An interesting perspective on leadership came up during a discussion recently. Most people would agree that it is important for a manager to give a significant amount of freedom to his/her team members. That freedom - the metaphorical “space” which people can use for innovation – can go a long way in building employee engagement, as well as producing fantastic business results.
However, what happens when a manager is willing to give that freedom in terms of strategy, but does not follow through with that commitment on execution? For example, if a manager gives you a very rigid report template and says “Let your imagination run wild, but I want the report to look exactly like this” does it actually help you? This half-baked approach would falsely convince a manager that he/she is giving his/her people the freedom to innovate, without producing the desired effects on the team because the freedom they are being given is only cosmetic.
A manager who is prepared to give his/her team the freedom to innovate on the job should also be prepared to see some interim results that are very different from what he/she wanted originally. Give your team some time, and the opportunity to create value. With the right people on the team, the results are very much likely to be fantastic. But one (or even a few) instance of not-so-good results shouldn’t cause the manager to give up. Patience, and the ability to look at the bigger picture without hasty conclusions, would pay rich dividends. Effectively fostering innovation isn’t the result of an isolated action, but a well thought out process applied at the right places and times.
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