Adaptive Leadership
By Reetu Raina
Current Scenario
The most certain thing in today’s business environment is
Uncertainty
????
So we need to prepare leaders for unknown
The Need for New, Adaptive Leadership
Complex, Significant Challenges
Myth that Better Execution and Improving Operations
Alone will Accomplish Needed Results
What is Adaptive Leadership
Adaptive leadership is given to impacting the environment.
It addresses a very active form of leadership, not a
passive effort taken merely to adjust to circumstances as
found. Biology teaches that relationships between living
entities are circular and interactive. Our organizations
are also living systems, being composed not just of
capital goods and technology, but of people.
Leadership Level and Associated Tasks
Facing adaptive challenge, creating meaning.
Innovation, change, dealing with paradigm shifts
Adaptive Leadership,
Relational Dialogue
Social Leadership
Wholistically framing issues, creating context for
dialogue, managing creative conflict and tension.
Leadership Level III
Stimulating/consolidating organizational learning
Inter-Personal Influence
Relationship-Based
Leadership
Creating commitment, alignment, motivation, spirit,
teamwork, and political skill
Leadership Level II
Personal Dominance
Leader-Based Leadership
Setting direction, priorities, mission,
vision, goals, purpose and taking
immediate action
Leadership Level I
Adapted from Drath and Heifetz
Knowing-Doing” Gap
Leaders always don’t fall more because of lack of
execution than lack of vision
Why Gap
Pfeffer and Sutton suggests five reasons
Talk over the action
Memory Substitutes for Action
Fear Prevents Action
Measurement Obstructs Good Judgment
Internal Competition – Friend becomes Enemy
Talk
Talk is cheap
Talk makes you look clever
Education system oriented towards talk
Talk in seminars, write papers
No need to act
Companies talk about acting
But don’t act
Overcoming the gap
Action oriented organization & culture
Reward action not discussion
Trust people
Coaching / Mentoring / Master-Apprentice
Embedded training - On the job training
Reduce gap between learning and doing
Repeat attention
Simplicity
One or two things at a time
Adaptive Leadership Challenges…
“Making progress on these problems demands not just
someone who provides answers on high, but changes
in our attitudes, behavior, and values. To meet
challenges such as these, we need a different idea of
leadership and a new social contract that promote our
adaptive capacities, rather than inappropriate
expectations of authority.”
The leadership challenges are complex: there is
no one “right” answer
vs.
Real risk must be balanced against
reward
The leader does not impose a solution: the final
solution emerges from the dialogue of all the parties
All parties learn from one another—and learn more
about the situation in the process
Everyone must adapt their perspective in
order for a solution to emerge
The Dangers Adaptive Leaders Face
Marginalization
Diversion
Attack
Seduction
Loss
Adaptive Leadership Strategies
Get on the balcony

Maintain
“sacred
heart”

Anchor yourself

Manage your hungers

Think politically

Orchestrate
the process

Hold steady
“Getting on the Balcony”
Gain a wholistic perspective
Systems thinking
Technical vs. Adaptive Work
Simultaneously on the dance floor and above it on
the balcony
Observe patterns and people
Discern true meanings and feelings, particularly of
authority figures; “song beneath the words”
Personal reflection
“Thinking Politically”
Dance the relationship dance
Encourage supporters
Stay close to opponents
Court the undecided
Acknowledge the loss- uncertainty, disloyalty, and
incompetence- change brings
Allow time for transition but leave behind those
that cannot make the change
“Orchestrating the Process, Particularly Conflict”
Establish safe, stress-ful holding environment,
like a pressure cooker
Moderate temperature to pace work progress
Let issues ripen when needed
Balance pain of loss with positive possibility of
change for their future
Give the work back to the people
Make interventions short and simple
Don’t take personal attacks personally
“Hold Steady!”
Take the heat
Patiently let issues ripen
Focus attention on the issues
Ask lots of real tough questions
Suspend your reality
ENCOURAGE RISK AND EXPERIMENTATION
Do you have a domestic strength or industrial
strength pressure cooker in your community,
organization, your team, your family, or your own
ego?
“Manage Your Hungers”
Respect the ready availability of and need for
power, control, affirmation and importance
Intimacy and delight needs must be met
appropriately
Manage your grandiosity remembering people
see you more in your role than as a human
person
Use transitional rituals to demarcate your roles
“Anchor Yourself”
Don’t confuse one’s self with one’s professional
role
Identify a truly trustworthy confidant who can
really tell you what you need to hear
Do not use allies as confidants
Find a sanctuary for retreat, rejuvenation, and
personal reflection
Put yourself on the line in leading again!
Learning Methods for Adaptive Leadership
“Case in point”
Classroom as “studio laboratory”
Success and failure stories sharing and analysis
Owning up to your part of the mess
“Empathic Imagination” and compassion development
Intense monitoring of feelings and reflection
Journaling
Simulations
Personal Assessments- 360 degree feedback
Coaching
Leadership Development Planning
Current situation challenge, support, re-assessment
“The Fog” and other metaphors
Your Adaptive Leadership Challenges
What are two adaptive leadership
challenges you face and what is
your role in catalyzing relational
dialogue and adaptive learning to
solve them?
THANK YOU