Creative Leadership, Innovation And Strategic Change Essay Samples

Introduction

There is global trend of transformation in the organizations. This transformation may be in the processes, skills, potentials and in activities. Leaders are considers the key participants of the organization. If all the employees are willing to work with good potential but there is not a person enough able to direct and lead all the employees then the whole effort of employs will be of no worth. Therefore role of leaders cannot be taken easy. A leader is a person who guides towards the final goals and make path for the success. A few years back there is a trend of traditional leaders but now with the technological advancements and innovation in the world traditional leaders are now replaced with the creative leaders. Creativity is considered as an art but when the creativity and leadership skill is combined the results are awesome. Creative leaders are considered best leaders in the organization as they seek the solution of all problems in a new strategic ways and lead the organizations with their best potential and skills. Only creative leadership is not enough but there will also be a need of leading strategically. To overcome the needs and demands of the technological as well as the strategic change it is necessary that every leader must lead the firm strategically. Strategic leading is also considered as a part of creative leadership and innovation (Ubben, Hughes and Norris, 2001)
In our following discussion we will discuss the creative leadership and tools for developing creative leadership skills. Strategic innovation and it’s all dimensions are discussed in detail in following.

Leadership Creativity

Leadership and creativity are not two different things. There are some characteristics that are common between leadership and creativity. On all levels including educational, socio political and professional level a great attention is given to these two concepts. Leadership qualities can be by birth or can be enhanced with learning and training. When concept of creative leadership comes then it means that a person who is leading a team or group use or show innovative and imaginative qualities for directing his/ her employees. Creative leadership is considered more important and beneficial than simple leadership; a leader who is also a creative person is considered always better to find solutions too many complex problems. It is considered that if a person has ability to think and do task out of the way in innovative way then he can be a good leader. Many researchers worked on this topic and many differences are made in traditional leaders and creative leaders (Basadur, 2004).
Now with the change in organizational level there is much attention is given to the creative leadership quality. It is considered that creative leadership can cause in increased productivity level of the employees. Many companies invest in those activities that help the leaders to think out of box. For instance companies send their managers and corporate leaders to attend training courses regarding leadership. Some companies promote leadership skills by promoting team exercises (Puccio, Mance and Murdock, 2010).
It is difficult to know that who carry the leadership skills or who not. It depends upon situation. It is considered that creative leadership can cause to produce great ideas. Creative leaders has ability to think passionately but analyzing the situation realistically. This type of leadership mostly motivates the employees and has good understanding of colleague’s need. Creative leaders have extra qualities of confidence and extra intelligence. Creative leaders always understand the whole situation very efficiently and make decisions on the basis of their judgmental skills. This is due to the quality that they imagine different ways to solve problems. Creative leaders are through to be independent persons. These people have strong skills of communication. They have ability to encourage and impress the people by their self-awareness and communication skills. Creative leaders are always considered as the people who have ability to solve all types of problem in a very good way. A traditional leader may give one solution to a problem but creative leaders are those that give many alternative solutions and then choose the best solution that fit according to the organizational need. A center of creative leadership is developed with the perspective of giving training to the leaders that they become creative leaders (Sternberg, Kaufman and Pretz, 2003).

Leading Strategically

Having a leader or only a strategy is not much enough. It is necessary that there is a need of strategic leadership. To align the short term goals with long term goals it is important to lead with proper strategy and face all the challenges regarding this. Following four points are important in perspective of bridging the performance gap by combining leadership and strategy together. There is always a need of leadership change, cultural change and organizational change for success of any business (Hughes and Beatty, 2005).

Lead Change

It is necessary for strategic leaders to forecast and motivate the change that can cause positive tension and complexity in the organizations (Willcoxson, 2000).

Shape Culture

Culture is influenced by strategic leaders and set strategies to run a business (Willcoxson, 2000).
Leverage Polarities
Strategic leaders have an ability to solve the conflicting priorities to balance long and short term forces in business environment (Willcoxson, 2000).

