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How Visionary Leadership influences Innovation Leadership is an…

How Visionary Leadership influences Innovation

Leadership is an integral part of organizational success and significantly influences the growth of organizations. Leadership contribution to growth can be examined and understood from different perspectives, especially the perspectives of innovation advancement and direction. Research shows that leaders have an integral role in stimulating innovation through performance analysis, promoting innovative culture and behavior among employees, and creating an environment where employees can exercise the innovation process (Koziol-Nadolna, 2020). Based on clear research and analysis of leadership roles from experience, this discussion supports Mascareño et al. (2019)’s hypothesis about the roles of visionary leadership in increasing innovation.

 An important factor in innovation growth is having clear organizational goals and having a clear way to communicate those ideas. Mascareño et al. (2019)’s article postulated that visionary leaders stimulate innovation because it helps the leader to align the team to the goals and directs the path to innovation, especially when bringing clarity to goals. Based on these arguments, the authors are right to hypothesize that visionary leadership is key to growth. A company without a clear vision will never grow since it will have disintegrated teams who pursue different goals and visions, which could stifle innovation. Organizational encouragement is key to success, especially when dealing with challenging work (Dodge et al., 2017). Therefore, visionary leaders can successfully encourage their teams toward their goals.

The authors’ theoretical implications provide a better understanding of how visionary leadership and innovation are correlated. The first theoretical implication is that visionary leaders support the teams’ process through the intention to influence and guide. A company without a visionary leader might fail to grow since leaders are key to pushing the agenda. Some employees need direction and vision; therefore,  if they do not get the vision, innovation becomes a problem. Visionary leadership can be expounded to mean leadership that can envision the future and holistically articulate the process of reaching that future through imagination and coherence (Karwan et al., 2021).

 

References

Dodge, R., Dwyer, J., Witzeman, S., Neylon, S., & Taylor, S. (2017). The role of Leadership in Innovation. Research-Technology Management, 60(3), 22-29. https://doi.org/10.1080/08956308.2017.1301000

Karwan, D., Hariri, H., & Ridwan, R. (2021). Visionary leadership: What, why, and how. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Progressive Education, ICOPE 2020, 16-17 October 2020, Universitas Lampung, Bandar Lampung, Indonesia. https://doi.org/10.4108/eai.16-10-2020.2305217

Koziol-Nadolna, K. (2020). The role of a leader in stimulating innovation in an organization. Administrative Sciences, 10(3), 59. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci10030059

Mascareño, J., Rietzschel, E., & Wisse, B. (2019). Envisioning innovation: Does visionary leadership engender team innovative performance through goal alignment? Creativity and Innovation Management, 29(1), 33-48. https://doi.org/10.1111/caim.12341

 

 Question

You did an excellent job emphasizing the significance of leadership to organizational success, especially the role of visionary leadership in fostering innovation. It would be interesting to investigate how visionary leadership can be balanced with other crucial leadership qualities to cultivate an environment that is not only innovative but also inclusive and collaborative. Do you think leaders find it challenging to strike this balance?