By Steve Moran

Organizations increasingly create and fill new positions with impressive titles like:

  • Chief Strategy Officer
  • Chief Innovation Officer
  • Chief Transformation Officer
  • Chief Experience Officer
  • Chief Purpose Officer
  • Chief Well-being Officer

This trend is appealing; there’s lots of sizzle behind it. I could even see myself in one of these roles — they represent the opportunity to reshape an organization in powerful, meaningful ways.

But Not So Fast

I recently started reading a new book on innovation that makes an important point: when we’re little kids, every one of us is creative, but as we grow older, we’re taught to “never color outside the lines,” and most of us stop seeing ourselves as creatives.

This got me thinking: while having someone focused specifically on creative pursuits seems valuable, there’s a huge danger that all creativity, experimentation, and exploration falls on the shoulders of a single person.

Worse than that, it can send the implicit message that no one else really has permission to invent and innovate.

Getting It Right

The best people to innovate are those closest to the areas ripe for innovation:

  • Caregivers are in the best position to figure out how to provide better care for residents
  • Life enrichment directors (and residents themselves) are best positioned to innovate on resident experiences
  • Chefs, food prep staff, and waitstaff are most qualified to create better dining experiences

These innovations are tremendously difficult to conceptualize from the corporate office.

The True Role of Innovation Leadership

The real potential of these new “Chief” positions isn’t to centralize innovation but to democratize it — to turn every team member into a creative genius in their own part of the organization. Their value comes from:

  • Creating psychological safety that encourages risk-taking
  • Providing resources and removing barriers to implementation
  • Connecting ideas across departments that might not otherwise interact
  • Building systems to capture, evaluate, and scale successful innovations
  • Challenging traditional thinking by bringing outside perspectives

When done right, these roles don’t monopolize creativity — they amplify it throughout the organization, taking promising ideas and nurturing them to reality, spawning more and better ideas in the process.

The most successful innovation leaders don’t say “follow me” — they say “I believe in your vision. How can I help make it happen?”