Leaders’ ambidexterity traits

Abstract

The ability of companies to develop simultaneously innovations that exploit their current knowledge, while exploring new opportunities that go beyond their present knowledge is recognized as organizational ambidexterity and essential in the achievement of sustained performance above the average of the industry. The concept of ambidexterity, includes exploration and exploitation. Exploration requires search, discovery, experimentation, risk-taking and innovation, while exploitation consists of behavioral patterns characterized by refinement, implementation, efficiency, production and selection. Top managers are crucial to balance trade-offs among these competing objectives regarding exploration and exploitation and to reduce the organization’s tendency to focus only in one of them. Top managers act as a leaders in the process of exploiting existing competencies while also exploring new opportunities. In this study we are going to review the literature to extract the characteristics of ambidextrous leaders capable to cope with these tensions, in order to achieve organizational innovations.