Leading groups and teams towards successful innovation

Among the many factors that can affect teams' creative and innovative performance, leadership may be the most powerful. In this chapter, we review the literature on leadership and team innovation, distinguishing between task-focused and person-focused leadership styles and behaviors. We discuss three roles of leadership in the innovation process: as a predictor of team innovation, as a moderator of the effects of other variables on team innovation, and as a transition catalyst in moving from creativity to implementation. Having reviewed the literature in this manner, we discuss methodological and theoretical trends and gaps in the literature, and identify some important avenues for future research