Leadership And Innovation: Organizational Rules, Standards
Instructions
Short-Answer Response Assessment. Write your response to each prompt below in the space provided. The Rubric, which will be used by the Competency Assessor to evaluate your responses, is beneath the prompts. Carefully review the Rubric rows associated with each prompt to provide a complete response.
When writing your response, begin typing where it reads “Enter Your Response Here.” Write as much as needed to satisfy the requirements of the prompt (as defined in the Rubric). Be sure to support your responses with connections to professional sources. Your Assessment responses require references (in APA style) to support your thinking.
1. Identify and briefly describe 10 leadership traits that promote a culture for creativity and innovation in the workplace. (2 to 3 paragraphs along with citations.)
2. Explain how leaders and organizational rules, standards, and processes can inadvertently inhibit creativity and innovation. Your description needs to include five traits or behaviors from individual leaders that can inadvertently inhibit a culture of creativity and innovation in the workplace. Then include five organizational standards, rules, and processes that can inhibit a culture of creativity and innovation in the workplace. Please be sure to label which are individual leader traits and which are organizational standards, rules, and processes.
3. Identify and describe one of the leaders featured in the readings who you admire for his or her ability to create an organizational climate where creativity and innovation flourish. Explain why you chose that leader. (2 paragraphs)
4. Rate your chosen admired leader on a scale of 1–10 on how well he or she exhibits each trait, where 10 represents the highest affinity with the trait and 1 the lowest affinity with the trait. Be sure not to generalize to leaders in general. Then, apply the same rating process to yourself. On a scale of 1–10, rate how well you exhibit each of the creative leadership traits. Finally, conduct a gap analysis. Compare the ratings you gave yourself with the ratings you gave to the leader you admire. Identify five “gap traits,” traits that have the greatest difference in ratings. Explain reasons why the gaps exist and give examples. (3-4 paragraphs)
5. Describe in detail a set of strategies you will use to close each of the five gaps. Be sure to discuss which measures you will use for determining if the strategies produced the desired results. (2-3 paragraphs)
Leadership and Innovation
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Institutional affiliation
Date:
Task One:
Ten leadership traits essential in promoting creativity and innovation are categorized into interpersonal, business, cognitive and strategic skills. In cognitive skills, first, a leader must be a critical thinker. The leaders should be able to think of new ways to do things himself. Second, be an active learner. Here, the leader should be able to listen to other people’s idea and learn from them (Zhou & Hoever, 2014). Additionally, the leader should be able to listen, collect, process and disseminate information. Four, the leader must also possess technical and communication skills that are critical to the success of the projects. Besides that, a leader should also have social and internal personal skills that relate to influencing and interacting with others.
The leader must also possess business and strategic skills. Sixth, leader must have resource management skills essential in controlling and coordinating scarce resource to produce efficiently. They must also portray financial. The leader must manage finance to avoid financial constrains by cutting costs when necessary. Eight, the leader must show operations management skills. They operations must be cost effective, less wasteful and productive. Additionally, a leader must show decision-making skills that are essential in managing, motivating, developing and promoting talents (Anderson, Potočnik & Zhou, 2014). On the other hand, a leader must possess environment scanning skills helping in identifying problems and evaluating the course of action to take. Tenth, the leader must be visionary (Zhou & Hoever, 2014). The visionary leader can utilize mistakes, understand ambiguities and deal with them.
References
Anderson, N., Potočnik, K., & Zhou, J. (2014). Innovation and creativity in organizations: A state-of-the-science review, prospective commentary, and guiding framework. Journal of Management, 40(5), 1297-1333.
Zhou, J., & Hoever, I. J. (2014). Research on workplace creativity: A review and redirection. Annu. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Organ. Behav., 1(1), 333-359.
Task Two:
Individual traits or behaviors that can inadvertently inhibit a culture of creativity and innovation are as follows. First, taking ownership of ideas belong to others or subjects means the employees do not get proper recognition and therefore lose trust in that leadership (Anderson, Potočnik & Zhou, 2014). Second, excessively questioning and testing of new ideas is poor trait because it makes employees think that their ideas are not good enough. Additionally, failure to communicate organizational goals is dangerous because it inhibits employees from having a clear understanding of company’s vision (Anderson, Potočnik & Zhou, 2014). Fourth, the inability to listen well puts workers off from sharing or engaging their thinking. Fifth, intolerance to ambiguity is a behavior exhibited by poor leaders which force employees to avoid mistakes by avoiding ideas because they may expose them to risks.
Organizational standards, rules, and processes that can inhibit a culture of creativity and innovation are as follows. First, the presence of immovable forces like old beliefs, assumptions, and habits cloud openness to new ideas and overpower creative and innovative initiatives. The second barrier is judgment. This happens when an organization has a culture of treating new ideas as criticisms or harsh judgments. Thirdly is playing by the rules. Here, rigid rules, standards, and processes keep employees from participating. Fourth, lack of processes, for example, other channels to put ideas apart dusty suggestion boxes (Zhou, & Hoever, 2014). The fifth practice is lack of hard work in organizations. This happens when the organization itself does not to put more effort in attaining success.
References
Anderson, N., Potočnik, K., & Zhou, J. (2014). Innovation and creativity in organizations: A state-of-the-science review, prospective commentary, and guiding framework. Journal of Management, 40(5), 1297-1333.
Zhou, J., & Hoever, I. J. (2014). Research on workplace creativity: A review and redirection. Annu. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Organ. Behav., 1(1), 333-359.
Task Three:
My most admirable leader in the articles is Steve Jobs, founder, and former Apple CEO. Steve Job is another Picasso. He is up there with the best if not the best of all innovators and inventors (Zhou & Hoever, 2014). He is a guy who left a legacy that has helped in the growth of creativity and innovation in Apple. Additionally, other companies have also benchmarked on his abilities to support innovation and creativity growth too.
Steve Jobs used very specific techniques to encourage creativity and innovation continuity and growth in Apple even after his demise (Vogel & Fischler-Strasak, 2014). First, Steve Jobs insisted on hiring with the Apple’s culture in mind. He spotted “real” talents. New recruits were to keep the culture in mind. Steve Jobs meant that no status quo in Apple and therefore he led by example by “putting a dent” to this universe. His spirit drives many employees even outside Apple. Steve Jobs believed in selling his dream not a product. This is motivates employees in Apple to be creative and innovativ...