• Published December 9, 2020
  • 4 Minute Read
LEADING EFFECTIVELY ARTICLE

How Leaders Can Encourage Innovation Instead of Sabotaging It

How Leaders Can Encourage Innovation Instead of Sabotaging It

How to Encourage Innovation Rather Than Undermine It

Many leaders say they want their organizations to be innovative. They may even say they want “the big idea” — disruptive innovation.

But saying that you want more innovation and creating a leadership culture that actually nurtures innovation are 2 different things.

Far too often, we’ve seen leaders subconsciously sabotage innovation by behaving in ways that kill new ideas. The sabotage isn’t deliberate — they really want to encourage innovative mindsets in their organizations — but they don’t know how to support and encourage innovation, and fail to recognize their counterproductive behaviors are actually undermining their goals.

Be sure you and your organization’s leaders are not falling into this trap.

To Encourage Innovation, Avoid Subconsciously Sabotaging It

Avoid These 9 Mistakes

Want to encourage continuous innovation and risk-taking? Then avoid the most common innovation-destroying behaviors. We see leaders who want to encourage innovation make these 9 mistakes:

Infographic: 9 Behaviors That Sabotage Innovation. Are you unintentionally discouraging innovative new ideas that could help solve your organizational challenges? 1. Discouraging creativity. 2. Rushing evaluation. 3. Pushing a top-down approach. 4. Forcing structure and hierarchy. 5. Confining innovation to R&D. 6. Criticizing first. 7. De-risking innovative ideas. 8. Rejecting ambiguity. 9. Acting like a know-it-all.

1. Discouraging creativity.

Leaders often urge their people to “be more creative,” but then quickly quash new ideas — and then don’t recognize the disconnect. They’re usually stuck in business thinking mode, where new initiatives require proof and precedents.

If you aren’t sure whether this is you, consider how you respond to a new idea. Consciously shift into an “innovation thinking” mindset when evaluating new ideas, recognizing that they won’t come with ironclad proof.

2. Rushing evaluation.

Another common mistake leaders make is they don’t commit the necessary resources or systems to properly evaluate innovative ideas. Assessing creative ideas is tough and requires time, energy, and money.

3. Pushing a top-down approach.

Encourage innovation with a bottom-up “pull” approach instead. When senior leaders clearly support and encourage innovation, it helps the whole organization see the successes that innovation can produce and makes more people want to contribute.

4. Forcing structure and hierarchy.

Innovative companies know they need the color-outside-the-lines creatives, along with the by-the-book executors. Establish a healthy partnership between the “creative types” and the realists who get the job done.

5. Confining innovation to R&D.

When considering how to encourage more innovation, some leaders decide to designate an “innovation department” or task a small group of people with innovating. Resist this move, which fails to spread innovation across all parts of the organization, and instead puts the burden of managing innovation onto a single group.

When relegated to one department or arena, the subtext is that only one person, group, or department is responsible for innovating, removing the responsibility from everyone else in the organization. But when everybody is on the lookout for opportunities that can build or replace current paradigms, better ideas emerge. And everyone in the organization has a role to play in innovation.

Read our white paper Turning Crisis Into Opportunity: Preparing Your Organization for a Transformed World to learn the importance of taking bold actions to push toward reinvention.

6. Criticizing first.

How are new ideas encouraged at work? Innovative ideas must be evaluated for business potential, but critiquing them first discourages creativity. By first praising innovative ideas, pro-innovation leaders send the message that new ideas are welcomed. This also creates an environment of psychological safety, where innovative ideas can be freely discussed.

7. De-risking innovative ideas.

As ideas travel through layers of management to the C-suite, the original idea is often stripped of any risk. In the process, the real innovation opportunity can be lost.

8. Rejecting ambiguity.

If it were a sure thing with no unknowns, it wouldn’t be innovative. Leaders who want to encourage innovation must learn to tolerate ambiguity and refuse to fall into the feasibility trap, which occurs when managers focus on what’s feasible instead of what might be possible. By deeming an idea “feasible,” that suggests it can be accomplished fairly easily or conveniently, yet if it’s that easy to do, the idea isn’t likely very creative.

An idea that only “might be possible” means there’s probably a lot of hard work required to make it happen, with an uncertain outcome. So beware of saying that you want innovation and then looking for the most feasible idea as your measure of desirability.

9. Acting like a know-it-all.

Leaders who model humility are much more likely to see their employees come up with creative ideas to solve the organization’s challenges than leaders who seem as though they already have all the answers. In many ways, showing humility is the most important way to encourage innovation of all.

