---
id: "claim-co-creation-over-following"
type: "claim"
source_timestamps: ["§ Summary", "¶1"]
tags: ["leadership-evolution", "strategy"]
related: ["concept-co-creation", "contrarian-visionary-obsolete"]
speakers: ["Linda A. Hill"]
confidence: "high"
testable: false
sources: ["tail2"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-tail2"
originDay: 2
articleStem: "hbr-tail-125-innovative-leader"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2025/05/what-makes-an-innovative-leader"
sourceTitle: "What Makes an Innovative Leader?"
---
# Co-creation supersedes visionary direction in modern leadership

> **Confidence:** high · **Testable:** no (normative/definitional claim)

**Claim:** As innovation becomes the central pillar of organizational strategy, the traditional leadership mandate — *getting people to follow you to the future* — is no longer effective. The leader's primary function is now to get people to **co-create** the future alongside them.

The claim rests on the premise that communicating a static vision is insufficient for navigating the complexities of modern innovation, which require continuous, inclusive, dynamic problem-solving from the whole team. It is the propositional form of [[concept-co-creation]] and is captured verbatim in [[quote-leading-today-co-create]].

**Enrichment validation:** Strongly supported by Hill's HBR/HBS materials and the transcript. HBR states leaders must "shift from the focus on decision-making and producing to creating the conditions for collaboration, experimentation, and smart decision-making across teams, silos, and wider ecosystems" [7].

**Caveat (why it is marked not-testable):** It is a definitional/normative reframe of the leadership role rather than a falsifiable empirical prediction. The contrarian reading in [[contrarian-visionary-obsolete]] pushes it further; the counter-perspective [[counter-visionary-still-needed]] pushes back, noting the sources argue co-creation is *additive* to vision, not a wholesale replacement, and that many organizations still need clear strategic direction before co-creation is productive.