Innovation in the workplace has become a necessity in order for businesses to maintain their competitive edge. Businesses that are great innovators usually have someone in their organization that drives innovation. For Apple, this great innovator was Steve Jobs. Leadership practices can be used to help encourage innovation and helped make Steve Jobs a leader in innovation. He was also able to use the five discovery skills of innovation leaders. Lastly, he also took action to shape the organizational culture to become more innovative.
Steve Jobs used different leadership practices to encourage innovation in the workplace and make himself a leader in innovation. The practices that he used the most were leading people, managing change, inspiring commitment and being resourceful.
Leslie (2009) defined leading people as the leadership practice of directing and motivating employees while also delegating effectively. Leading people also includes broadening opportunities for employees, hiring talented people for their teams and acting with fairness. Leading people is a
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Steve Jobs was able to be very successful in using this skill. He was able to bring different ideas, problems and questions and invent new ideas. One perfect example of this was his idea of the IPOD and ITunes store. He used different ideas to come up with a brand new idea. The IPOD and ITunes store were very innovative ideas that changed the way that the world discovers, plays and purchases music (Ostdick, 2010). This idea helped create a market that had not been tapped into. Another example of Jobs using associating was when he bought Pixar after being fired from apple. He saw that this company had potential to what Apple had. Even though Pixar was a completely different market and idea, Jobs bought it and turned it into a Billion dollar