Innovation is one of the most useful tools to solve problems regardless their origin. It not only entails challenges, but also requires the recognition of purpose and meaning. These are the conditions to generate ideas to create change and improvements within an organization, and their process is conducted either with adaptive or innovative approaches, regarding each individual’s perspective. Developing innovation benefits leadership skills by strengthening change management, enhancing problem solving, and mastering group dynamics.

One of the benefits of innovation relies on the adoption of change management skills. Although these capabilities respond to the extent of willingness to adapt or create change, these also facilitate the adaption of strategies and promote their implementation in ways that fit the needs of the organization by addressing its mission.  This characteristic can be understood as the way how adaptive or innovative are the team members to accommodate and change their behaviors and operations into new practices that require the adaption of new technologies, strategies and methods. For instance, If a team is full with adaptive members, then there could be some conflicts. It's the same if all the members in a team are innovative. The best team is compounded by a combination of both adaptive and innovative members, and leaders are responsible for assigning different duties to all team members according to their change perspectives. Therefore, change management benefits the accomplishment of innovation in former leaders.

Another benefit of applying innovative approaches into leadership competencies relies on the improvement of problem-solving skills. This ability responds to the application of different models such as i-Loop model, and Stanford D School models. Using the i-loop model, a leader can increase the level of response of problem solving among the members of his/her organization as well as his/her own skills by executing procedures that imply the use of identification, idealization, initiation, implementations, and iteration. Similarly, the Stanford D School model stands on the protocol of empathizing and defining a problem, along with the creation of the idea, prototype and test of the possible solutions. Either methods conduct reasonable support on the enhancement of problem-solving skills for former leaders and members within an organization.

​

A third benefit of innovation is obtained by the way of understanding the dynamic of groups and the application of adequate techniques to ensure its adequate performance on a time-basis. This approach is feasible by understanding the phases that identify teams and their natural changes along the time. These phases are often characterized by the experience of the individual and their capacity to react to changes. So that, regardless the fact that a team member may be more is adaptive or innovative to afford change, it is important his/her interaction with other members and ensuring the solution of possible conflicts that may be generated give their orientation to adapt or innovate. For instance, given the case of a structural design in charge of design a 150-store building within a design firm where 30 more building were build with similar characteristics will generate discrepancies among the members. Some of them would prefer thinking as a new design regarding the unique characteristics of the project independently of the amount of time that it can demand. Yet, other team members may prefer to take previous experiences as a reference to design the foundation of the building, so that the same project can be modeled in shorter time by ensuring its future structural behavior at the same time. Both perspectives are correct, however the existence of such differences may generate conflict in decision-making and eventually, in problem-solving within the design team. If a leader is capable to master such conflicts by understanding that the group could be divided and work independently in different specific tasks by combining both criteria, then he/she will eventually accomplish the objective of designing the building by applying group dynamic concepts to his/her leadership practices.

​

Therefore, this way of solving problems by understanding and managing possible conflicts rooted on the perspective of the team to afford changes will be benefit leaders by broadening their innovative approach.

Accordingly, the use of innovative strategies will facilitate problem-solving and decision-making within an organization. Moreover, applying these concepts will enhance the leadership experience of individuals by improving the way they afford change, the way tol solve problems, and the way they resolve internal conflicts originated by innovative or adaptive behaviors.