Creative Leadership Theory & Practice
This article is part of the THNK VIEWS series. We bridge theory and practice on organizing imagination and innovation by extracting key implications and offering new insights to innovation practitioners. This article builds on Exploring HRM Meta-Features that Foster Employees’ Innovative Work Behaviour in Times of Increasing Work-Life Conflict by Adriana Abstein and Patrick Spieth, and proposes a method of resilience and vitality when approaching stress at the workplace.
Stress has become the modern life enemy number one, but is this a fair accusation? What if we were to blame our sense of perception instead? The study by Adriana Abstein and Patrick Spieth finds that stress is negatively associated with innovation, and that work-related stress affects innovative behavior. The study also shows that human resource management can significantly diminish work-related stress and foster employee engagement and innovative behavior by focusing on four specific orientations:
- Cater to the individual by focusing on personal strengths, and valuing differences between employees.
- Secure discretion by balancing employer involvement and providing employee autonomy.
- Manage expectations by providing consistency on firm mission and values and through individual feedback sessions and coaching.
- Reward effort, not outcome, by tolerating failure and diversity of opinion.