What is the crisis revealing about innovation and leadership in our organizations?
The pandemic – the latest incarnation of multiple global disruptions in our VUCA world – challenges every aspect of our lives and the way we see, think, plan, and act. It also challenges the purpose, the mission, the processes, and even the survival of our organizations. And because almost everything is changing or must be reinvented – sometimes radically – we can say confidently that the organizations that succeed now and will thrive in the future are those led by and populated with innovators.
But, who are those innovators?
Genuine leaders build resilient organizations. They achieve it by constantly developing and innovating. Their fields of innovation for resilience include organizations’ mission, structures, processes, people, and relationships. The pandemic crisis has demonstrated once again: organizational resilience goes hand in hand with innovation.
In our VUCA and pandemic context, innovator is – like never before – the other name for a genuine leader. The one that dares to see, question, think, and act differently. In ways that draw the line between a leader and a follower. And most importantly, that create new meaning and positive futures in people, organizations, and communities’ lives.
Every crisis is a test and an opportunity. Opportunities are revealed through new ways of seeing, questioning, thinking and doing. To reveal possibilities, every organization needs to awaken the creativity and the innovation in its people. And for that it needs innovative leaders.