Span Organizational Boundary

Strategic leaders make interdependent decisions and facilitate to work in collaboration (Davies, 2011).
Creative Leadership Development
Creativity can be defined as ability of generating ideas and leadership is defined as ability to apply ideas by means of other actions. So combination of these two terms is collectively called as creative leadership (Day, 2001).
IBM study of 2010 says that for solving the turbulent and complex issues there is most need of creativity. There is a center of creative leadership that provides good opportunity to individuals for developing creative leadership. Creative leadership can be developed by two means. One is by means of creative problem solving method (CPS) or through lateral thinking (Herrmann, 1995). Secondly use the leadership development program to increase leadership skills. A good example for development of creative leadership skill is late Steve jobs. Though his innovative and excellent ideas he make apple company a leading brand in information technology. With the passage of time creative leaders become mature and develop mind blowing ideas (McCauley and Van Velsor, 2004).
There are many other traditional leaders. For example Sony is led by traditional leadership. CD player and MP3 are products of Sony and by implementing traditional leadership they used strategy of extension of product line and generate greater revenues but they missed the opportunity of disrupting the market of consumer market. In contrast Apple through creative leadership made music soft wares and hard ware’s and made revolution in the field of mobile and music players.

Traditional Versus Creative Leadership Development

Creative leaders always give best solutions so that their strategy can be properly implemented. They always developed revolutionary strategies for organizations.
While traditional leaders also implement effective solutions but they do not propose innovative strategy. All the organization where traditional leadership is found always stands at “middle of pack” position (Shin and Zhou, 2003).
Traditional leaders can be transformed into creative leaders if a leader has potential and then trained will be properly. It is not a magical solution but if a person has ability to generate good ideas and think revolutionary then by more training and developmental program he can be a good creative leader. Some important skills that are necessary for creative leaders are confidence, self-discipline, political and social skills and judgmental skills. If any leader has lack any one of them then he fail to become creative leader (White, Hodgson and Crainer, 1996).
It is not necessary that every leader has an ability to become creative leader by training but there are some people who do not have potential to make even a leader. Leadership ability always varies from person to person and everybody cannot be a good leader.

Ways to Develop the Creative Leadership

There are two ways through which development of creative leadership can be done (Eichinger and Lombardo, 1990).
One way is that first of all leadership ability is developed and with the passage of time through developmental and learning courses creative leadership is developed. Like start with traditional leaders and with training and learning process transformation into creative leaders.
Second path is this that starts from a future creative leader and ultimately develops creative leadership. Creative leaders also need time to blossom and to reach at a stage of success and with the passage of time and experiences a future creative leader finally becomes a good creative leader. A person with the passage of time develops all the habits that are necessary to become a creative leader (Eichinger and Lombardo, 1990).
It is necessary for creative leaders that he must overcome his weakness to develop. Creative leaders always find a way to develop him and if any person fails to do that then he cannot be a good creative leader. Why there is a need for creative leadership?
This question is mostly asked when leadership topics discussed. As the whole world is changing and every new day comes with new innovation in technology and sciences. When whole global trend is moving towards innovation then why not the basic skills? A leader must think out of box and apply creative and innovative ideas in his leadership skills also to direct people in a new way that can cause motivation in the employees and increase overall productivity of the employee. This is the requirement of the modern time that we give up ways of traditional leadership and instead come to the creative leadership that can make an organization successful (Amit, 1986).

Leadership Strategy

If four initiatives are taken in an organization and any one is failed then it is not due to the fact that the strategy was wrong but the main thing is that leadership strategy was wrong and not fully implemented. A change is always occurring in the organization for betterment and development. Here comes the most important aspect that in which ways this change can be properly addressed. If leadership strategy is good then all the strategic change will be in favor of organization. Talent development and transformation of culture also comes with the leadership strategy. These all will be properly addressed to implement good change in organization (Moore, 1996). It is not a hard and fast rule that all the same organizations can be run with same leadership strategy. Every organization and every situation pertaining in the same organization require different leadership strategy to succeed. If leadership strategy is properly implemented with the requirement of change then all the team will work collectively to attain goal for organization. It is all matter of proper leadership strategy. A good leader can direct the shattered team in one common goal and by motivating they can succeed in achieving goal for organization (Amit, 1986).
A business strategy that is well defined is requirement of every business and every leader knows the importance of this strategy. After defining good business strategy there is always need of a leadership that will properly implemented this strategy to meet the requirements of change that occur in the business. If leadership fails then even a very bold and best strategy cannot make the organization on the path of success (Robert, 1991).
A program is developed with the name of CCL which help the leaders to achieve their goals. This program is developed with hardworking of 40 years by getting data and experiences of thousands organizations of more than 100 countries across the world. This center for creative leadership gives key goals and developmental programs that transform leadership to the creative leadership to address the change in organization (Watkins, 2004).
For any organization strategic leader is necessary to lead that organization strategically. Special skills is developed in strategic leaders who think a little bit different than the traditional leaders to make such decisions about strategy implementation that give boost to the organization.

