“Recovery demands a clear-out of the old-guard,” says Luke Johnson in the Financial Times, March 17. If the big ideas of this decade are reinvention, we need leaders who can innovate.

Innovative leaders make the most of opportunities when they arise. They step up to the challenge when there’s a need and look for opportunities to do things differently. They pay attention to the environment and believe that they can instigate change.

Roger Ochs, President of HD Vest Financial, a subsidiary of Wells Fargo, believes that leaders are developed by giving people the responsibility or by letting them take responsibility without having the authority. “You earn the authority from your peers,” he observed. 

Ochs shared the story of how he moved into the top executive ranks. There wasn’t a leader of the executive team, and the firm’s founder Herb Vest said he was going to be gone for six weeks. “You guys just run the business. I’m going to make you [Roger] the spokesman for the group because I don’t want all five of you coming to me with questions,” Vest told him. “It’s not a formal reporting responsibility.”

While Ochs didn’t know it at the time, Herb Vest was looking for somebody to step up and take responsibility for the group.

Ochs explained that one of his biggest challenges was to get these leaders in the organization to work together to accomplish their goals without having any authority. He took the responsibility and demonstrated his capabilities as a strong leader although his title and authority had not changed. He earned the respect of his colleagues. They gave him the authority.

People can break into a higher level of work or a new role by asking for the responsibility. Initiating the conversation takes courage – carrying out the mission takes conviction and skill.

In Leadership Pundit’s survey on careers and leadership, 73%  say “I see myself as a leader or future leader in my current field or industry.” Eighty-six per cent are somewhat or highly motivated by “having a job that stretches my abilities.” 

How are current leaders doing when it comes to innovation? Not good enough. Only 50% of the survey respondents believe that the members of their company’s leadership team are developing innovative ways of doing business. And only 45% say that their leadership team is providing adequate resources to promote innovation and growth. 

The survey respondents told us that they want to do important work and they get a thrill out of stretch assignments. But their organizations could do more to innovate, change and grow. Seems to me that there’s a gap waiting to be filled.

In the most rigorous sense, leadership is a mindset – a lens to the world that inspires growth and opportunity, a bias for action, and a quest for the truth. Leadership is also what you do and how, and the results you are measured by.

• When was the last time that you suggested a new idea for your business or department? How about a big, bold idea?
• When was the last time you thought about how things are getting accomplished and what could be different?
• When was the last time you watched a consumer purchase or use your product?

The new guard will always look for ways to innovate. These leaders know that successful companies can easily lose their edge. In overwhelming numbers, newspapers refused to accept how rapidly digital technology would impact their businesses. Now many have shut their doors.

Tell yourself that anything is possible. Remind yourself that innovative leaders achieve the impossible by tearing away outmoded practices and refusing to believe that business is static. It’s time to step up to the challenge. Your ideas can change your company, your marketplace, and the lives of the people around you. It’s certainly worth a try.