Innovation Into Action

How 7 Modern Leaders Operationalized The Value of Innovation

Illustrations by Samtrez Crawley // Additional Research & Writing by Jasmine Williams

Innovation often happens when we least expect it. When Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, he was looking for ways to cure various diseases. He didn’t have much luck until he took a second look at a contaminated Petri dish, which ended up being the basis for his great discovery.

Then there’s John Hopps, inventor of the pacemaker. When he started looking at the problem of restarting a heart as a mechanical problem instead of a medical one, that mental shift led to the pacemaker’s creation.

Now innovation doesn’t only apply to inventions or Nobel Prize-worthy discoveries. It’s an essential value that all leaders should possess. Innovation means looking beyond the ordinary and seeing the possibility for the extraordinary. It’s having a growth mindset and being comfortable with a little trial and error. As we can see from Hopps’ and Fleming’s experience, it also means taking the time to figure out what works and what doesn’t and tailoring your approach to specific challenges based on your learnings.

Now don’t get us wrong — championing innovation can also be pretty daunting. Trying new tactics or processes when you’re not sure what will and will not pan out can be tricky, but that’s also where the magic happens. In this post, we’ll define what the value of innovation looks like in leadership and share some lessons from modern role models who have embraced this value and have achieved some incredible things as a result.

How innovation and leadership connect

Innovation is about more than change. It’s about positive progress. It’s about not being afraid to delve into possibilities or opportunities that could overwrite or update longstanding policies or practices.

Innovation is also about seeing the potential in what you’ve already built and maximizing it. Innovative leaders are focused on both the present and the future. They create short-term and long-term plans that aren’t merely sustainable but revolutionary. Innovation has little time for the maintenance of the status quo. Instead, it looks to shake up industries, turn them on their heads, and find a rhythm that’s more productive, creative, or efficient.

Embracing the value of innovation as a leader will set a standard for your team that creativity is not only encouraged but necessary to solve problems and complete work to the standards you expect.

Lessons from modern role models who value innovation

To help you get a better idea of what embodying innovation could look like for you, we’ve collected lessons from modern leaders in various industries.

• Elon Musk, CEO @ SpaceX & Tesla

• Satish Kanwar, GM @ Shopify

• Jeff Bezos, Founder @ Amazon

• Whitney Wolfe Herd, CEO @ Bumble

• Reed Hastings, CEO @ Netflix

• Shantanu Narayen, CEO @ Adobe Inc.

• Sheldon Levy, Special Advisor @ Government of Canada

Read on to discover how these leaders came up with innovative approaches to tackling key industry and organizational challenges.

1. Elon Musk, CEO @ SpaceX & Tesla

As the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, Elon Musk is no stranger to out-of-this-world ideas. He prioritizes creativity in all of his projects and pushes the boundaries on the conventional. When he initially designed and marketed the first Tesla models, the world wasn’t considering battery power as a large-scale solution to the fossil fuel crisis, but that didn’t stop him.

Musk also openly challenges his competitors to innovate alongside him. To Musk, innovation is an exercise in perseverance rather than a mysterious formula you need to figure out to succeed. Innovation “is not some mysterious thing,” he said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “It also doesn’t need to be some big breakthrough,” he added. “Just make your product better.”

ACTION: Perseverently push the limits of your team’s imagionation.

2. Satish Kanwar, GM @ Shopify

Before he was the current general manager of Shopify and their vice-president of product, Satish Kanwar co-founded a user experience agency, Jet Cooper, to fill a gap in the product development world. After Shopify acquired the agency, Kanwar continued to look for ways to develop and innovate within the company structures.

Kanwar’s main goal with innovation is to add value to his customers’ lives, not his business. These are the three questions he asks himself and his product managers every day: 1) Is it a good idea? 2) Does it create value? and 3) Can it become scaleable? For him, people come first because, without a community, you’ve got no one to innovate for or to support you.

ACTION: Always remain open to the possibillity of innovation.

3. Jeff Bezos, Founder @ Amazon

Jeff Bezos has changed the world as the founder and former CEO of Amazon (and now current Amazon Board Chair). Bezos pushed the envelope with many Amazon decisions, from the creation of the actual company — which completely disrupted the retail landscape — to the choice to allow for user reviews, particularly in the book section of the site.

He embraces feedback and criticism, believing that if you’re not willing to take a risk or aren’t prepared for skepticism or criticism, you’re not ready to innovate. “If you cannot afford to be misunderstood, then for goodness’ sake, don’t do anything new or innovative,” said Bezos in an interview with Business Insider. He embraces feedback and criticism, believing that if you’re not willing to take a risk, you’re not ready to innovate. To Bezos, a good leader should consistently raise their expectations to invite more innovation from their teams and themselves.

ACTION: To arrive at better solutions, invite feedback and criticism.

