The Role of Leaders in Innovation
Order Description
Assignment Overview
This course explores the role of leaders in creating organizations that innovate. This requires an understanding of the skills of the leader, as well as the global context of leadership. In this assignment, you will analyze leadership practices in innovative organizations and your own strengths and weaknesses as a leader.
Assignment Instructions
For the paper, select and explain at least two leadership practices (see Leslie’s white paper) and how they support innovation in organizations. Explain the relevance of these practices to either one of the case studies for this course (Intuitive Surgical or Procter & Gamble), or to your own work context.
You will be evaluated on how well you communicate your insights and analysis. It is expected that you will communicate in a manner that is professional and consistent with expectations for members of the business professions. To aid you in doing this, follow these guidelines:
Carefully organize your paper so that a section is labeled with a heading and devoted to each of the following topics. Make sure that the reader can easily find:
A section that explains how at least two leadership practices support innovation in organizations.
A section that analyzes the role of discovery skills (see The Innovator’s DNA) for their support of innovation in organizations.
A section that analyzes the role of delivery skills (see The Innovator’s DNA) for their support of innovation in organizations.
A section that explores your own strengths and weaknesses in the discovery and delivery skills, and how they help or hinder your ability to support innovation in organizations. (Be sure you address both discovery and delivery skills).
Graphs or diagrams may be included in appendices, if they are well-explained and applicable.
Each section of the paper must be supported using the course readings, and additional scholarly resources or reputable industry publications may be used, if needed. One to three supporting resources are recommended.
Your assignment will be scored on the following objectives—see the scoring guide for details:
Explain how established leadership practices support innovation in organizations.
Analyze the role of discovery skills for their support of innovation in organizations.
Analyze the role of delivery skills for their support of innovation in organizations.
Assess strengths and weaknesses related to leadership skills and an individual’s ability to support innovation.
Communicate in a manner that is professional and consistent with expectations for members of the business professions.
Submission Requirements
Written communication: Writing should be free of errors that detract from the overall message.
Paper length: 3 pages, excluding appendices, cover page, table of contents (if present), and References page.
APA formatting: References and citations should follow APA (6th edition) style guidelines.
Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12-point.
Note: Your instructor may also use the Writing Feedback Tool to provide feedback on your writing. In the tool, click on the linked resources for helpful writing information.
Note: Feedback from your instructors is an important method to understanding where you are excelling, what you need to improve, and to be aware of your progress on course competencies. This feedback goes beyond a score on your assignment. It includes comments about each of the grading criteria and general comments about the assignment. This written feedback will help you know how well you are demonstrating the competencies associated with each assignment. Therefore, it is important to know how to access all of this feedback.
The brief slide presentation, Accessing Qualitative Feedback, linked in the Resources, will take just a couple of minutes to view. It will walk you through, click-by-click, what you will do to see your instructor’s feedback for each assignment. Viewing this presentation will ensure that you are seeing all feedback that your instructors provide.