Organisations worldwide are looking forward to integrating innovations into their business module to boost their success rate. The common goal of an organisation helps to focus on the efforts and pursue an innovation strategy that empowers the organisation. They require an ample amount of research, study, and analysis to ensure that innovation can facilitate the development of the organisation. Also, innovation is not enough to drive success and must be paired with strategic leadership for optimal results.
Table of Contents
1. Scope of Innovation strategy
2. Strategic Leadership: The Indispensable Skills
3. Strategic Leadership & Increased Productivity
4. Major steps of building an innovation Strategy
5. FAQ
1. Scope of Innovation Strategy
The importance of innovation strategy is paramount in this modern world that is revolving around a constant flux of change. In order to cope with modern business trends and secure a better future, innovation strategy is crucial for every organisation that thrives to make a difference.
Significance of innovation and leadership
An innovation strategy is a common mission with a detailed plan that aims to create new values for which potential customers will be willing to pay. Usually, an innovation strategy includes a set of rules, policies, or ideas which are crafted to accomplish the growth of an organisation.
Robust and effective ideations don’t just happen; they arise through circumstances and procedures that are deliberately designed to enhance the development of the organisation. In such circumstances, only leadership qualities prevail and help to pipeline the ideas to an innovation that can empower the organization.
Leadership and innovation are two crucial elements for the overall growth of an organization. They are intertwined as innovation cannot emerge without the efforts of a devoted leader who can plan and execute it.
Strategic Leadership Innovation
Strategy leaders across industries are under pressure to stay ahead of trends and help their businesses become more resilient amidst the thriving technology and global innovations. Today, innovation is not just limited to a renewed model, but it also relates to more effective ideas that cater to a better future. Therefore, the scope and relevance of innovation strategy are quite high. Strategic leaders need to now devise a future-oriented strategy that is pillared around the following key concepts:
The ‘new-to-world’ products and services are coming up with entirely new functions and technology, giving birth to new markets.
Modern innovations are promoting improved performance, more efficiency, and paving the way for a sustainable future with less energy consumption.
Other than new applications and revamped products, the innovation strategy is focusing on low-cost products and services that are adaptive to the global economy.
2. Strategic leadership: The indispensable skills
Almost every other organisation has an operational leader who operates or runs an operation swiftly and stabilises the growth while ensuring targets, sales, and profit. However, when it comes to transformation; strategic leadership is required in order to come up with a leading innovation that can handle the situation. A strategic leader should have the following skills to bring about innovation.
Anticipate– Strategic leaders constantly watch out for the signals of change. They have the ability to anticipate a situation with very limited information.
Challenge – Leaders encourage a dynamic point of view after careful analysis, assumption, and examination of the situation. Therefore, they can challenge every situation that occurs.
Interpret – A strategic leader must learn how to synthesise with the surroundings and the inputs that have already been done, and instead of making failed attempts, they interpret through every failure to unlock the pattern of success.
Decide– Decision-making is one of the daunting tasks when it comes to a tough situation. And so, the leader must possess good decision-making abilities.
Align– A leader must be skilled at finding a common ground that aligns with other stakeholders’ agendas and perspectives.
Learn– The culture of inquiry and finding the truth is promoted by every leader as they follow it too. And the focal point of being a strategic leader lies in the learning process. Learning from failed attempts and tough situations allows them to find hidden lessons for the future.
There are many executive leadership courses that help to churn out these skills if a professional is willing to put in the effort.
How strategic leadership helps bring about innovation?
Strategic leaders are people in a position of power who can lead an organisation through transformational change with their knowledge, experience, and confidence in leadership qualities. Strategic leadership helps to solve the bigger-picture problems that require innovation rather than a traditional solution. Such solutions bring forth new innovations.
How does it help develop a global perspective?
Strategic leaders possess in-depth knowledge of global industries and the market that embraces global customers. Even if there is a need for small innovations, leaders make sure to analyse the global market in order to come up with the best and the most successful strategy based on a global perspective.
3. Strategic Leadership & Increased Productivity
A strategic leader helps their team make effective business decisions, independently. The right kind of strategic leader is not only adaptable and persistent but also capable of weaving inventive solutions during challenging times. One must master the following aspects to become an effective strategic leader: By challenging viewpoints among teammates, the leader ensures more team unity and trust that can be channelized towards new projects or innovations. Conflicting viewpoints are the easiest way to find a relevant and effective idea, agreed upon by all.
Leaders are capable of making sense of complex information by interpreting ambiguous data. As a result, they promote the innovation that is most effective for the organisation.
As leaders are able to anticipate challengesbefore they can occur, they lead innovations that can help the future.
Strategic leaders have teachable qualities too. Hence, what they learn and interpret from every situation gets passed on to team members. Their teachable qualitiescater to more innovation.
Confident leaders make sure to opt for the best decision that allows the growth of the organisation through a calm, logical, and analytical decision-making process.
Leaders never promote an innovation that does not align with the ideas of others. The common goal is shared by the organisation and everyone in it.
A person with an executive leadership certificate can develop the above-mentioned skills to foster the growth and development of their organization.
4. Major Steps of building Innovation Strategy
These 4 major steps need to be followed while developing an innovation strategy –
Determining a strategic approach and objective for innovation
The success rate of any strategy becomes higher when the objective is evident. An innovation strategy is supposed to support the business objectives and align with them. The strategy can be based on a new business model or leveraging the existing one; either way, the impact of innovation should be directly proportional to the business’s growth.
Understanding customers and competitors
Potential customers and competitors help to figure out the right playing field that is beneficial for the business. Understanding their needs helps open new roads for innovation that generates more sales for the organisation and empowers the mass as well.
Defining value proposition
A unique value proposition comes from analysing the market and proceeding with an innovation that offers a competitive advantage to all. It refers to creating a product or service that contains more value in terms of importance rather than its cost.
Developing core leadership abilities
It is always necessary to gain in-depth knowledge of the field to brush up on the core leadership qualities. In terms of behaviour, culture, knowledge, and skills; the strategic leaders stay at the top. Times TSW offers the best executive leadership programs that can help nurture those skills for all.
To know more: https://timestsw.com/course/leadership-and-strategy/iit-delhi-executive-management-programme-in-strategic-management/
