Based on the experiences with various organizations, this article summarized how managers should lead their innovation employees for most effectiveness. The main thesis is that innovation employees give higher performance when their managers practice symbiotic leadership style. The article describes how managers can achieve this. Four characteristics that they can apply to guide their leadership style to create a work symbiosis are given. Another contribution of this article is a set of recommendations to mimic the aspects of symbiotic leadership applicable in any organization where the operating environment is uncertain, the task is unstructured, and the manager cannot provide a clear direction to his employees. Through the practice of these recommendations, managers of all types of organizations should get higher productivity from their employees due to the employees' individual innovations.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.