Success Secrets and Stories
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Success Secrets and Stories
Unlocking Innovative Potential within Leadership
What sets an innovative leader apart from the rest? Discover the key traits and strategies that define truly creative leadership in our latest episode. Drawing from the insights of influential figures like Oprah, Tyler Perry, Thomas Edison, and Steve Jobs, we explore how significance, persistence, and the willingness to innovate can transform your leadership approach. Whether it's Oprah's focus on significance or Edison's numerous failures, these leaders offer invaluable lessons on pushing boundaries and fostering creativity within teams.
Join Greg and me as we unravel the mechanics of innovative leadership by sharing real-world examples and techniques straight from the trenches. From creative brainstorming sessions at a consumer package goods company to a memorable analogy about a band leader producing unique sounds by switching instruments, we highlight the importance of adaptability and out-of-the-box thinking. Don't miss our recommendations for further reading and resources that will keep you on the path to becoming an innovative leader. Ready to redefine your leadership style? Tune in now!
Presented by John Wandolowski and Greg Powell
Well, welcome everyone to our podcast, success Secrets and Stories. I'm your host, john Wondolowski. I'm here with my co-host and friend, greg Powell. Greg, hey, everybody, yeah, and today we're going to talk about a subject that I think innovative leadership sometimes conjures up different responses.
Speaker 2:In my past I've been identified as a innovative leader or someone who is creative, and the famous what if? Question is something that I have always used as a tool to help push for creativity and trying to encourage my staff to try to find a way, to find a new way to make sure that they can get not only the problem solved, but to get a voice and be able to be part of the process. But there's more to being an innovative leader than catchphrases and there are some wonderful examples of people who have done a very good job of being innovative leaders, people who have done a very good job of being innovative leaders. I found this very interesting article from Indeed and we found a whole bunch of stuff and Greg and I have used it as references and it's from their editorial team, so it's not an individual taking credit for it, but a very good team of people back in February of 13th of 2024. And this is career advice on their wwwindeedcom website. If you type in backslash career advice, you'll find this article and it has a wonderful kind of approach to try to set up and understand the mechanics that is associated with leadership. So what is innovative leadership? Working in the leadership role often involves identifying different styles of leadership as you determine how you want to move forward. Applying creativity to your own leadership style can only help you create your own unique style that aligns with your goals and the needs of your staff. One leadership style that is considered innovative leadership, which involves creative thinking. In this article we will be discussing the innovative leadership and how it applies to the style when leading around to you as a leader. When leading around to you as a leader.
Speaker 2:Now, when I read this originally, four different people came to mind and I wanted to try to put some context to this article. The four people that struck me were Oprah, tyler Perry, edison and Steve Jobs. So Oprah has an example of don't worry about being successful, but work towards being significant and the success will naturally follow. The next one I thought that was kind of interesting is Edison and and his line. I wouldn't call him an innovative, uh, leadership example, but he has a wonderful line. I haven't failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Speaker 2:That that push to find that next step of innovation isn't an easy step. Uh, tyler Perry, who started off as an actor, now director, then really created what would you say, greg, the Hollywood of the South, and he has a quote that is reasonably famous for innovation in my mind Don't stop. Neural your focus to one idea and make it work. That will give birth to all the others. All you can do is plant the seed and water it. Now, what I found interesting about his quote was here's a wonderful example of somebody that could have stopped being an actor, and he was very successful. He had the monetary rewards there, but he wanted to learn more, and he learned about not only directing, but he learned more about wanting to try to open up a studio. Then he got into distribution. He understands the industry and there was dropping a seed. How do you water? What's that next step?
Speaker 2:The fourth name that rings in my ear is Steve Jobs. For a lot of different reasons, the one that I thought was interesting in innovation his quote is innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. I think another line that I found really interesting from Steve Jobs when I've looked at as far as someone who's a leader. I hire good people to tell us what to do. I don't hire good people for us to tell them what to do, pushing that concept that it's the team, it's the people that are creating the organization that ideas come from. It's not top down, it's sideways. That innovation happens next to you as well as above and below your positions. They're all in it together to be innovative, as well as above and below your positions. They're all in it together to be innovative. So that kind of gives a little bit of the format of what I think was good for leadership Greg.
Speaker 1:Thanks, john. I wanted to add something that you brought up in our discussion earlier. One of the common denominators about these folks on innovative leadership is they never stopped. You think about Steve Jobs, right, he's working at Apple, then he kind of gets asked to leave Apple. Then he goes to another creative organization.
Speaker 1:I'll say it nicely. But he kept in the thinking of creativity and innovation, went to another company the Pixar situation helped get them to a really good place. Then he could have stopped there, could have cashed the checks and stopped there and he came back to Apple and really was there pretty much until he passed away. And when I think of Thomas Edison, think of the time in the world when he was doing his innovative thinking and his inventions and getting all those patents.
