Courageous leadership: Anita Krohn Traaseth, former CEO of Innovation Norway

Purpose This paper aims to examine the leadership strategy of the publicly owned organisation, Innovation Norway, between 2014 and 2019, when it was under the leadership of former CEO Anita Krohn Traaseth. Design/methodology/approach The author, Vlatka Hlupic, Professor of Leadership and Organisational Transformation at Hult Ashridge Executive Education and CEO of The Management Shift Consulting Ltd, looked at Anita’s examples of courageous leadership while in office. Anita drew upon the different “levels” of individual mindset and corresponding organisational culture in the Emergent Leadership Model, in Vlatka’s book: The Management Shift. Findings Vlatka’s leadership strategy allowed Anita to oversee a cultural change in Innovation Norway from a traditional bureaucratic set-up to one based on entrepreneurship. Through trust and transparency, Anita was open with her staff and the Norwegian society at large about the transitional work, sharing not only good results but also difficult times and resistance, publishing her personal working contract as well as the organisation’s goals. Anita found Vlatka’s Emergent Leadership model an effective and honest way of guiding an existing culture into another culture. Originality/value Readers should come away with an understanding of how courageous leadership requires an acceptance that those in power cannot control everything. Delivering a process, a new way of thinking and working, can be an extremely challenging and risky transition, but effective leaders will believe in that process and follow it through, even if criticism and dissatisfaction occurs, in the knowledge that by being open and honest with their team throughout, they will reach business goals, unified and empowered.