Encouraging innovation and risk-taking requires more than simply avoiding these 9 innovation-sabotaging behaviors. But if your organization has tried to cultivate a culture of innovation and failed, consider whether these unintentional behaviors may be part of the problem.

Are you or others at your organization guilty of subconsciously sabotaging or undermining what you actually desire? Make a conscious effort to encourage innovation instead.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Encourage innovation and a more innovative culture at your organization with a customized learning journey for your leaders using our research-backed modules. Available leadership topics include Leading Through Change & Disruption, Emotional Intelligence, Innovation Leadership, Listening to Understand, Psychological Safety, and more.

  • Published December 9, 2020
  • 4 Minute Read

Based on Research by

Bill Pasmore
Bill Pasmore
SVP & Advisor to CEOs, Board, and Executive Teams

Bill leads our efforts to help clients develop leadership strategies their organizations can use to transform their leadership cultures and capabilities. A thought leader in the field of organization development, he advises CEOs and Boards on challenges of the future including business disruption, new ways of organizing, creating more effective digital networks, leading continuous change, and improving senior team effectiveness.

Cindy McCauley
Cindy McCauley
Honorary Senior Fellow

With over 30 years of experience at CCL, Cindy has contributed to many aspects of CCL’s work: research, publication, product development, program evaluation, coaching, and management. She designs and manages R&D projects, coaches action learning teams, writes for multiple audiences, and is a frequent speaker at professional conferences.

Alice Cahill
Alice Cahill
Director, Organizational Leadership Practice

Alice applies her extensive facilitation and consulting experience to the design and delivery of leadership engagements for executive and senior level leaders of organizations in a wide range of industries. She holds a PhD in Social-Organizational Psychology from Columbia University, as well as graduate degrees in several disciplines, including Adult Education and Public Health.

Mike Smith
Mike Smith
Director & Strategic Business Partner

Mike has over 2 decades of experience in a variety of leadership roles in the tech industry. He cofounded an entrepreneurial startup and led marketing and business development in a Fortune 100 company. He now partners with our clients to help them align their people development strategy with their enterprise business strategy and shape the leadership culture required to drive organizational performance.

Chuck Ainsworth
Chuck Ainsworth
Former Head of Coaching, Americas

Chuck is leader in the field of leadership coaching and a sought-after keynote speaker with a refreshingly authentic, practical, and inspiring style. He created CCL’s Better Conversations Every Day™, a highly successful one-day experience designed to be scaled for enterprise culture change and aimed at unlocking emotionally intelligent, feedback-rich conversations.

Charles Palus
Charles Palus
Honorary Senior Fellow

Chuck is an Honorary Senior Fellow and co-founded of CCL’s Organizational Leadership Practice and CCL Labs. Retired in 2020, Chuck studied, taught, and developed leadership as a relational process in the context of the vertical transformation of leadership cultures, with a special interest in digital disruption.

What to Explore Next

Webinar
How Leaders & Leadership Collectives Can Increase Psychological Safety

Watch this webinar and learn how to assess levels of psychological safety and create more of it to foster greater trust, creativity, collaboration, and innovation across your organization.

Leading Effectively Article
The Real Key to an Innovative Organization: Continuous Innovation

When you think about it, disruptive innovation is the exception, not the rule. Focusing on continuous innovation instead is more likely to help your organization succeed.

Leading Effectively Article
How to Foster an Innovative Mindset at Your Organization

How do you respond to a new idea? Through your words and actions, you have the ability to encourage — or stifle — innovation. Here's how to foster an innovative mindset.

Leading Effectively Article
3 Practices That Will Help Drive Innovation in Your Organization

Most organizations know they need to innovate but fail to execute. Understand the leadership practices that drive innovation in your organization to get ahead of the curve.

Leading Effectively Article
How to Drive Successful Organizational Change & Innovation in Traditional Industries

Want to put your organization on the fast track? Read these 6 key practices for driving change and innovation in traditional industries.

Related Solutions

About CCL

The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)® is a top-ranked, global, nonprofit provider of leadership development and a pioneer in the field of global leadership research. We know from experience how transformative remarkable leaders really can be.

Over the past 50 years, we’ve worked with organizations of all sizes from around the world, including more than 2/3 of the Fortune 1000. Our hands-on development solutions are evidence-based and steeped in our work with hundreds of thousands of leaders at all levels.