Speaker 1:He didn't have near the resources that we have today to make that happen and Oprah John and I were talking earlier that she could have easily stopped and said, ok, I've made it, I've beaten the odds. And now we say things like Oprah money, meaning she just continued to expand and is still doing things behind the scenes. And Tyler Perry, as John said, just wasn't satisfied with just one success. And these folks that are alive are continuing to be innovative leaders.
Speaker 2:Right and what I find the distinguishing thing. Edison's probably the exception, but one of the other comments you made about Steve Jobs is I'm going to tell you what you want. You don't know that you want it just yet, and I think that that's the mechanics of being an innovative leader. So, from the article, what is innovative leadership? The mechanics of it, as they described it, was a style of leadership that involves applying innovation and creativity to managing people and projects, Thank you. So companies and industries that often encounter such situations can benefit from bringing innovation and creative leaders.
Speaker 2:The next point they brought up is another element of an innovative leader is the willingness to consider different concepts and approaches, which can be challenging for those who prefer to stick to the tried and true methods. You can see innovation individuals who lead several major corporations, and again they go back to Steve Jobs as an example. To Think Different was one of his marketing campaigns and the successes of things like iTunes, iMac, iPad and then iPhone. There was innovation all along that they built upon.
Speaker 2:The last part of that concept was innovative leaders don't necessarily have to be people behind all of the creative ideas. That's what Steve Jobs was trying to allude to. They can be recognized for greatness from their team members and work to develop paths for success for those ideas. What really helps an innovative leader stand out is their willingness to adapt, to change, experiment with new concepts and envision the path forward to a creative idea. And I think if you're talking about what you need to understand to be an innovative leader, that is probably the perfect way to phrase it. What really helps in terms of the willingness to adapt, to change, to experiment with new concepts and envision a new path to be creative with the idea. So, Greg, that kind of leads us to what are those mechanical skills that the article was talking about?
Speaker 1:Thanks, John. The skills of innovative leaders are like this. An innovative leader must have certain skills, regardless of the industry in which they work or the teams that they oversee. Some of the key skills required for the innovative leadership include communication.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which one of the anything that we've talked about in our podcast doesn't really use communication as the most important part it is. It is the key of leadership is, if you don't have this one first element, you're not really going to be successful.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right, john. We've talked about that, as you've mentioned in other podcasts, innovative leadership also requires the ability to communicate the vision and generate awareness and enthusiasm moving forward. Another skill that's needed no surprise imagination. Using your imagination is a must when applying the innovative style to your leadership. You must be able to imagine and envision the future from a simple concept, as well as consider the steps it will take to achieve a particular goal. And if you think back into the 80s and maybe late 80s, early 90s, there were people called futurists right, they were trying to predict what was going to happen. Remember those, john?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, use those for business to try to help you figure where your industry might go or trends might go. But they had an imagination to help them predict where things might be going.
Speaker 2:Now we have computers that do it with data profiling. So yeah, the crystal ball approach has kind of gone away a little bit.
Speaker 1:It has Another skill that's needed is a willingness to embrace opportunities. A willingness to embrace new ideas and opportunities is a unique way to approach your work. I told John a story about one of the things we told people don't say, hey, we tried that before. It doesn't work. That's the right standard. Things are different now, variables are different, assumptions are different, and we used to say say three good things about an idea before you say something bad, just to make sure you listen to this new opportunity so that you can embrace it. This willingness also allows you to see concepts on a larger scale rather than worrying about the details. You'll get to the details later.
Speaker 1:Another skill of innovative leaders is empathy. I can't tell you how important empathy is. We've talked about that a little bit in other podcasts, but the ability to empathize with others is an important skill across all leadership styles. But in this application, the skill involves empathizing with the end customer or the person who will benefit from the innovative idea being developed. So you're putting yourself in the customer's shoes. You're making yourself that customer and really wearing those shoes, saying, yeah, that's what I would expect, that's what I would want being a leader with thinking like that. You think about audience members' needs and identify ways to improve the offering to better accommodate those needs. Very important empathy. So another skill needed is creative brainstorming and if you think back to your early educational days, you may remember brainstorming ideas, or brainstorming sessions as we used to call them, as a way to get creative and come up with new concepts.
Speaker 2:John. Well, we're going to talk about creative brainstorming in another podcast, so I want to kind of reserve a little bit of that. But creative brainstorming is a little bit different than innovative leadership, so we're going to do the distinction a little bit later, but it is an element, a clear element, of being an innovative leader. Greg.
Speaker 1:Thanks, john. And the last skill they needed is efficiency. Innovative leaders tend to be efficient workers and motivators focusing on getting things done, and the elements of that efficiency are speed, quality. You want those up and you want to reduce costs.
Speaker 2:Back to you, john. Next component of what the article was based on is the mechanics that are associated with being an innovative leader. Their first idea is that you have to be willing to learn. That element of being innovative never stops. You're always learning. The second element of it is to be a good innovative leader. You should study other people that are considered innovative leaders. We gave you four. Three clearly are innovative leaders. I'm going to put Edison as a great inventor. Three clearly are innovative leaders. I'm going to put Edison as a great inventor.
