Knowledge-intensive service firms have boosted in the past 10-15 years. The nature of these services implies that such firms must realise a continuous flow of innovations to ensure continuity. Incremental innovation is part of daily work, since customers tend to have needs that are always slightly different. To realise incremental innovation, it is desirable that individual co-workers behave innovatively.
Leadership is widely recognised as a critical success factor for the development of new services. This study makes an inventory of leader behaviours and other factors that may enhance innovative behaviour of co-workers. On the basis of in-depth interviews and literature research we have made a broad inventory of innovation-enhancing leader behaviours. The research revealed no less than thirteen relevant behaviour constructs: role-modelling, intellectual stimulation, stimulating knowledge diffusion, providing vision, consulting, delegating, providing support for innovation, organising feedback, recognising, rewarding, providing resources, monitoring, and task assignment. The research also revealed two situational characteristics that are likely to affect innovative behaviour: climate and external contacts. Since each construct can have a different impact on the initiation and implementation of bottom-up innovations, we elaborate on their proposed effects.

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