Question

• What role does leadership play in innovation management? (be specific)

Answer 1

ANSWER

There are two ways to deal with innovation management by leaders:

1. Bottom-up approach
2. Top-down approach

Bottom-up approach:

• Innovative environment should be provided by leaders, the environment which is conducive to creative ideas
• Help, in solving the problem and if has any conflict resolution during the process of innovation, can be done by leaders
• Assigning tasks to appropriate employees is an important step as well.
• Motivate the team to boost morale and spark the innovation while giving them their freedom.

Top-down approach:

• Leader needs to manage the resources such as money, time, infrastructure and data.
• Leader must provide autonomy to the innovative team to try out their ideas and have some control over the processes within reason
• Leader makes the vision and mission clear so that the team finds it easy to align their goals and tasks accordingly
• Positive feedback from the leader is also a great motivation which may push the innovators over the edge and get them to the point they need to be
• Hence, effective leadership in innovation management is a balance of both these types where one is stimulating innovation and other is managing innovation.