The lead article in this issue of the Ivey Business Journal is about Open Innovation, a concept in which an organization invites partners – suppliers, customer and, in certain cases, competitors – to collaborate on a particular innovation. Open Innovation is built on a platform of trust and respect, and a desire to learn and change. The platform and the process are not perfect, but in opening themselves up, organizations are tacitly admitting that they can’t and should not do it alone.

In Open Leadership, author Charlene Li writes why leaders must open up, especially given the enormous reach and influence of social technologies. But Facebook, Twitter and others withstanding, Open Leadership is about having the confidence and humility to give up the need to be in control while inspiring people to accomplish their goals. In the past ten years or so, business leaders have become more trusting, transparent and authentic. Some have also become more “open,” and the rewards and satisfaction of turning outward – instead of increasingly inward – are there for all to see. Hopefully, others will follow, for great and successful is the leader who is an Open Leader.

Stephen Bernhut

Stephen Bernhut is the editor of Ivey Business Journal Online. He has been a journalist with Time Magazine, The Globe and Mail and the Financial Post Magazine. He was also a corporate communications consultant, a senior manager in corporate communications, with CIBC Wood Gundy, and a sales and marketing manager, with Mattel and Xerox. Mr. Bernhut is the founding editor of Food and Drink, the lifestyle magazine of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. He is also a recipient of a National Magazine Award (2000), for Best New Magazine (Montage, the magazine of the Directors Guild of Canada).