WMBA 6020: Fostering a Culture of Innovation

WMBA 6020: Fostering a Culture of Innovation

Assignment 7: Individual Reflection: Creativity, Leadership, and Innovation: A Self Assessment

 

Dyer, Gregersen, and Christensen, in their essential components of "The Innovator’s DNA" make the important point that, while all successful innovators share certain characteristics, those characteristics are not literally written into an innovator’s DNA. Instead, it is essential to practice thinking creatively. What innovators achieve is the result of their actions and what they do, not simply who they are.

With this in mind, it stands to reason that it is important to periodically assess whether you are on the right track in developing the skills of a leader who successfully fosters creativity in the organization. This self-assessment is not the final verdict on the level or depth of your creativity or your potential success as an innovator, but instead is an important part of understanding the ways you currently lead others and thinking about how you will lead others in the future.

Regardless of where you are in the organization, there are leadership characteristics you have or would like to strive towards as you develop professionally. For this Individual Reflection you will identify and describe an innovation leader who has inspired you. This Individual Reflection will allow you to conduct a personal analysis of leadership qualities between you and an innovation leader to help you identify key leadership dimensions that you can develop.

Note: For the sake of clarity, be mindful during this Individual Reflection to focus on a leader that you admire who inspires innovation and not a leader who is innovative in terms of leadership style and characteristics.

For this Individual Reflection, describe a person who successfully brought together leadership, foresight, creativity, and innovation. This person should be someone with whom you have worked or who has inspired you in your professional career or personal life. (Note: You do not need to identify the individual by name, if he or she is someone you personally know). Be sure to include the following:

• Part 1: Provide an opening section where you provide your assessment of the characteristics of this innovation leader that you currently do not possess or demonstrate that you would like to develop. Your own characteristics are the baseline in the analysis, and the innovation leader you identified is the model. If you are not currently in a leadership role, envision how you might develop these characteristics in a future position. Be sure to consider the following factors and questions:
  • Explain how this innovation leader supported a creative environment, and how they catalyzed, implemented, and promoted innovation in the organization.
  • Describe the leadership skills he or she used to foster creativity in successful ways.
  • How does the leader engage stakeholders (vendors, executives, board members, employees) in the innovative or creative process? For example, how does the leader conduct a stakeholder analysis?
• Provide an inventory of leadership characteristics exhibited by this leader using the Leader Characteristic Inventory Handout document in this week’s Resources.
• Part 2: Provide a self-assessment on the extent to which you have (or need to cultivate to be successful) the dimensions of leadership that foster creativity. For each of the following dimensions of leadership, assess how you currently display (or would display) the dimensions in your work and professional life. Provide a brief explanation of your self-assessment for each of the dimensions listed below. (Refer to "The Innovator’s DNA" for more details about each of these innovator dimensions):
  • Associating
  • Questioning
  • Experimenting
  • Observing
  • Networking
  • Cultivating New Thinking
  • Comfort with Change
  • Risk tolerance
  • Collaboration
• Part 3: Aggregate your findings and provide a summary of the main lessons you have learned about yourself as a leader (present or aspiring) and what you may need to work on to achieve your identified dimensions. How important do you think it is that leaders possess these dimensions and which do you think are the most important to your future? Provide your rationale or examples to justify your answer.

By Day 7 (6/21/20)

Submit a paper that addresses the four areas listed above. Include your Innovation Leader Characteristic Inventory within the body or your paper or as an Appendix, depending on what makes better sense for the way you organize your assignment.

Guidance on Assignment Length: Your Week 7 assignment should be 6–10 pages (3–5 pages if single spaced), excluding a title page and references.

 

 

 

 

Assignment 8: Individual Reflection: Blueprint for Professional and Personal Growth

 

Reflect on the process of creating goals for the BPPG in the previous courses of this program. Think about how you employed creativity to create this plan: you had to consider your currently existing leadership and professional skills, imagine a future version of yourself who has grown and developed in exciting ways, and generate innovative plans to overcome any challenges you might face in the course of your personal and professional development.