Strategic Change

When some alteration is made then this will be called as a change. When we talk about the strategic change then it means the transformation of all the business strategies or marketing plans that are traditionally performed in any organization. Change in policies, strategies mission and sometime structure in organization can be called as strategic change (University of Warwick, 1988).

Examples

A real life example of strategic change is of motors companies in Japan. In 1999 Nissan motors that is failing in its business was acquired by Renault motors. And then changing the policies of Nissan they made the change in operations and manufacturing of Nissan motors. They reduced manufacturing capacity that was considered as overcapacity and also made changes in management. All the seniority based management is replaced with new young skilled professionals. Many economies of scale were achieved through these strategic changes and in 2001 this Nissan Company was announced as a biggest profit company. By changing all the structure of management, operation and manufacturing this company achieve good name in the market. This was all blessing of strategic change (Johnson, 1987).

Need for Strategic Change

Why there is need of strategic change? This question arises in many minds the simplest answer of this question is that competitive advantage is the most powerful advantage of strategic change. When a company changes it’s all strategies it means a new thing or new value it will give to its consumers that will be a competitive edge for this organization. All the brands that are now famous in the whole world are due to their differentiation strategy. Every brand give a unique feature to the consumers that other organization are not given this thing make the brand appealing and profitable. And this is due to the strategic change. If a company does not change its strategies with the passage of time to make them according to the technology and advanced time then this organization cannot lead in the market more. All the known brands in the market are famous for their products as they know importance of strategic change and this thing make them successful in the world (Barker and Duhaime, 1997).
Another example of differentiation and branding with the context of strategic change is of Intel’s 1991. Intel inside used the strategic change in developing new products of microprocessors. Now Intel microprocessors are considered best microprocessor for computers. This is achieved by Intel Company by their god strategic change decisions.
Apple is considers very good and leading brand in their mobile phones and touch technology. This success is all due to fact that Steve jobs know the importance of technological changes and he made innovation in technology and this all new strategic change will make the company a leading organization.

Strategic Change in Real World and Future Outlook

This is the age of continuous change and those organizations seek good positions that will oversee the change and make strategies according to change in environment. This strategic change is actually implemented in the real world and best real world example of this actually is Nokia. Nokia earned its name in mobile industry and there is a very large market in the world of Nokia mobiles but as technology changes Nokia does not change its strategies and now Nokia has declined in its growth in profits also. This is called as strategic drift. Strategic innovation is sometime known as difficult to control and forecast. But an organization succeeds in the market that forecast this change and makes the strategies according to them (Quinn, 1978).

Strategic Innovation

Strategic innovation means that change in growth strategy re imaginably. A company invest in research and developmental department and new advancements made in products and technology (Markides, 1997).
Leadership, innovation and strategic change are closely related with each other. This discussion is made by many researchers and found close relationship. As the whole world is globalizing and there are many new changes that is occurring. An organization will go fit and profitable that forecast this change make strategies according to the change in the organizations (Helfat et. al, 2009).

There are seven dimensions that are related to the strategic innovation.

Managed innovative process
Industry foresight
Consumer foresight
Strategic alignment
Core competency and technologies
Organizational readiness
Disciplined implantation
Managed Innovation Process
Managed innovative process means that in an organization there is external and internal perspective that is taken to make the whole process creative. All the new possibilities are taken in a new innovative and detersive way to implement them in the organization (Wiersema and Bantel, 1992).

Strategic Alignment

A proper way of strategy and building the vision is given to the organization. Internal support through stakeholders is also provided to implement the proper strategic change strategies (Henderson and Venkartaman, 1992).

Industry Foresight

For every business it is very necessary that we foresee the market and industry before making a strategic innovation. All the driving forces and trends are fully understood and competitive dynamics, alternative approaches and all dislocations are properly analyzed (Johnson, 1992).

Consumer Insight

A thorough market research is very necessary to implement all the strategic change. The new product that is to be launched by the strategic change must be attractive so that new and old customer will be interested also (Greenwood and Hinnings, 1993).

Core Competency and Technology

Strategic innovation cannot be properly implemented until there will be core competency is seen in the environment of the organizations. New technologies that are necessary for this innovation must be there. Without proper competency level and technologies it is not possible that strategic innovation can be applied.

Organizational Readiness

It is necessary that we see the organizational readiness in the organization culture. There is a drive in the organizational culture to implement all the new and innovative ideas. An organization must have the ability to manage all the political, financial, social, cultural, operational and financial demands before implementing the innovative strategies (Gassmann, 2006).

