Leading for innovation: Direct and indirect influences

Despite growing interest in developing and producing creative products, much remains unknown about how to best facilitate the innovative process. Through a review and integration of creativity, innovation, and leadership literatures, we propose that leaders are one of the primary driving forces in increasing innovative output. To help clarify how leaders achieve this influence, we offer a model of leading for innovation where creativity and innovation are depicted as series of interrelated processes that span multiple levels of analysis (individual, team, and organization). The proposed framework illustrates the direct and indirect ways direct leaders enhance innovation with the resulting discussion helping to highlight the range of behaviors and activities that leaders might engage in to help encourage creative productivity. The implications of our model for HRD scholars, professionals, and other stakeholders-such as executive level leaders, retailers, investors, and consumers-are also discussed.