Ambidextrous leadership for innovation: the influence of culture

Abstract

We develop a new look on leadership for innovation and propose that effective leaders alternate between a broad range of behaviors and tune their approach to the changing demands of innovation. This is referred to as ambidextrous leadership. As the importance of different leader behaviors varies not only across time but also across contexts, ambidextrous leadership takes different shapes depending on contextual conditions. We discuss culture as an important contextual condition that holds implications for effective ambidextrous leadership. Cultures have different strengths and weaknesses for innovation that can be leveraged or compensated. We use the cultural characteristics identified by the GLOBE project to discuss how leaders can take culture into account when leading for innovation.

Citation

Bledow, R., Frese, M. and Mueller, V. (2011), "Ambidextrous leadership for innovation: the influence of culture", Mobley, W.H., Li, M. and Wang, Y. (Ed.) Advances in Global Leadership (Advances in Global Leadership, Vol. 6), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 41-69. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1535-1203(2011)0000006006