Speaker 2:The next concept is looking for ways to improve your current concepts. You don't have to start with something brand new. You can look at what you have and try to enhance it, try to make it better. A little bit of that innovation approach whenever we're talking about current concepts kind of reminds me of the NASCAR guys that are always trying to take something and make it a little bit better. That whole concept of being innovative is taking the small steps in order to get a bigger result. It's being innovative looking at components, looking at subsystems. That kind of challenge is the part of being innovative To set manageable goals.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you want to really frustrate your team members, make a goal that we want to make a rocket ship. We might be making breakfast cereals, but what if we can make a rocket ship? It's not going to happen. The goal has to be a logical and manageable to find something that you're passionate about, something that you find in terms of your career. If you can't find a passion in the position, like the example I gave of working- at a place making cereal.
Speaker 2:I actually worked at a place that made cereal. I can tell you it's not a place of innovation. They had one particular device that was built in the 1800s that was associated with manufacturing the product because they were happy with it. They didn't want to innovate it, they were just happy with making the product. If you can find something that you have in terms of a career and you have a passion, you get things like Steve Jobs and you get things like Oprah Winfrey and you get things like Tyler Perry. There's something in terms of a passion, in terms of your career. Those are wonderful things to look for.
Speaker 2:As far as being an innovative leader and innovation is almost synonymous with willing to adapt, because change is the key you can. You can find a lot of innovative leaders that have an original concept and can never follow it up and the product runs its life and it goes off the shelves because they stop. You have to learn how to adapt and that means that their next element they talked about was being persistent. You're going to have those failures. You have to understand the failure helps you find that road to success, if that's the mentality, rather than you're defeated and you're done. That's the difference between an innovative leader and a leader. So I hope this concept of what it takes to be an innovative leader makes some sense in terms of the mechanics of it and if you're going to try to go down that road of being an innovative leader. Probably the most interesting part is some of the examples, greg, you were giving me as far as teaching people to be innovative, and maybe you can talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, John. Some years ago, I worked for a consumer package goods company that was trying to stay competitive with so many different folks out there doing some of the same things we were doing creating the same products and getting them to market. And we had a class that was put together on innovation and just how to create things, creativity skills and we had managers in the class, so managers got to learn innovation for themselves, but also how to learn innovation with the people in their employ. Individual contributors just got to brainstorm and come up with some things. So we had it set up in these little laboratories, so to speak makeshift and some fake products and a lot of assumptions, but the idea was just to get beyond, needing a lot of precise information and getting bogged down. It was how to think out of the box, how to think about.
Speaker 2:It wasn't for presentations, it was trying to do the mechanics of being creative.
Speaker 1:Exactly how to tag on to somebody else's idea and then find ways to kind of blow them up, make them explode a little bit. It was a lot of fun, and when we got finished, no, we didn't come up with something that we could bring to market, but we thought about things in a different way, and that's that was really the goal. And then it was another opportunity we had for another organization, for high potential leaders. We really felt creativity, innovation, were really important skills for them to have, and so there was this example of a band leader, and so each one of these individuals in the class was like the band leader, and they had, you know, different instruments in the band, and their goal was to make their band produce the best sound of all the other bands, and it was interesting to see how they thought about that.
Speaker 1:Do you just go, well, I get the best flutist, I'll get the best drummer. Well, no, we're going to take this adaptation of that song or we're going to pursue harmonies in our other band. We're going to do something different, and that was the idea. Don't just sit there and say, hey, I've got a band play this music, walk away. What can you do to enhance the sound and performance of your particular band. Maybe you have people switch instruments and it was really a lot of fun, but it was again trying to make them be innovative, think outside of the box, go into areas of them. Why would I switch the two instruments together? Because they may produce different sounds, these two, these different individuals. And so a lot of fun, but really got people to think differently, to think with more innovation, but really got people to think differently to think with more innovation.
Speaker 2:So we've talked about an innovative leader and there's the mechanics of it, there's the skill sets that are associated with it, but in your industry, whatever it is that you're doing for innovation or whatever comes to your mind when you think of an innovative leader, those characteristics probably are the ones that are popping up, and it's the ever-famous line that change is good and being able to adapt and being able to challenge yourself. That's probably your first step of being an innovative leader. So, if you like what you've heard in this podcast, my book Building your Leadership Toolbox is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites. Success Secrets and Stories is on the podcast format that you're on, thank you.
Speaker 2:Also on other popular formats like Apple, google, spotify, a lot of what Greg and I have talked about. Really, our starting point was Dr Durst and some of his books on management by responsibility, and you can find that on wwwsuccessgrowthacademycom and if you want to get a hold of us, growth academycom. And if you want to get a hold of us, my email address is wando75.jw at gmailcom and greg I can be reached at g powell 374 at gmailcom and the music is brought to you by my grandson.
Speaker 2:So, bottom line, we want to hear from you. We've. So, bottom line, we want to hear from you. We've found a lot of your input very helpful and this podcast has grown because of some of your input, so we thank you, so thanks.
Speaker 1:Greg. Thanks, john, as always, next time, next time, yeah.