Integral leadership: overcoming the paradox of growth

Abstract

Purpose

To make top management aware of the innovation paradox: their current success depends on doing and improving upon what they now do well, but their future success requires creating entirely new capabilities.

Design/methodology/approach

One of the authors is director of development at Cisco, a firm that acquires disruptive technology through it's M&A program. The other author is one of the world's leading authorities on innovation.

Findings

A critical element of the solution to the disruptive innovation dilemma lies in setting up an autonomous organization that can adopt radically different resources, processes and values.

Research limitations/implications

A subsequent article will detail the M&A search for firms with technology needed or disruptive innovation.

Practical implications

In a firm with no history of innovation disruption, executives must use their personal authority to create a strategy process that is more emergent than intentional, focus on customers that appear unattractive, and develop new capabilities.

Originality/value

The authors propose that to achieve renewal via disruptive innovation that CEOs must become integral leaders, who learn to go beyond trade offs between constituencies within a set of constraints and see the necessity of changing the constraints themselves.

Citation

Putz, M. and Raynor, M.E. (2005), "Integral leadership: overcoming the paradox of growth", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 46-48. https://doi.org/10.1108/10878570510572644