The relationship between leadership styles and organisational innovation A systematic literature review and narrative synthesis

Purpose This study explores the role of leadership in organisational innovation by reviewing several publications that discuss the relationship between various leadership styles and innovation. Design/methodology/approach The study followed a descriptive research methodology by reviewing 64 journal articles on the relationship between various leadership styles and innovation. The articles were analysed descriptively and then reviewed based on the leadership style it discusses to derive meaningful findings on the relationship between leadership and innovation. Findings Various leadership styles had a positive impact on organisational innovation either directly or indirectly, by influencing the organisational climate, employees' and leaders' behaviours or other organisational variables such as learning and knowledge sharing. Some leadership styles had both direct and indirect impacts on organisational innovation. Originality/value This study contributes to the existing body of research on leadership and innovation by extensively discussing the role of various leadership styles in determining organisational innovation. The analysis reveals that prior studies had many limitations and focused on specific leadership styles only. The study goes a step further by explaining how the leadership and innovation aspects are related, and classifying various leadership styles according to their impact on organisational innovation being direct, indirect or both.