As in previous courses, you will now add to your Blueprint for Professional and Personal Growth. You should develop your BPPG from your learning in this course and design it to help you become a leader who knows how to demonstrate creativity, support creativity within your team, and use foresight to foster creativity and innovation.

Consider the following as you complete this Individual Reflection:

• What can you do now to integrate the experiences and insights you had in this course with your personal and professional development goals?
• What are the most important things you are taking from this course that will shape your future and enable you to make a positive difference?

All components of the Individual Reflection should be turned in as one document:

1. The Executive Summary: Write an Executive Summary of the course to date (2–3 paragraphs) that addresses the following questions:
   • Which content and assignments in this course have had the biggest impact on your ability to foster a culture of innovation within an organization?
   • How have the content and assignments changed the way you think of the role of innovation within the organization and the way you will engage in the creative process?
   • How can the knowledge you gained in this course enable you to make a positive difference?
   • In what ways do you think innovation and creativity can influence positive social change within an organization, community, or more broadly?
   • How have the content and assignments continued to shape your goals?
2. After considering what you have learned in the course, create a focused and succinct strategy for your personal and professional life that will enable you to be the innovation leader you described in your Week 7 Individual Reflection. As part of your strategy, be sure to include responses to the following:
   • List three areas you could focus on for your innovation strategy relative to your own organization, an organization for which you would aspire to work, or your personal life. Describe the importance of each of the focus areas chosen and provide examples with support from the resources.
   • Describe how you will measure progress toward your success.
   • Describe how being an innovation leader could potentially enable you to foster positive social change. To what extent do you think innovation can contribute to positive social change? Provide an example to support your position.
3. Your action plan: Write a detailed action plan for one new goal for professional and personal development (you will continue to build on the list of goals you started in your previous course). These action plans should include the following:
   • Your specific goal for professional and personal development with an explanation as to why you selected it. Be sure to provide concrete and specific examples of why the goal is important, the extent to which this goal enables you to be an agent for positive social change, the personal or professional value you expect from achieving the goal, and how the goal relates to the resources you reviewed in the course.
   • Hint: If you want to expand upon a plan or initiative you have already proposed in a previous week, feel free to do so.
   • At least two objectives for the goal you have identified. Provide a rationale that explains how your objectives will help you to achieve your goal.

Blueprint for Professional and Personal Growth (BPPG): A Potential for Self-Plagiarism

When developing your Blueprint for Professional and Personal Growth (BPPG) for this course, you may find that you are utilizing some information that you presented in the discussions or assignments in this course or information that you have presented in previous courses, including previous BPPG submissions. Walden recognizes this situation with the caveat that you may use only small portions of your previously submitted work as background or foundational material for additional development in a subsequent assignment or research project Refer to Section 3 of the Student Handbook, Academic Integrity section in the Code of Conduct: found at: http://catalog.waldenu.edu/content.php?catoid=155&navoid=51011. However, when doing so, you must be careful not to commit a form of academic integrity known as self-plagiarism. If you reuse sections of your previously submitted work without providing the proper citation and reference, you are committing self-plagiarism. This is a violation of Academic Integrity as defined in the Student Code of Conduct. 

To ensure that you follow the Academic Integrity standards you must take care to properly cite and reference any reused sections of previously submitted work. For example, if Johana Smithe reuses a section of their BPPG from the previous class, they would cite this section as a quotation: (Smithe, 20xx, p.y) and provide a reference in the Reference page: Smithe, J. (20xx). Blue print for professional growth for WMBA60xx. Unpublished manuscript, Walden University. Please take some time to review the information at the Writing Center concerning self-plagiarism and how to properly cite yourself. 

Link to the Writing Center on Citing Yourself https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/apa/citations/citingyourself. 

By Day 7 (6/28/20)

Submit your Assignment.

Guidance on Assignment Length: Your BPPG, including the Executive Summary (which should be 2–3 paragraphs in length and no more than one page single spaced or two double-spaced pages), strategy for your personal and professional life that will enable you to be an innovation leader, and your action plan should be 3–6 pages total (1.5–3 pages total if single spaced). Refer to the Week 8 Individual Reflection rubric (BPPG Rubric) for grading elements and criteria. Your instructor will use the rubric to assess your work.