“Instead of trying to come up with a vision and make innovation happen themselves, a leader of innovation creates a place—a context, an environment—where people are willing and able to do the hard work that innovative problem solving requires”. Linda Hill, Collective Genius

I’m very interested in how to create innovation-oriented nonprofits or social impact organizations. Linda Hills' work on innovation leadership is especially intriguing.

She studied leading corporate innovators to understand how leadership is different. What she discovered is that innovation leaders are not themselves creating the vision and inspiring others to follow, rather they are focused on creating an environment where everyone is participating in the problem-solving.

Make no mistake, leaders do hold the core purpose of the organization, but how the organization tackles the most compelling problems in a collaborative endeavor.

In times of ambiguity where the path is uncertain, leaders to do guide others down a path because this is unknown. What they do instead is build the muscles of innovation and the conditions that feed collaboration, experimentation, learning, failing, and discovering.

I believe the social impact sector is also moving in this direction. The societal problems we are trying to solve require agile learning organizations.

Leadership, she posits, is about managing oneself, managing your network, and managing your team. How you understand yourself and your emotions are critical to creating a safe risk-taking organization that is charting a new path.

Now You: Name a quality that you believe is critical for innovation organizations

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