© 2017 Martin Zafirov, PhD Student, New Bulgarian University (F29144)

 Edited by: Yara Mohamed, Mona Timor Shehata

Published by: Ahmed Mohamed Hassan

In an article about the issues of leadership in the new environment in which the business activity of the organisations takes place (and particularly within the multinational organisations), Katherine Leviss[1] describes the main skills (qualities), which every innovative leader possesses: First, the innovative leader never describes themselves as such. This quality probably is due to the fact that the new type of leaders prefer to be evaluated by their employees (by the teams they lead) instead of declaring themselves as innovators on their own. In my opinion, this quality works in favour of the leaders, since every case of over-the-top declaration of their own greatness lowers their value in the opinion of their team.

Second and third, some of the qualities which the new leaders possess are that they rarely talk about innovations and they do not focus the attention on the fact that their actions lead to the creation of innovations. Within the context of the previous explanation, these two qualities leave the impression that the new leaders prefer to focus on their work instead of “advertising” it before the team, the owners, and the public. In other words, they let the end results “speak” for their achievements. The fourth really specific quality of the new type of leaders is that they do not proclaim each new or different result of their activity an innovation. Achieving a result which is different from the one set as the desired one, or achieving a better result, or using a different approach for solving the particular problem, is not always analogous to an innovation, i.e., it cannot be seen as the same as an innovation.

Last, but not least, innovation is not seen as a strategic marker, managerial philosophy or a driving force. This statement seems logical based on the thoughts presented earlier. But I believe that it is not possible to achieve development (improvement) and better results (in terms of quality and quantity) if the organisation does not grant innovational activity the place it deserves. In an environment characterised by constant change and increasing complexity, an organisation, especially a multinational one, cannot adapt with and achieve long-term success without focusing its attention on innovations. They should be seen as a competitive advantage for the company, but not as the only certain source of success.

Another interesting main point in Leviss’ article is the comparison between what the innovative leaders do better compared to the leaders who are not innovators. Innovative leaders manage risk more successfully than normal leaders who are not innovators. Innovative leaders also are much more successful at seizing opportunities for success; or in other words, they succeed at achieving higher efficiency of the business activity of the company. Innovative leaders demonstrate more non-innovative leaders. Innovative leaders perform their actions with much more courage and belief compared to other leaders and they see the strategic perspective for the development of the organisation for which they work.

The order and accuracy of the work of the innovative leaders is the area where they show weaker results than the leaders for whom innovation is not natural. The reasoning made regarding the necessity of a new type of leaders in an environment of accelerating globalisation and the necessity of them performing their actions within multinational companies, as well as an overview of the arguments already presented on this issue, lead to the conclusion that there are six main principles which the new type of leader should follow. These principles may be summarised as follows:

To summarise regarding the qualities which the new leader should possess: His  or her activity should be in many aspects. First, the leader should look for balance and efficiency in personality management through self-knowledge and reflection—these are aggregations of the impacts of the business environment on the personal experience and the action approaches. Second, the actions of the leader should be aimed at managing the organisation in a way that will lead to building structures and communication networks within it while taking into account their impact on the organisation’s development. Third, a successful leader should be able to deal with the different circumstances which arise in the interaction between the organisation and the different “worlds” around it by acting from the position of the “edge” between these two zones. A fourth quality which the leader should possess is managing the relations with different subjects in order to be able to develop cooperation, self-control, and self-assessment within the company. Last, the leader should be able to deal successfully with managing changes (active interaction between the personality management, organisational management, dealing with circumstances and dealing with managing of the changes as a constant entanglement of reflections, interactions, and specific actions for sensing and spreading the change).

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