Humility ... I believe that’s an essential value for innovation leadership

"Wherever you go, there you are!"
—Buckaroo Bonzai, in the movie –The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (Also the title of a book on mindfulness meditation by Jon Kabat-Zinn)

Bringing innovation to life anywhere in the organization requires the following five key values which are essential for values for both Leadership and Innovation:

• Integrity – Doing what you say you’ll do.
• Tenacity – Persistently and doggedly pursuing an option or solution until it succeeds and/or others see the brilliance of it.
• Courage – Being brave about pursuing options that are risky, novel, or untried.
• Curiosity – Being interested in new ways of doing things, unusual approaches, or things that are outside of your area of expertise. Consciously not knowing the answer, and seeking new ones instead. Consciously learning.
• Humility – Recognizing that ideas can come from other people, a willingness to change your mind, being able to admit mistakes when you make them, and being willing to learn from the mistakes of others, rather than punishing them.

A question of Integrity

The critical questions of integrity are, “Am I behaving congruently with my values and the values of innovation leadership?” “Am I measuring up to these fundamentals?”

If however you notice a slight bit of discomfort with yourself in response to the integrity question…if you notice a bit of an itch in your moral fiber…good! Now you’ve got some awareness of where you need to scratch to sniff out the personal development need beneath the surface that you’re presenting to the world. And that is the work of the ever evolving innovation leader.

So what is Integrity?

We asked our colleagues what integrity meant to them. They said that a person demonstrating the value of integrity is someone who:

· Is honest

· Stands up for what they believe in

· Knows who they are

· Is steadfast

· Willing to make tough -- even unpopular -- decisions

· Courageous in conflict

· Does what they say

· Considers what’s best for the group rather than what’s best for themselves

· You can count on

· Who keeps their promises

· You can really trust to do the right thing

· Walks their talk

Refreshingly, in the tone of their voice it was clear that integrity was a virtue they admired and aspired to.

What does this have to do with Innovation Leadership?

From an innovation perspective, a leader who has integrity with the values of tenacity, curiosity, courage and humility is well-positioned to explore and exploit new ideas. By actively living these values they end up more willing and able to suspend their first judgment of others’ ideas and are more open so they can encourage and support others. They are less afraid to make mistakes themselves and to model this for others. They are more accepting of others’ (well-intentioned) mistakes. They are more able and willing to candidly express what they think and feel and to take action on them.

In other words, integrity is essential for innovation because it is critical for demonstrating to the people around you in the organization that you mean what you say about searching for innovation. Imagine the manager who asks for innovation yet punishes people for a) making mistakes, b) taking risks, c) challenging the status quo, or d) trying things outside “the system.” Certainly in some cases, these four things might be a bad idea, but in the quest for innovation they are inevitable and indeed, necessary. So when those actions are punished, the conclusion that emerges is, “sure s/he says they want innovation, but their actions say otherwise.”

“What you are stands over you and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tying the five values together

It’s not surprising that innovators are drawn to people who demonstrate integrity with the other four key values. Courageous, curious, tenacious and humble are qualities that true creative thinkers aspire to become. The leaders we are most drawn to over the long haul are those who authentically live these values. It’s more than skin deep. How admired leaders come across -- their demeanor, their way of presenting themselves, their questions and ideas and the congruence of their words and deeds -- is a big part of their attraction. So in the quest to become an Innovation Leader, work on intention and presentation. This is easiest and most effective when intention and presentation are one and the same. And that takes practice in humility, curiosity, courage and tenacity and integrity to their core beliefs.

This is one of life’s greatest challenges. Think of the many stories we have of people who fail to practice and live up to their (stated) beliefs. Most of the jokes on late night talk shows are jabs at the disconnect between what “leaders” and other “heroes” say compared with what they actually do. We quickly become cynical about leaders whose talk doesn’t align with their actions. In our cynical society, we tend to look for these disconnects in our leaders as a way to humanize them. We search for the flaws that would give us pause in trusting them, perhaps as a way to make ourselves feel better or more important. This speaks to the critical nature of humility; by demonstrating and presenting ourselves as fallible humans, it’s safer for others to trust us.

The Challenge of Integrity

We all are faced with challenges of staying in integrity. Everyday we face small and large choices in saying and doing what is right for our particular situation. There are not always easy answers and unfortunately, we are wired to easily rationalize our decisions – we delude ourselves after the fact to believing we were demonstrating integrity.

Example: A new manager working on a deep ocean oil rig had responsibility for deciding when the weather was too dangerous for his undersea diving crew to stay on the bottom doing their work. His boss was a famous achiever and had implied the manager would receive great recognition and other rewards for exceeding production milestones. A huge ocean storm was brewing. What should he do? In the end he left the crew down until the storm was way too close. Only through sheer luck did the crew make it out of the water alive. Reflecting on the events afterwards, this manager saw that he put his own interests before his men. He had enough honesty with himself to not rationalize the decision (“it all worked out for the best…I made the right decision!”), so he received a life lesson which he used to change his future behaviors as an innovation leader. How might he have been in integrity with curiosity and courage to both take care of his team and achieve the production targets? Constantly asking oneself these kind of questions is the behavior of the Innovation Leader.

As leaders we are all faced with these kinds of leadership dilemmas:

• Do I focus more on safety or efficiency?
• How much can I cut costs here and still provide a quality safe process or product?
• Should I layoff people for the sake of profits or survival?
• Can I bet the future of the company on a new approach?
• Should we abandon what’s always worked in the past to change with the times?

As innovation leaders we are challenged to find the right solution. The ideal is to ask “How might we avoid “either/or” solutions and find ways to do “both/and” answers?” By adopting a curious, courageous, tenacious and humble mindset we are more apt to find the right questions to spark innovative solutions. And integrity to these values, and to core beliefs in what is right, will help us know when we’ve found the best answer.

“I look for three things in hiring people. The first is personal integrity, the second is intelligence, and the third is a high energy level. If you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you.”
— Warren Buffett, CEO Berkshire Hathaway