry the work forward. The leaders always run through challenges rather pushing

through challenges.

This model of leadership is different from the other as this follows a combination of various

leadership styles according to the situations. The executives could make a better use of current

talents for adopting innovative activities rather implementing disruptive change programs. Thus,

the initiative of innovative leadership style led to the development of the new products,

compelling new services to help the organisations in establishing capabilities to get success.


Conclusion

After evaluating the above study, a conclusion has been drawn that an innovative leadership style

nurtures a creative organisational culture. This technique helps to develop a culture with the

shared vision for innovating new creations, demonstrates a fair and constructive judgement of

thoughts. Rewards would be given for the recognition of the inventive work. The organisations

would have a mechanism for encouraging and developing an active flow of ideas. The cultures

that support innovations involves active leaders who vigorously remove the barriers to creativity.

The internal politics, criticism to new ideas and vicious internal competition are minimised.

Another impediment to innovation consists of an evasion of risk, a fear of failure, an over-

emphasis on the status quo and the existing culture that may crush the new thoughts.

Innovative leadership show a great support and confidence in the work and value employee

contributions. Such managers nurture, promote and develop the creative people. Leaders

encourage the abilities of inventions and participate in the innovation processes by neutralising

the negative individuals. Such leaders not only defuse the negativity but also watch out the

corporate systems and respond that nullify innovation. Addition to this, the leaders also expect to

produce through realistic views and free from distractions. Innovation also needs an expansion so

that employees can feel a sense of freedom in deciding the nature of the task. A sense of being

challenged by work on significant projects is conclusive to both originality and productivity. The

innovative managers promote strong cohesiveness for teamwork and collaborations. Thus,

people in innovative organisations communicate freely to support each other in sharing the

creations and take pleasure in the work.


References

Allio, R.J. (2012) ‘Leaders and leadership – many theories, but what advice is reliable?’,

Strategy & Leadership, 41(1), pp. 4–14.

Berry, G.R. (2010) ‘Improving Organisational decision-making’, Journal of Corporate

Citizenship, 2010(38), pp. 32–48.

Çalışkan, A., Turunç, N.A. and Akkoç, rfan (2014) ‘How does organisational culture affect the

innovative behaviours? The mediating role of perceived insider status’, International Journal of

Innovation and Learning, 16(2), p. 151.

Crutchfield, N. and Roughton, J. (2013) Safety culture: An innovative leadership approach.

Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Horth, D. (2014) Innovation leadership how to use innovation to lead effectively, work

collaboratively, and drive results. Available at: http://insights.ccl.org/wp-

content/uploads/2015/04/InnovationLeadership.pdf (Accessed: 28 September 2016).

Horth, D. (2014) Innovation leadership how to use innovation to lead effectively, work

collaboratively, and drive results. Available at: http://insights.ccl.org/wp-

content/uploads/2015/04/InnovationLeadership.pdf (Accessed: 28 September 2016).

Jogulu, U.D. (2010) ‘Culturally‐linked leadership styles’, Leadership & Organization

Development Journal, 31(8), pp. 705–719.


Kang, J.H., Solomon, G.T. and Choi, D.Y. (2015) ‘CEOs“ leadership styles and managers”

innovative behaviour: Investigation of intervening effects in an entrepreneurial context’, Journal

of Management Studies, 52(4), pp. 531–554.

Michael, A.A.D. and Adeniyi, M.A. (2007) Effective leadership management: An integration of

styles, skills & character for today’s CEOs. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse.

Pfister, J.A. (2009) Managing organizational culture for effective internal control: From

practice to theory (con.. Dordrecht: Physica-Verlag GmbH & Co.

Schmid, H. (2006) ‘Leadership styles and leadership change in human and community service

organizations’, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 17(2), pp. 179–194.

Sethibe, T. and Steyn, R. (2016) ‘THE IMPACT OF LEADERSHIP STYLES AND THE

COMPONENTS OF LEADERSHIP STYLES ON INNOVATIVE BEHAVIOUR’, International

Journal of Innovation Management, , p. 1750015.

Education

Managing and leading people