Exploring Leadership Behaviors Exhibited by Evaluation Team Leads during Innovation

Leading innovation is a difficult process because it is replete with tensions and paradoxes. Innovations require leaders to switch leadership styles depending on the context and the phase of innovation. This study used two leadership theoretical frameworks, transformational and transactional leaderships, to understand the leadership behaviors used to promote and manage the process of innovation. The purpose of this study was to explore leadership behaviors exhibited by evaluation team leaders during the process of innovation. The focus of the study was on leadership behaviors and study participants are individuals who identify as evaluators who led a team of two or more evaluators. This study used Critical Incident Technique (CIT) to better understand the leadership behaviors exhibited during the process of innovation. Through semi-structured interviews, participants described a specific innovation that he/she led during the past 24 months, the actions they took to lead and support their team, outcomes and their perspectives about the process. Contradictory behaviors were exhibited at all three key stages of innovation—insight, prototype, and adoption. Leaders described both transformational and transactional leadership behaviors at all the major innovation phases. Leaders were both people and task oriented in their leadership style