Innovation Leadership and Resilience: Alan Joyce, Qantas

Abstract

This chapter explores how resilience in the face of difficult and crisis-ridden circumstances influences innovation. By examining Qantas and the critical role played by the CEO and Managing Director Alan Joyce, we discuss how innovation leadership amid a crisis requires resilience with a balanced approach. With a lens of self-level innovation leadership, we showcase Alan Joyce’s resilience and how that flowed onto his team and the organisation to action required changes in a creative and novel way to revitalise. The chapter contributes to the literature by further detailing about how resilience from a business leadership perspective influences the organisation’s ability to encourage innovation in a difficult and crisis-ridden environment. We believe that the lessons learned from the Qantas case can inspire companies and industries that face similar challenges to understand what it means to demonstrate resilience as a leader.

Citation

Kannan, S. and Camgöz, S.M. (2023), "Innovation Leadership and Resilience: Alan Joyce, Qantas", Jensen, K.R., Kaudela-Baum, S. and Sheffield, R. (Ed.) Innovation Leadership in Practice: How Leaders Turn Ideas into Value in a Changing World, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 61-77. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83753-396-120231004