Leadership and Innovation Characteristics - Transforming Your STEM Career Through Leadership and Innovation - page 67

Leader

Align activities with strategy
and objectives. Guide
progress, monitor metrics,
and instigate corrective
action.

Networker Coordinator

Create connections between
internal and external
individuals or organizations
that have common objectives.

Plan, schedule, and assure
completion of projects.
Outsmarts obstacles faced
during projects.

Anthropologist

Builder

Make tangible concepts of
ideas. Strive for the initial
vision of concept with minimal
compromise for design,
production, and delivery

Develop understanding of how
people interact with products,
services, and one another and
their environment.

FIGURE 4.1 Innovation roles. Source: Essmann and Du Preez (2009).

in during the innovation process. The objective is to make sure that all functions
are covered to holistically address the innovation needs to take an idea from
concept to a value-added product in the hands of a customer.

MYTHBUSTERS ® ON LEADERSHIP [5,6]
I love the show on the Discovery Channel known as MythBusters ® . This award-
winning show is intended to reveal the truth behind popular myths and legends by
combining scientific methods with curiosity, ingenuity, and entertainment to create
a television quality style of experimentation and explanation. Is it possible to beat a
lie detector test, can plugging your finger into a gun barrel cause it to backfire (don't
try this at home), and whether or not a dirty car is more fuel efficient than a clean car
are but a few of the myths of focus. A scientific analysis is applied to the myth and
a conclusion is reached, so by the end of the show the viewer is forced to confront
what they may have believed to be true for a lifetime as a myth: simply put, the
myths may be just that - myths that are far from truth.
The same perspectives confronted in MythBusters ® can be present in our
assessment of what it means to be a leader. In previous chapters we addressed

MythBusters ® is a registered trademark owned by Discovery Communications, LLC, 2012.