
THE BOSS IS AN INNOVATION KILLER - NOT AN INNOVATION LEADER. New research from DDI paints a picture of leaders overconfident in their skills at promoting innovation; less than half of employees think their boss is open to unique ideas and opinions; 1 in 3 say their ideas will be killed by organizational bureaucracy.
Employees are pointing fingers at their leaders for squashing innovation, according to new research from Development Dimensions International (DDI). Unfortunately, leaders think they're doing much better than their employees do when it comes to leading innovation.
In "Creating the Conditions for Sustainable Innovation: The Leadership Imperative", DDI surveyed 513 leaders and 514 employees (with no direct reports) from organizations in a variety of sizes and industries to understand how leaders and employees view innovation in their organization. Among the major findings was a significant gap between how leaders see themselves - and how employees see them as nurturers of innovation. The findings of the study include:
Think differently.
Is talk of innovation just lip service?
Big ideas, no action.
Idea killers.
When you ask leaders, 38% feel that the greatest barrier to innovation is their employees don't have enough information about the business to offer ideas of value. On the other hand, employees' top responses is that new ideas aren't welcome and the organization is stuck on how things get done (28%), tied with the perception that they believe their boss wants to be the person who generates all great ideas (28%). "Leaders need to be 'idea welcomers' not 'door shutters'," Wellins said. "A culture of innovation will support ideas coming from any individual, any level and sometimes from unusual places in the organization."
Throw stereotypes out the window. When we look at generational and gender labels, some of the common beliefs are that young leaders will take more risks, younger employees will have higher expectations of their leaders when it comes to innovation and that female leaders are more risk - averse than their male peers. However, none of these stereotypes played out in the results of the research.
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