What if the biggest barrier to innovation within your team or organization is you? In this episode, I’m diving into the heart of innovation—what it means for leaders and how we can create an environment that allows it to thrive. I explore the essential role that leaders play in driving meaningful innovation and reflect on how we can overcome the distractions and barriers that keep us from unlocking our full creative potential.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• The Innovation Leadership Styles Quiz: I introduce a fun and insightful quiz that will help you identify your innovation style, whether you’re a big-picture visionary, a process-driven optimizer, a risk-taking experimenter, a collaborative connector, or a creative playmaker.
• The Role of Leadership in Innovation: Innovation is about more than just having good ideas. It's about creating the time, space, and attention necessary for those ideas to come to life. As leaders, we must carve out that space and avoid distractions.
• The Importance of Reflection: Understanding your own leadership style is key to unlocking your innovative potential. After you take the quiz, I encourage you to reflect on your strengths and opportunities for growth. Every style has its benefits, but we can all expand our thinking and broaden our approach.
• Creating a Culture of Innovation: It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day tasks and pressures, but to truly innovate, we need to step back, make space, and give ourselves permission to think creatively. I challenge you to ask yourself: How much innovation are you missing simply because you’re too distracted or busy?

1. When faced with a new challenge, your first instinct is to:

A. Imagine an entirely new idea or solution that could disrupt the status quo.

B. Look for small, measurable improvements to current products, processes, or ideas.

C. Try different approaches to see what works best.

D. Assemble a team with diverse perspectives to brainstorm ideas and solutions.

E. Infuse energy and excitement into your team to spark creative ideas.

2. What’s your preferred approach to brainstorming?

A. Share a bold idea and challenge the team to build on it.

B. Focus the discussion on solving a specific problem step-by-step.

C. Encourage wild ideas, knowing that even "bad" ones might inspire success.

D. Facilitate group discussions around new ideas where everyone feels heard.

E. Use games, humor, or creative exercises to spark unconventional thinking.

3. As a leader, how do you handle failure when implementing new ideas?

A. View it as a stepping stone to even bigger breakthroughs.

B. Analyze it to improve processes and avoid similar issues in the future.

C. Celebrate it as a natural part of experimenting and learning.

D. Use it as an opportunity to deepen collaboration and problem-solve together.

E. Turn it into a teachable moment with positivity and humor.

4. What motivates you as a leader?

A. Making a lasting impact through bold transformative ideas.

B. Seeing steady progress and measurable improvements.

C. Discovering what works through curiosity and experimentation.

D. Building strong relationships and fostering a culture of collaboration.

E. Creating an environment where people love working and innovating together.

5. How do you define success in innovation?

A. Transforming an industry or creating something groundbreaking.

B. Consistently improving efficiency and meeting goals.

C. Learning from experiments, even if they don't work out.

D. Seeing how collaboration leads to unexpected ideas.

E. Watching people have fun while coming up with creative ideas and solutions.

Results

Mostly A’s: The Visionary

• You’re a big-picture thinker who inspires transformative change. Your strength lies in imagining bold ideas that challenge the status quo.

Mostly B’s: The Optimizer

• You excel at refining systems and processes for efficiency. You focus on continuous improvement and measurable progress.

Mostly C’s: The Experimenter

• You embrace trial and error. Failure doesn’t discourage you—instead, you see it as an opportunity to learn and experiment with new approaches.

Mostly D’s: The Connector

• You bring people together to create synergy and innovation. You foster collaboration and value diverse perspectives in the problem-solving process.

Mostly E’s: The Playmaker

• You infuse energy and creativity into your team, making work fun and inspiring unconventional thinking. Your focus is on sparking joy and creativity to drive innovation.

Resources

Books Mentioned:

• How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
• Deep Work by Cal Newport

Winnie da Silva on LinkedIn | on the Web | Substack | Email