Leadership facilitates innovative behaviors by the following actions: • Being available and accessible to team members. • Giving frequent feedback to realign goals across the organization, ad- dress and learn from issues, and generate new ideas and insights. • Allowing subordinates to not know all the answers but to ask ques- tions and share knowledge. • Providing “top cover” for teams and individuals experimenting with innovative solutions. • Sustaining innovations even when the originator has left the team. They can act as a throughline for the innovation, orchestrating the handoff and providing ongoing momentum. • Driving teams to articulate trade- offs to account for risk versus re- ward when making ambiguous decisions. However, leadership discourages innovative behavior when a person in authority does not share common goals and shuts down innovation, does not delegate authority to create changes, or fails to provide an inno- vator enough influence to advocate a new approach. A change in leadership greatly impacts the goals and innova- tive capabilities of a team both facili- tating and blocking innovation. This is particularly true during leadership turnover when incoming leaders who want to innovate can create an envi- ronment that allows more risks and boundary pushing. It’s also true that new leaders who prioritize maintain- ing the status quo can block innova- tions begun by their predecessors. In everyday work, high-potential grassroots innovation interventions are being developed locally by the acquisition workforce to quickly solve problems. However, to benefit from and amplify this innovative behav- ior, the organization needs to assess emerging innovations to determine their scalability and address systemic barriers that hinder broader adoption, dynamically prioritize those that it will foster and proliferate, provide
Fostering a culture of innovation that encourages calculated risk-taking supports organizational learning, promotes alignment across teams, and grants autonomy is essential for sustainable transformation.
resources to support the transition to global interventions, and support leaders who use innovation-focused approaches. The IAP can be readily transitioned to and adopted by DoW components to tackle fundamental barriers to speed, agility, and innova- tion in warfighting acquisition. GIRTH, a nationally recognized expert in acq- uisition policy and practice, is an associate professor and faculty director of Washing- ton Programs at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs, The Ohio State University. She has testified before Congress and led DoW- sponsored research. Girth is a member of the Research Council for the Systems Engi- neering Research Center, a DoW University- Affiliated Research Center that manages the DoW’s Acquisition Innovation Research Cen- ter. She holds a Ph.D. in Public Administration from American University, an MBA from The George Washington University, and a B.S. in Public Administration and Policy from Oak- land University. MAGUIRE is a research scientist with The Ohio State University’s Cognitive Systems Engineering Lab, with extensive experience working with industry and governmental or- ganizations. She has led studies and advised Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, industry and professional associations, and govern- ment entities. Maguire holds a Ph.D. in Inte- grated Systems Engineering from The Ohio State University, an M.S. in Human Factors and Systems Safety Engineering from Lund University, and a B.Comm. in Entrepreneurial Management from the Royal Roads University. RAYO is an associate professor of integrated systems engineering at The Ohio State Uni- versity’s College of Engineering. His research focuses on how the design of cognitive tools influences multi-agent teaming architectures that contribute to system behaviors. His work on how to foster system resilience has been funded by the National Patient Safety Foun- dation, the Agency for Healthcare Research
and Quality, the Office of Naval Research, and the Air Force Research Laboratory. Royo holds a Ph.D. in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and an M.S. in Industrial and Systems En- gineering from The Ohio State University, as well as a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a B.A. in Music Performance from Case Western Reserve University. The authors can be contacted at Girth.1@osu.edu , Maguire.81@osu.edu , and Rayo.3@osu.edu . This material is based upon work supported, in whole or in part, by the U.S. Department of War through the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment and the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineer- ing under Contract HQ0034-19-D-0003, Task Orders TO#0285, and TO#0309. The views, findings, conclusions, and recommenda- tions expressed in this material are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the United States Government (in- cluding the Department of War and any government personnel), the Stevens Institute of Technology, or The Ohio State University. Reproduction or repost- ing of articles from Defense Acquisition magazine should credit authors and the magazine.
Related Resources • Innovate to Win Playbook (Online Tool) • EXE 4050V Leading Change to Drive Innovative Culture (Virtual Instructor-Led Training) • Scaling Innovation (Video) • Driving Innovation in Acquisition (Web Event Series)
10 | DEFENSE ACQUISITION | November-December 2025
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