How do you leverage diverse perspectives and backgrounds to enhance innovation and creativity?

We should really move away from this notion of "power" in our leaders. The perception or drive to amass more and more power by an individual or group can lead to divides within an organization in addition to rapid turnover of staff. Innovation often dies when leaders are focused on power as those with ideas quickly learn that they will be shut down if they bring up anything that does not align with the individual in power. The conversation should change to focus on a leaders influence and how they influence others across the spectrum of the organization (up, down and sideways). If we begin to focus on the influence that leaders have, we open up the conversation , increasing innovation and limiting conflict.

I’m always mindful of how I may be impacting others. While anyone can have a good idea, it’s also true that anyone can have a bad idea too. I like to ensure there is room for those ideas to be suggested.

My time working for the military left me with many examples of meetings where a Commander asked a question or proposed a possible idea which then immediately got interpreted as "The Commander said to do this." I've seen how leaders who share their clear intent such as, "This is a possible idea to consider, but I want to hear others..." or "I want to hear all perspectives on this idea to get the best outcome..." successfully balance their power and innovation.

In my work as a Community Leader of a leading Digital Community Commerce platform and a Performance Coach enabling individuals and corporates, I focus on social and humanity impact which is definitely more sustainable in the longer run. In my arena, we seek to leverage and thrive on innovation and creativity within individuals, who in turn affect change for others and the ventures they get involved in. Hence the resolve is what impact do we leave with? What are the legacies we build from the power we have earned as leaders? Definitely to make good, do good and co-create a future that we are all proud to be part of. These are exciting times, and I continue to foresee a future where leaders collaborate to enable meaningful impact.

All leaders should collaborate and exchange experiences to educate the market and familiarize it with various solutions. Collaboration comes first, competitiveness always follows. Ultimately, users will decide where to buy by comparing better options, fantastic offers, and exceptional prices.

Whatever the point might be here, it's certainly not clear to me, but here's my opinion. It's necessary to harness the power of knowledge, networking, influence, adaptability, and skills, the power of choice, and the readiness to come up with any solution and just put it out there - simply put, you have to keep trying, attempt to create a product, and release it live. You'll learn the most through processes and experiences. Otherwise, if you don't muster the strength and power and you remain silent, waiting for the perfect moment, you'll always end up being last.

One of the biggest challenges our society is facing today - and this will continue to become increasingly relevant - is gender and racial bias in AI. Today, artificial intelligence is already leveraged to make irreversible decisions in medicine (e.g. organ transplants) but the data and models these decisions are based on are biased. As AI will continue to be adopted across many different industries, we need to ensure that the innovators who are building these tools represent a diverse set of people and perspectives.

As a leader, you need to remember to listen to your team and others who may have differing views than yourself. You have to show some vulnerability to your team by acknowledging that you do not know everything and actually rely on their experiences to help shape the vision for the organization or project. This is not always a comfortable place for most in leadership to go, however some of the most successful organizations are open to listening to all different opinions and viewpoints while empowering their teams to move forward with the best ideas rather than just what the leader instructs them to do.

In my experience engaging in self-reflection to understand your strengths and weaknesses in terms of power and innovation. Seek feedback from others to gain insights into how you can further develop and improve these skills. Take advantage of coaching to enhance your power and innovation skills. Concentrate on developing power awareness and diagnosis to understand the different sources and types of power and how they impact innovation. Adapt your power style and behavior to fit different situations. Share and empower others by delegating authority and fostering collaboration. Finally, integrate and synthesize the power of others to drive innovation and implement effective solutions.