Analyze the results of your assessment—how your own strengths equip you—and how your weaknesses hinder your ability to support organizational innovation.
Innovator or Executor quiz is based on the analysis of skills in which one can understand and assess the capability to know that in which criteria a person lies based on the results. The weak and strong set of skills will decide the future of the organization. As emphasized on the article and before the quiz that MBA mostly contains the set of capabilities which are needed in the field of entrepreneurship because MBAs are the people who runs the organization the way it should be. The leader should be the one who can be both but before pursuing the quiz one needs to understand what both of these skills tells about the leader (Contributor, 2018). First the executor is the one who contributes in the production while following the direction of created policies. Executors are known as the doers of the company. They considers to be the task oriented. The duty of executor is to reach and meet the set goals of the company. Sometimes organizations need these leaders because they are the one who while following the directions meet the set requirement of achieving the goals. The other type which is mentioned in the quiz is innovators, these leaders as indicated with the name focuses on innovation and introduce ideas, methods and new products. These type of leaders who takes the initiatives and set definite goals. Companies take the start with these leaders who think out of the box and provide the solutions of the problem. There are several of the organizations who are doing the same work but the innovator will bring something new. There are several ways to conduct one task but innovator always tends to introduce the efficient ways to done the task effectively(Ezzat, 2017).
The main concern of the organization that both should work alongside because sometimes set goals needs to be done before creating and setting new goals. The set of questions asks for the two answers yes and no. If the number of yes increases from the number of no than the orientation is strong and will provide the chances of success but maximum number of no needs the teaching and awareness to the concept of leadership.
From the set of questions from the innovation part the first question is providing the guidance as the leadership to situations with no visible directions. Considering myself, I would have definitely consider myself to have such set of skills which enables me providing guidance to solve unstructured situations. The second question refers to old and new ways, it’s about the convenience that how much the existing ways are providing but I would prefer effective ways which help make the task effective and efficient with minimum resources. The third question will be yes because the clear and precise information help clearing the direction on which work needs to be done. The fourth and fifth question will be yes because proactive approach needs to adopt by the leader for preventing any possible issues which can come in future. The sixth question is yes because with the rapid growing market the decentralized decision making helps coping with problems which needs proactive response.
The execution part also contains the six question with different dimensions according to the nature of the execution of goals and tasks in the organization. The first question will be yes because the order and regulations should be in the organization which helps establishing clear path to work on. The second question yet again needs effectiveness and efficient, the reason of no will be the effectiveness of new ways compared to advancement in technology. The third question will be yes because it helps making work easy for others. The fourth question will be no because it causes the strategic drift when it comes to deal with problems which can be cater efficiently and a leader should maintain the priority through which problems should be dealt. The solution of future problems also helps in preventing current ones. The fifth question will be no because the accuracy doesn’t matter when it comes to innovation. The approach of leader to be innovative it needs to be full of risk and stagnation in one task stops the growth. The sixth question will be yes because it provides support to organization and staff.
After the quiz, the author also provides the solutions to help in developing skills of innovation and execution. If one is weak the concept of both will not be integrated. As mentioned earlier the organization needs both the executor and innovator. Innovation needs the exposure and knowledge while learning from others experiences. On the other hand, executor can be learned through set of skills because execution needs specific set which helps in execution any task to reach the goals.
Assess your use of at least two leadership practices that you have used to spur innovation with your team or in another relevant context. If you have not had the opportunity to use leadership practices, discuss two leadership practices you could use and how you would use them to spark innovation.
For innovation in the organization, there are two leadership approaches which can provide better guidance and effective way in execution of the task and meet the goals of the organization. The first leadership approach will be strategic leadership. This approach emphasizes on the ability of providing the strategic vision contribution in the organization. Along with vision, leader must provide motivation and acquire such set of skill which can help reaching the goals and proposed vision. This approach also refers in utilizing the skills to create strategies of managing the employees. The common goal used by the organization is to manage the change through specific and relevant strategies (Bonanno, 2016).
The change requires resources allocation and environment handling of the organization. The innovation comes from the change in the organization because perusing the innovative goals mean to adapt the change effectively and efficiently. There are following most relevant traits which strategic leader needs to manage the innovation:
- Loyalty: The strategic leader should be loyal to his/her vision when implementing the strategies for change and innovation.
- Updating: To keep on posted to each and every update about the progress of organization.
- Power Use: The use of power should be in a wise manner. The power use should be in a way that it can help enforcing the innovative change and also wins the consent of employees.
- Wide Perspective: The strategic leader possess the broad knowledge about everything and don’t use the approach of narrow mind.
- Motivation: The motivation is not always about the money but to motivate the employees according to their own preferences. Identification of employee need and wants will let the leader make a good strategic leader.
- Self-control: Leader should have the control over his feelings and especially the anger because it will demotivate the employee.
- Compassion: A leader should hold compassion for the work and for the employees.
- Reliability: The consistency of the leader vision will enables the enforcement force which helps innovative change par of the organization even before the execution.
The other leadership approach which better help in the innovation in the organization is team leader. The team leader is one of the best in effectiveness towards the employees which provides them motivation towards the job and meeting the goal of innovation implementation (Rao, 2015).
Following are some of the most effective ad common traits of team leader which make it the best leader:
- Communicator: Being in the team and working alongside will help in the clear communication which makes it clear for the employees to know the exact work. It let the employees know that their work is producing something.
- Organized: The team leader have the organizational skills which are exception as compared to others. This skill help in defining the task to each employee efficiently.
- Confident: It provides the confidence to employees because working alongside the leader will help them giving them the purpose and confidence that their work will be valued.
- Influential: Working with employees alongside them can better help in influencing the employees which help gaining confidence through influencing them
Assess your own use of each of the five discovery skills. Analyze your strengths and weaknesses in using each skill in the context of innovation in the workplace. Provide at least two actions that would enhance your use for each discovery skill.
The five discovery skills helps the leaders to initiate and implement the innovative in the organization. These skills are exceptional and rarely possess by the leaders because these skills implementation requires high risk and they are only based on the intuition of the leader(Ezzat, 2017).
Those five skills involve following:
- Associating: This skill sensed by the leader in which they mad either employees or customer feel associated with the organization. Sometimes the both stakeholders involve in association. It can be from anything sometimes the employment strategy and sometimes the marketing strategy which gives the sense of association to employees and customers.
- Observing: This skill requires the close and accurate sense of observation around the leader. The leader looks closely and observe the missing things which can be the opportunity for the leaders to create something good out of it.
- Experimenting: This involves the trying every once in a while try new things and taking risk of making it profitable and benefits to the organization. The experiment involves those things which are not already practicing in the market before.
- Questioning: The leader questions everything and raise the question which leads to the new opportunities and possibilities of gaining something innovative for the organization.
- Networking: To make networks and partnership with other organizations helps knowing new perspectives. Every organization and person carrying the new ideas which a leader should sense by networking with consistence.
References
Ezzat, H. (2017). Leader for Creativity: Modeling and Experimenting Defixation-oriented Leadership (Doctoral dissertation, MINES ParisTech-PSL Research University).
Bonanno, K. (2016). Being a leader in your school community. Access (Online), 30(2), 10.
Rao, M. S. (2015). Spot Your Leadership Style–Build Your Leadership Brand. The Journal of Values-Based Leadership, 8(1), 11.
Contributor, M. (2018). Are You an Innovator or Executor? Take This Quiz to Find Out.. Entrepreneur. Retrieved 13 February 2018, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/276754
