There are many leadership models ( authentic leadership, transformational leadership, ambidextrous leadership) - which models are most closely aligned with innovation. For example, Blue Ocean Strategy...what are the leadership styles or approaches that support BOS?
I suggest that you send a more fleshed out version of your query to Professor Subrata Sen at the Yale School of Management.
In the field of health services research, innovative healthcare delivery models have been linked to a facilitative, distributed model of leadership in which power over decision-making and action is devolved to staff and clinicians at the front-lines. The theory of "complex-adaptive systems" supports this model of leadership and its link to change and innovation. To learn more, I would suggest these references:
Fillingham, D. & Weir, B. (2014). System leadership: Lessons and learning from AQuA’s integrated care discovery communities. London: The King’s Fund.
McDaniel, R. Jr., & Driebe, D. (2001). Complexity science and health care management. In J. D. Blair, M.D. Fottler, & G.T. Savage (Eds.), Advances in Health Care Management (1-36). Stamford: JAI Press.
I believe that transformational leadership is the best model in this regard, which must be customized to the exigencies of the specific situation.
Jim Collins' Good to Great and Good to Great for the Social Sectors, are excellent on empirically based practices for innovation. Mark Moore's 1996 Creating Public Value, and his subsequent articles, Crutchfield and McLeod's Forces for Good, 2011, and the forthcoming edited book by Ed Gibson and Patria deLancer Julnes, Innovations in the Nonprofit and Public Sectors.
It may not hurt to add Appreciative Inquiry to your list works to explore - The 4 D's (discover, dream, design, destiny) and works of David Cooperrider
Dear Louise,
According to the literature, you may find transformational leadership to be best suited for encouraging innovation. However, it does not imply that several other leadership models are opposed to innovations. Its just that they primary focus is on something else. For example, servant leadership (greenleaf) focuses on well-being but by providing encouragement and motivation, servant leaders indirectly encourage innovation as well. You may want to read this article:
"Does servant leadership foster creativity and innovation? A multi-level mediation study of identification and prototypicality" by Diah Tuhfat Yoshida, Sen Sendjaya , Giles Hirst, Brian Cooper.
However, if you have to choose only one, it has to be transformational leadership.
Anderson suggests entrepreneurs can successfully identify growth possibilities through networking in the use of a five step networking model that includes liberating, inspiring, visioning, articulating and implementing. Innovation through collaboration underpins the model, which may be of value to your work in leadership.