Module Leading for Innovation

Module overview

This module is designed to sharpen the leadership mindset and skills required to lead innovation. There is no one-size-fits-all blueprint for the “innovation leader”; effective leadership depends on context as well as on personal values.

Day 1: Claiming leadership for innovation

On Day 1, we challenge dominant assumptions about leadership to arrive at a more open and integrative view. Participants engage in both inside-out and outside-in reflection.

Outside-in
Participants explore their context, for example through complexity theory, which positions organisations along the dimensions of operational efficiency versus innovative logic. This helps determine whether one is operating within the entrepreneurial subsystem, the operational subsystem, or the adaptive space.

Inside-out
Participants reflect on their personal drivers, strengths, and values. These insights are uncovered together through hands-on exercises.

The outcome of Day 1 is a concrete personal leadership claim: the difference the participant wants to make in an innovation context. This requires clarifying a fundamental question: How do I view (my) leadership?

Day 2: Acting on your leadership claim for innovation

Day 2 focuses on implementation and critical leadership practices, with a strong emphasis on the skills needed to bring others along.

Stakeholder strategies
Participants learn about social astuteness and identify the key stakeholders who influence their innovation claim—those with power and interest. They practise the “claim & grant” strategy: formulating a clear claim and ensuring others recognise and actively support it. This includes practising different influence tactics through role plays.

Empowerment
The focus shifts to designing for both structural and psychological empowerment. Participants learn practical techniques to stimulate ownership and mandate within teams, enabling constructive conflict to occur safely. This is essential to give people a voice. Concepts such as psychological safety (including check-ins and a developmental mindset) and shared leadership are explored to better facilitate teams.

In short, the module teaches participants how to create the necessary space—the adaptive space—to take on innovation projects and embed creativity into everyday organisational reality.

Alignment with other modules and the masterclass

The Master Class Organizing for Innovation consists of five modules that together provide a complete toolkit for successfully embedding and organising innovation. The modules cover the essential elements: cultivating, strategizing, leading, structuring, and collaborating.

The role of Module 3 in the overall journey:

Building on M1
Module 1 (Cultivating for Innovation) enables participants to develop a creative mindset and strong team dynamics—allowing innovation to take root. Module 3 builds on this foundation and shows how creativity can be anchored in everyday organisational reality.

Operationalising M2
The innovation objectives defined in Module 2 (Strategizing for Innovation) need to be operationalised and led within teams. Module 3 provides the leadership capabilities required to make this happen.

Focus on enabling leadership
While M1 focuses on Entrepreneurial Leadership—guiding small, outward-facing innovation teams, often at the “edges” of the organisation—Module 3 centres on Enabling Leadership. This form of leadership bridges entrepreneurial teams and the operational core by leading the adaptive space.

Module 3 is designed for managers in leadership roles who lead teams and/or interact with multiple stakeholders, including HR professionals who want to understand how innovation can be encouraged and facilitated within teams.