Adaptive leadership is a model used by leaders to help individuals adapt to complex or rapidly changing environments. Adaptive leadership is defined by three core components (precious or expendable, experimentation and smart risks, disciplined assessment). Growth occurs when an organization discards ineffective ways of operating. Then, active leaders implement new initiatives and monitor their impact.
Adaptive leadership was first introduced to the world at Harvard University by Dr. Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linksy. Both recognized that the top-down or hierarchical leadership style was outdated and impractical, with no single person able to fix every problem effectively.
Indeed, leadership is now a team sport in modern business. Management is expected to work with other leaders and employees to successfully navigate change, accomplish goals, and emergent triumphant at the other end.
Adaptive leadership does not use traditional problem-solving methods which favor rules, regulations, and protocol. Instead, it relies on dynamic, creative, people-focused solutions. Although popular for years, the leadership style has seen a surge in popularity as businesses face the continual challenges of navigating the coronavirus pandemic.
The adaptive leadership model
Adaptive leadership is defined by a framework of three key components:
Precious or expendable – when change occurs, businesses naturally question whether certain aspects are still serving them. That is, which elements are worth keeping and which are not? Organizational growth is dependent on leaders moving on from the past and opening up new economic opportunities or ways of operating.
Experimentation and smart risks – adaptive leaders also understand that growth is beset by challenges. However, they develop and test ideas and then learn from any mistakes.
Disciplined assessment – with new avenues for growth identified, adaptive leaders implement and monitor the impact of new systems or processes. They actively collaborate with impacted teams and make adjustments where necessary.
The five adaptive leadership principles
Like all leadership styles, there are no predetermined qualities an adaptive leader must display.
In no particular order, here are some that may be useful:
Organizational justice – otherwise known as fairness. Adaptive leaders need to be open, honest and be willing to have difficult conversations. They must also communicate in facts and with honesty to ensure change is accepted by subordinates.
Character – adaptive leaders must also be able to earn the respect of those they lead. Here, transparency is important. They must not be afraid to make or admit mistakes, nor must they be afraid of ceasing an initiative that isn’t working. They also embrace the diversity of opinion across the organization.
Emotional intelligence – or the ability for a leader to perceive the feelings or emotions of others while keeping their own emotions in check. Emotionally intelligent leaders respond to the concerns of others with empathy because they separate the person from the problem they are experiencing.
Development – adaptive leaders embrace continuous growth and learning and are not averse to trying new problem-solving strategies. The best adaptive leaders also encourage similar values around creativity and innovation in their subordinates.
Win-win problem solving – lastly, adaptive leaders see conflict resolution as an opportunity to come to a mutually beneficial result. For example, one organization may benefit from a merger with a competitor rather than spending excessive amounts of money trying to beat them.
Key takeaways:
Adaptive leadership is a leadershipmodel used by leaders to move organizations through complex or dynamic change. It favors creative, people-focused problem solutions over rules and procedures.
Adaptive leadership is defined by three core components. Growth occurs when an organization discards ineffective ways of operating. Then, active leaders implement new initiatives and monitor their impact.
Adaptive leadership is characterized by the following traits: fairness, transparency, emotional intelligence, continuous growth, and win-win problem-solving.
Leadership styles encompass the behavioral qualities of a leader. These qualities are commonly used to direct, motivate, or manage groups of people. Some of the most recognized leadership styles include Autocratic, Democratic, or Laissez-Faire leadership styles.
Agile leadership is the embodiment of agile manifesto principles by a manager or management team. Agile leadership impacts two important levels of a business. The structural level defines the roles, responsibilities, and key performance indicators. The behavioral level describes the actions leaders exhibit to others based on agile principles.
Adaptive leadership is a model used by leaders to help individuals adapt to complex or rapidly changing environments. Adaptive leadership is defined by three core components (precious or expendable, experimentation and smart risks, disciplined assessment). Growth occurs when an organization discards ineffective ways of operating. Then, active leaders implement new initiatives and monitor their impact.
Developed by business consultants Kenneth Blanchard and Paul Hersey in the 1960s, delegative leadership is a leadership style where authority figures empower subordinates to exercise autonomy. For this reason, it is also called laissez-faire leadership. In some cases, this type of leadership can lead to increases in work quality and decision-making. In a few other cases, this type of leadership needs to be balanced out to prevent a lack of direction and cohesiveness of the team.
