The impact of leadership styles on innovation management

The article reviews research on the impact of different leadership styles on innovation management by setting out the organisational framework of the findings to date in four generic dimensions: people, measures, effects, and objectives. Using this framework, an overview has been provided of studies on directive and participative leadership, interactive leadership, charismatic leadership, transformational leadership, transactional and instrumental leadership, strategic and executive leadership, as well as shared and distributed leadership. There are strong signals that different stages and types of innovation raise different leadership requirements. Against this background, transformational leadership is not the only innovation management style and various leadership styles have their own, distinct ways of contributing to different types and stages of innovation. However, the determination of this allocation is still very incomplete and the answer to the question of how innovations should be managed remains unclear. The article also describes research needs and their practical implications.