International Journal of Organizational Leadership

Abstract

We analyze the impact of a catalytic collaboration as a tool on the leverage of transformational leadership competencies to generate a sustainable innovation by developing a Sustainable Innovation Matrix (SIM) leadership model. We observe it by employing a unique data set of the behaviors of fifty regional heads (mayors and regents) in Indonesia. The results of the analysis show that the transformational leaders who made a catalytic collaboration have proven ability to create significant impacts on their regions. The changing times in the industry 4.0 era are a great opportunity for a leader to formulate a program involving various parties. Various sources of information can easily be accessed; moreover, it becomes faster and more efficient to communicate with others. The leaders with good transformational leadership competencies who make a catalytic collaboration can generate innovations that not only create relevant impacts on the needs of their regions, but they are also sustainable in terms of economic and environmental aspects. The results also suggested that leaders must be courageous to make innovation and strongly care for their regional development despite limited resources there. In doing so, those leaders must collaborate catalytically with other parties to optimize all available opportunities for the progress of the regions that they lead.