Note from Art: the blog here at Building Better Leaders focuses on short, powerful tips, suggestions and exercises for leaders at all levels and in all functions and vocations to apply at work, in school and even at home. For Leadership Caffeine posts and other more detailed management content and essays, please visit my Management Excellence Blog.

If the role of a leader wasn’t challenging enough, let’s pile on one more abstract but critical challenge to the heavy lifting already required by leaders in this fast-changing world: promoting a culture of innovation.

Your Role in Fueling Innovation in Your Workplace:

Innovation is one of those big hairy topics with a lot of legs and we will leave the gross majority of it for other posts and for other writers focused on this important discipline. My encouragement here today is for you to recognize your role in fostering a healthy working environment that actively promotes experimentation and innovation.

  • We live and work in an innovation-focused and driven world. Developing the skills, systems and talent needed to fuel innovation is a must for leaders in today’s organization. Time pressures, global competitors and the march of technology, coupled with a baker’s dozen of major global stresses ranging from the economy and environment to natural disasters and sovereign debt crises, all demand that firms find ways to innovate to survive, sustain and succeed.
  • Innovation isn’t just for products...it’s applicable to business models, approaches to serving customers, approaches to structuring organizations and so on.
  • In spite of the myth surrounding the “lone genius,” innovation is the outcome of enlightened trial and error on the part of groups of individuals seeking to solve a vexing problem for a specific audience. These individuals need a workplace free from fear and filled with the spirit of adventure and learning. The task of forming this environment falls on your shoulders.

7 Must Have Conditions to Create a Healthy Innovation Environment:

  1. Leaders must be viewed as having high personal credibility.
  2. The workplace environment must be free from FEAR.
  3. Team members must share mutual respect and they must learn to trust each other.
  4. There must be a culture of accountability that is driven by pride, not fear.
  5. Individuals must be comfortable conducting tough discussions with those above, below and next to them.
  6. There must be a focus and commitment on striving to create high performance teams.
  7. The management systems and practices must actively support experimentation by reducing obstacles, simplifying decision-making and promoting enlightened trial and error.

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How healthy is your innovation environment? Use the checklist of “Must Haves” with your employees to assess the situation. And remember, as leader, you own fixing this one.