Of all the topics surrounding leadership today, innovation is one of the most significant. Yet despite
the volume of resources exploring both innovation and leadership, most approaches provide
directional solutions that are merely anecdotal. In addition, these fictive solutions lack sufficient
information for leaders to utilize their own capacities to make measurable change. As a college
student, you are provided with many opportunities to develop your own leadership skills and
capacities through coursework, co-curricular involvement, and part or full-time work experiences.
You are the future leaders of our companies, our nonprofit organizations, our government, and our
education system. It is extremely important that we, as a society, invest in the development of our
future leaders. We know that leadership plays a critical role in today's ever changing world, and that
innovation is a strategic necessity for tackling the tough problems we face today and those we will
face in the near future.
Still, ensuing questions on how to lead and where to innovate remain puzzling for leaders and world
leaders: What is the role of leadership in times of looming uncertainty? How will organizations
innovate to overcome largely unprecedented challenges? And how can we work together and leverage
our strengths to more effectively address the future small and large challenges we will encounter in
our organizations?
This workbook is designed to help answer those questions and to help you with the critical selfevaluation
needed to refine and innovate your own leadership skills. It is fundamentally about
leadership, yet equally an account of applying innovation.