The Role Of Leaders In Innovation

The Role of Leaders in Innovation

Introduction
Innovative entrepreneurs have what is considered to be creative intelligence. Unique in their characteristics, one of the many attributes of such a personality trait is that of discovery and the ability to create new processes and ideas and build them into a productive business formats. As innovators, they are able to engage both sides of the brain, thus enhancing the level of creativity that people do not typically possess. In further reference to these specific characteristics as indicated in the white papers written by Leslie (2009), the leadership skills are as follows:

Leading people
Strategic planning
Managing change
Inspiring commitment
Resourcefulness
Doing whatever it takes
Being a quick learner
Participative management
Employee Development
Balancing personal life and work

Leadership Practices
There are two areas of the leadership practices that will be discussed herein. Employee Development while Balancing personal life and work, both of which are paramount to building an organization and becoming an effective innovator within an organization.
As part of the on-going process of employment development, the skill of Observation is characterized as looking and learning about a person, place or thing. As such, when you observe, you spend time reviewing and learning the elements of something or someone. As an example of this, the most recent instance, when I was working at the federal contracting company. During this time I would observe the manner in which the management handled various situations. In doing so, this helped me to implement the procedures that developed a more streamlined approach regarding the paperwork, scheduling and estimating processes.
In continuance of Employee Development, it became evident that observation in the context of improvement was not only achieved by observing the actions of those outside the organization, but also inside the organization. In order to develop a employee first policy a company must understand the dynamics of interaction between the employee and the customer in order to make appropriate adjustments where needed and create a reward based incentive to encourage a positive outlook on the employee. In doing so, the amount you pay an employee will no longer be the sole sources of incentive that encourages their loyalty.
Another leadership skill is questioning. As part of the foundation of communication and knowledge sharing, it is also has an important part of Employee Development. Because rules and regulations are typically changed through out the year in an effort for continuous improvement, there are typically many questions regarding the scope and services regarding what a company provides. The most memorable example was when I would go to a construction site and ask the employees questions regarding a specific a process or technique. While the majority of the employees did not mind there were others that felt I was questioning their abilities, thus creating a feeling of uncertainty with their performance and knowledge in general.
Despite the occasional discontent that came about due to questioning, the level of service I could provide increased substantially from an administrative standpoint because I took the time to ask questions and learn first hand about the actual problems that were being encountered by the employees and managers. As such, my efforts afforded be the ability to become an effective and innovative leader who learned a great deal through the interaction with the employees and from which I gained a tremendous amount of respect for the employees as well as the management staff in charge of the job. Overall, these methods allowed for the opportunity to enable employees to be more productive in a better working environment because I was able to understand the needs as well as the actual work that the employees were doing.
Another leadership practice that will be discussed

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