Distributed leadership is based on the premise that leadership responsibilities and accountability are shared by those with the relevant skills or expertise so that the shared responsibility and accountability of multiple individuals within a workplace, bulds up as a fluid and emergent property (not controlled or held by one individual). Distributed leadership is based on eight hallmarks, or principles: shared responsibility, shared power, synergy, leadership capacity, organizational learning, equitable and ethical climate, democratic and investigative culture, and macro-community engagement.
Ethical leaders adhere to certain values and beliefs irrespective of whether they are in the home or office. In essence, ethical leaders are motivated and guided by the inherent dignity and rights of other people.
Transformational leadership is a style of leadership that motivates, encourages, and inspires employees to contribute to company growth. Leadership expert James McGregor Burns first described the concept of transformational leadership in a 1978 book entitled Leadership. Although Burns’ research was focused on political leaders, the term is also applicable for businesses and organizational psychology.
Those who lead by example let their actions (and not their words) exemplify acceptable forms of behavior or conduct. In a manager-subordinate context, the intention of leading by example is for employees to emulate this behavior or conduct themselves.
A leader is someone within an organization who possesses the ability to influence and lead others by example. Leaders inspire, support, and encourage those beneath them and work continuously to achieve objectives. A boss is someone within an organization who gives direct orders to subordinates, tends to be autocratic, and prefers to be in control at all times.
Situational leadership is based on situational leadership theory. Developed by authors Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard in the late 1960s, the theory’s fundamental belief is that there is no single leadership style that is best for every situation. Situational leadership is based on the belief that no single leadership style is best. In other words, the best style depends on the situation at hand.
Succession planning is a process that involves the identification and development of future leaders across all levels within a company. In essence, succession planning is a way for businesses to prepare for the future. The process ensures that when a key employee decides to leave, the company has someone else in the pipeline to fill their position.
Fielder’s contingency model argues no style of leadership is superior to the rest evaluated against three measures of situational control, including leader-member relations, task structure, and leader power level. In Fiedler’s contingency model, task-oriented leaders perform best in highly favorable and unfavorable circumstances. Relationship-oriented leaders perform best in situations that are moderately favorable but can improve their position by using superior interpersonal skills.
In the context of an organization, cultural models are frameworks that define, shape, and influence corporate culture. Cultural models also provide some structure to a corporate culture that tends to be fluid and vulnerable to change. Once upon a time, most businesses utilized a hierarchical culture where various levels of management oversaw subordinates below them. Today, however, there exists a greater diversity in models as leaders realize the top-down approach is outdated in many industries and that success can be found elsewhere.
Action-centered leadership defines leadership in the context of three interlocking areas of responsibility and concern. This framework is used by leaders in the management of teams, groups, and organizations.
Developed in the 1960s and first published in 1973, action-centered leadership was revolutionary for its time because it believed leaders could learn the skills they needed to manage others effectively.
Adair believed that effective leadership was exemplified by three overlapping circles (responsibilities): achieve the task, build and maintain the team, and develop the individual.
High-performance coaches work with individuals in personal and professional contexts to enable them to reach their full potential. While these sorts of coaches are commonly associated with sports, it should be noted that the act of coaching is a specific type of behavior that is also useful in business and leadership.
When most people are asked to define power, they think about the power a leader possesses as a function of their responsibility for subordinates. Others may think that power comes from the title or position this individual holds.
Tipping Point Leadership is a low-cost means of achieving a strategic shift in an organization by focusing on extremes. Here, the extremes may refer to small groups of people, acts, and activities that exert a disproportionate influence over business performance.
The Vroom-Yetton decision model is a decision-making process based on situational leadership. According to this model, there are five decision-making styles guides group-based decision-making according to the situation at hand and the level of involvement of subordinates: Autocratic Type 1 (AI), Autocratic Type 2 (AII), Consultative Type 1 (CI), Consultative Type 2 (CII), Group-based Type 2 (GII).
Likert’s management systems were developed by American social psychologist Rensis Likert. Likert’s management systems are a series of leadership theories based on the study of various organizational dynamics and characteristics. Likert proposed four systems of management, which can also be thought of as leadership styles: Exploitative authoritative, Benevolent authoritative, Consultative, Participative.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