Disciplined Implementation

It is not be successful only to make a strategy. There is always need of proper and disciplined implementation of these strategies.
An organization must develop the culture which supports the sustainable innovation in the organization. If this happens this give a competitive edge to the organization.
Creativity is considered as the most important quality of leadership. Knowledge and consistent development is necessary for leadership quality. When we see the different organizations that are leading in the world then we come to know that these all organizations are using the creative leadership and they have made strategic change in the operation of their businesses. There are some businesses that are mostly operating with the goal of growing business only. They make short term goals in growth. While the studies suggest that only short term goals cannot make the organization to the heights of success but long term goals and short term goals must collaborate with each other to achieve the final goal of the organization. Many strategies failed to work in the organizations this is due to the fact that some time the strategies that are implanted in the organization there is no need of these strategies.

Strategic innovation gives many opportunities to all the business to grow by their creative process.

Strategic Innovation
Strategic innovation means that there is abrupt change in the structure of organization with the potential of high revenue that an organization started (Kandapully, 2002).

Incremental Innovation

In the organization there is need of incremental change that has potential to generate low or middle revenue (Kandapully, 2002).
Unplanned Improvements
In the case of unplanned improvements there is incremental change in the organization that has potential to low or mid profit generation. These improvements are sometime uncontrolled and accidental by the organization (Titus, 2007).

Serendipitous Breakthroughs

These changes are disruptive and also have potential to generate mid or high profit. These changes are also accidental and uncontrolled (Titus, 2007).
Examples
There are many real life examples of creative leadership in the market exists. Some of common examples are discussed here.
An example that relates the creative leadership, innovation and strategic change together is of the apple company. Steve jobs were considered as a creative leader in the market. With the passage of time Steve know the importance of innovation in the market. There was a need of technological change in the market. Steve made the strategy to invest its profit in the research and developmental program of the company. Through continuous efforts and through his creative leadership skills apple was become the first company that make the touch phone and introduced in the market. Steve does not take a stop on this innovation and with the passage of time he introduced a line of touch products in the market. Apple produces all the hard wares and soft wares of its mobile and laptops. And then a new innovation is made in the music player by introducing iTunes in the market. There are many apps that can be downloaded or purchased in the app store. Samsung give a tough time to the apple but still Apple phones and laptops are higher in the market. Samsung is also producing new line of phones in the market.
Every time when concept of creative leadership comes in the mind Steve jobs name remained at the top of the list. There are many other organizations that are making incremental changes in the strategies with forecasting the change in the market and they not only develop but implement the innovative strategies. Strategy making is not a big issue the main purpose is actually to implement the strategies properly and implementing strategy is main task of leadership force. By good leadership efforts it can be made possible to implement these strategies.
There is another example of Nokia that does not know the importance of strategic change and creative leadership. A few years ago Nokia was considered as a leading brand in the quality mobile phones. Nokia mobile phones are considered very well in quality but Nokia does not change its strategies or invest money in the developmental changes. New technological advancements are not considered by Nokia and now Nokia phones are out from the market. However there are many new phones now available in the market by Nokia but they did not catch large market portion as apple and Samsung did.

Conclusion

We have discussed creative leadership, strategic change and innovation in the detailed manner and above all discussion can be concluded that now the world is changing very rapidly and a change outside the organization impact the internal environment of the organization. If internal environment is not change according to external change in the world then there will be a drastic effect. When we see the history of few years back we see that much of the work is done by people in the manufacturing and production companies. But with the technological changes the robots are introduced to do much of the task. Whole production time is reduced in many industries as well as the cost that comes on human capital is reduced. This gives a huge benefit to the organization. Now all the record keeping is done with computerized form. These are all technological changes that indirectly forced the organization to make strategic change in the organizational environment. There are many companies that restructure the whole strategy and policy by considering this coming change in the market. Leaders of the advanced companies know the importance of upcoming trend and lead there organization according to new trends. Those businesses always go successful that give importance to change and innovation. Now a much more work is done in developing the creative leadership skills. Training and developmental programs are being introduced to make the leaders more creative in their skills. It is a fact that creative leaders always thing big and different and make bold decisions about the organizations. It is necessary for every organization that they make the organizational restructuring when there is a need of them and before implementing any strategy it is important to do cost and benefit analysis properly. It must be seen that whether by implanting this strategic change whether the company will go in profit or not. Sometime this happens that a company implements some strategy but that does not best fit according to situation and all the hard work will go wasteful. Therefore it is necessary that implement that strategy that give long term benefit only short term benefit is not the good and final goal of any strategy.

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