4. Whitney Wolfe Herd, CEO @ Bumble

As the CEO of relationship app Bumble, Whitney Wolfe Herd knows the value of making the first move. She always had big dreams for Bumble. Even at its inception, she believed the app could change global behaviour around how we start relationships. “Our mission has always been to better the world by helping to end misogyny,” says Wolfe Herd in an interview with Create Cultivate. Her ambition pushes her to keep innovating while dating culture and its constant evolution do the rest.

Wolfe Herd’s innovation doesn’t stop with Bumble, though. Instead, she uses it as a launchpad for other opportunities like Bumble Fund, which invests in female-run tech companies. She’s also not afraid to get political. In 2019, she lobbied for a bill passed into Texas law that outlawed the sending of unsolicited nude images. The Bumble team then added a filter to the app to censor and warn users about potential incoming explicit photos.

Wolfe Herd also makes sure every new hire shares her values, as she’s always looking for people who can better the company and broaden the scope of her vision. She isn’t possessive of the company but open-minded about the possibilities for Bumble.

ACTION: Dream beyond immediate and obvious impact.

5. Reed Hastings, CEO @ Netflix

Reed Hastings, the CEO and co-founder of Netflix, believes that trust is paramount for innovation, and without it, Netflix would not have scaled as quickly or efficiently as it has in the last decade. Trust gives creativity space to flourish, and through the expansion of creative freedom, you get more innovation.

“It’s risky trusting employees as much as we do. Giving them as much freedom as we do,” Hastings said in an interview with NPR. “But it’s essential in creative companies where you have much greater risk from lack of innovation.”

Hastings’ imagination and sense of innovation inspire him to look beyond the conventional, possibly even to the absurd, as he contemplates the entertainment industry’s future. He thinks that Netflix could one day offer the same type of streaming through a completely different medium, like drugs. Hastings’ imaginative sense of innovation keeps Netflix ahead of the curve. Someone has to take the first step, and Hastings encourages that kind of outlook on leadership and innovation.

ACTION: Create an environment of trust and candor.

6. Shantanu Narayen, CEO @ Adobe Inc.

As the president and CEO of Adobe Inc., Shantanu Narayen believes that there’s no room for transformation without innovation. Instead of fearing change, Narayen states that when Adobe stopped leading in the creative desktop software field, they reshuffled their priorities and created content to prioritize their customers’ needs better.

“We decided to turn our multi-billion dollar creative business on its head. [We wanted to be] innovative and offer fast updates, ditch the boxes, and move to a subscription-based business model, and in an entirely new way to reach our customers with creative platforms,” said Narayen.

By completely reimagining the company’s customer journey, Narayen and the Adobe team were able to create a solution that served their customers and allowed them to innovate faster.

Adobe innovates to improve their customers’ lives and keep pace (and outstrip) the competition. If you’re not aware of what your competition is doing and what problems they’re solving, you’re not keeping pace with your customers’ needs. By continuously keeping your customers top-of-mind, you’ll be able to innovate in a way that benefits them and bolsters your business.

ACTION: Never stop solving for the end user.

7. Sheldon Levy, Special Advisor @ Government of Canada

The former president of Ryerson University sees lifelong learning as an essential part of innovation. If you keep learning, you can keep innovating. Levy sees the potential for innovation in all industries, especially healthcare and education, which are launchpads for new positions and opportunities. “There are always risks inherent in changing the way things have been done, but I have always found that betting on the next generation is the best bet society can make,” write Levy in a feature for the Financial Post.

When at NEXT Canada, he was most excited about expanding NEXT Health’s reach. Levy set large-scale goals for his work at NEXT Canada and embraced the challenges that came with them head-on. For him, innovation is an antidote to uncertainty, and he sees it as a clear marker of a company’s growth and development. The businesses that innovate are the ones to watch.

ACTION: Always be learning.

Ideas Into Action

Innovation prepares the organization for the future. When maximized, it enables people to prepare for their customers’ unmet and unarticulalted needs long in advance. In the absence of innovation, an organization will fail to transition into the future of work and fall victim to the way things have always been done.

Augment your leadership style with ideas from each of the 7 modern leaders featured in this article:

• Elon Musk: Perseverently push the limits of your team’s imagionation

• Satish Kanwar: Always remain open to the possibillity of innovation.

• Jeff Bezos: To arrive at better solutions, invite feedback and criticism.

• Whitney Wolfe Herd: Dream beyond immediate and obvious impact.

• Reed Hastings: Create an environment of trust and candor.

• Shantanu Narayen: Never stop solving for the end user.

• Sheldon Levy: Always be learning.

An innovative leader is one that’s always thinking of the future. To be a visionary leader, you need to believe in yourself and your organization’s vision. Your role is to look forward and keep trying new things and new tactics until you get where you want to go.

Update your leadership style for the modern workplace with practical strategies for new leaders. Get a copy of my latest book, “Leadership, Reinvented,” here: https://geni.us/LReinventedWebsite