The corporate world in the present times pays special heed to the skills, knowledge, and attitude of an employee as these characteristics plays a crucial part in the success of the organization where the employee works. In this chapter, the authors map the various aspects that are completely indispensable for the learning and development of the employee given by the leader ultimately transforming the employee into a more efficient and responsible professional. Pervading the relevant knowledge to the employee and the organization by a leader can cause tremendous change in the behavior and performance of the employee. This exchange of knowledge results in a more focused approach and instills a sense of belief within the employee, and this creates a camaraderie that leads to smooth working and creates a milieu of trust and confidence in turn benefiting the organization in the long run.
TopIntroduction
Innovation make repetition to erode and make path for creative and more efficient way of solving a problem and yet innovation is not confined by any area where it can be used. When we talk about service innovation in organization it is present (and required) at all the levels of the hierarchy starting from the Operational level going all the way to the top Strategic Level where the decision-making takes place. And therefore, service innovation is not just needed to bring new ideas on the table but rather to make people think out of the box and enable them to come up with solution that were previously never thought about. But Service Innovation can be elusive most of the times due to inadequate nurturing of talent or as it often happens by turning a blind eye towards a new method or approach and taking a conservative stand by avoiding taking that calculative risk when required.
Innovation are derived within the organization by a Transformational Leader with the intention to cultivating excellent ways of going about a specific problem that the organization might be facing by giving the proper information or knowledge to the employees and curating them on periodic basis. Service Innovation acts as an asset to any organization implementing because the propensity of an employee to come up with unique ways of solving a problem or to even conceive a new method of doing something starts to build up. And in today’s competitive corporate environment where the ‘Age of Customer’ rules the roost success is anything but repetitive. Hence, innovation is indispensable to organization these days.
Service Innovation depends on several external factors apart from the leadership transformation given by the leader in the organization as discussed earlier in the text. We would be taking these external factors such as Knowledge Sharing, Knowledge Donation and Innovation Climate.
When an employee and a leader (manager or boss) work together in the same premises communication takes place. This exchange of information gives the employees new insights on how the organization works, what are the expectation of the organization from the employee, how the organization previously has been operating or how the employee can add value to the organization by his/her work. All of this happens if the communication is robust and healthy where both the leader (the employer) and the employee learn from each other and creates value for the organization bringing new and noble ideas on the table.
Often an organization succumbs to the chasm created by the lack of interaction between the leader and the employee due to attitudinal or cynical issue from either the leaders’ or the employees side. Knowledge Sharing is one of the fundamental aspect in ordering a Service Innovation at workplace.
Figure 1. Factors of Service Innovation
While the archives and repositories of information extracted, used and stored are created it is also important to let the doors of these archives open to all the employees and members of the organization open. The knowledge garnered by a leader can be useful to several people in the organization and it is imperative on the part of the leader to let the reach and access of this historical data(information) be available to all the interested people who want to use it. In this way, the information pervaded through the organization faster and to more and more number of people.
No amount of knowledge and communication is effective if it is not intended for the betterment of an individual and therefore the role of a leader is of such high importance in organization and anywhere else. A Transformational Leader takes charge of the approach that are needed to achieve the goals for the organizations and empowers the employees with confidence, enthusiasm, positive attitude and knowledge to enable them to contribute in the attainment of the result for themselves and for the organization at large. A Transformational Leader acts as a catalyst for creating a Service Innovation by imparting the needful knowledge and resources to the employees of the organization all of which helps in initiating a process of creating more leaders than mere followers to the leader himself! Also, a Transformational Leader tries to foster an environment of perfection and excellence by motivating the employees and team mates to strive for getting the maximum from the opportunity by following legitimate means and gaining the maximum.