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Innovative cultures are great for creating something new or improve existing things. Innovative behaviour among employees is a vital asset for organisations to perform in a dynamic environment. Creating and sustaining such cultures is not easy. The first step is to support innovativeness.

"Pro-innovative climate encourages innovative behaviour because it legitimates experimentation, creates psychological safety for trial and error, and reduces the image risk involved in innovation attempts". Fear of negative image is a crucial reason for employee resistance to being innovative. For that reason, it is essential to reduce the anxiety of image risk among employees to stimulate creative behaviour. Emphasising innovation as part of job requirements should be a focus of organisations that thrive on being innovative.

People who believe their innovativeness will result in improved performance and efficiency gain are more likely to meet the organisation's expectations. Another factor is the relationship with the supervisor. A good supervisor recognises the subordinates' loyalty and commitment by giving them the freedom to explore their working style and ideas.

A lack of innovation is also the result of employees disbelieving it will benefit their work. According to the Beckhard-Harris Model, creating dissatisfaction with the status quo could counter a problem like this. When people realise that their current way of working is not the most effective, they are more willing to change.

Organisations that want to build innovative cultures need to set clear expectations and competency requirements. They should accept failure as part of the innovation journey. For that, it is essential to distinguish productive failures from unproductive ones. Productive failure is when employees gain constructive improvements to their ideas or discover an unknown issue. Tolerance for failure is good, but there should be no tolerance for incompetence. Disciplined experimentation requires highly competent people. Experimenting must be goal-oriented and focused on obtaining information.

According to Cohen, Quinn, and Roth, there are eight essentials for innovations in which 'aspiring' and 'choosing' being the two vital essentials for successful innovation. Leaders play a significant role in these two factors seeing how they determine the amount of growth of an organisation. The evidence of growth should be demonstrated by an increase in net new revenue, earnings growth or both. Innovating and taking necessary risks is required to be able to grow as an organisation. Prioritising certainty can be deceiving because even though the organisation is getting results, that doesn't mean there is growth. With taking risks comes responsibility. Investing in risky projects without proper research can fail. Minimising the probability of unnecessary mistakes can make a big difference.

To wrap this up, leaders who wish to create an innovative culture need to communicate and reduce image risk by emphasising the importance of innovation. They need to have clear expectations and create a psychologically, safe environment. It is also necessary to have someone accountable for a team. That way, employees can contribute without the fear of damaging their image if an innovation attempt fails.