Running head: LEADERSHIP ON THE LINE BOOK REVIEW 1

Leadership on the Line: Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky

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Introduction

For many years, we have worked together as a team. Some colleagues have come and

gone while we still endure the day-to-day activities of this company as we strive to make ends

meet. We need to adapt to change and work out our differences regardless of the aggression. We

should review these ups and downs in a deeper perspective as we come up with buffers to those

that infringe on out comfort and conducive work environment. We can use the concept of

“adaptive leadership” as depicted by the renowned authors, Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky, in

the book Leadership on the Line, in which they reveal the comprehensiveness of the notion of

adaptive leadership. In their understanding, it is domineering for our leaders to draw a line

between leadership and authority as well as between technical problems and adaptive challenges.

Several leaders flop in their efforts to uphold leadership tasks when they misguidedly

address adaptive tasks as if they were technical problems. When it comes to technical problems,

even though hypothetically multifaceted and unfavorably important, our leaders should have an

identified solution within the knowledge capacity of those in authority. In disparity, adaptive

challenges typically require a learning experience, which we already have. The displaced

aggression we have experienced from the government needs scrutiny and demands an adaptation

of behaviors, attitudes and principles, or of organizational roles, standards, and events. A person

in authority who has the answers, decision-making power, and the power to enforce necessary

steps usually solves technical problems. However, adaptive problems do not want a leader who

exercises authority. Instead, they involve a leader who is keen to frame and examine tough

questions, to challenge reality, drag out issues and to challenge existing procedures. The most

important thing our leaders can do is to transfer accountability for solving the problem to the

individuals who need to learn and who have to do the changing.

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We can take a related example from evolutionary ecology, which sees prosperous

adaptation as needed for preservation of DNA, removal of redundant DNA, and producing new

DNA that can work well under new settings. From this context, we can discover that following

basic conventions:

 Adaptive leadership encompasses change that qualifies the measurements to thrive.

 Adaptive change involvements work up the past instead of getting rid of it.

 Changes in an organization occurs through experimentation.

 Adaptive leadership depends on variety.

 New adaptations have the likelihood of considerably transferring, re-regulating, and

reorganizing old DNA.

 Adaptive change takes time.

The theory of adaptive leadership begins with the understanding that in the modern world, no

dysfunctional organizations exist for the reason that all organizations go through their daily tasks

at the level of adaptation they are eager to involve in. The above information will help our

organization to come up with various ways of combatting aggression by engaging our leaders to

work together with the various stakeholders in addressing such issues.

The main reason why we have to adapt to these changes regardless of how hard they hit us is to

endure the tough times as we anticipate unfolding of better outcomes. Evidently, organizations

reluctant to adapt may turn out to be non-viable and ultimately die. Some present organizations,

though seeming dysfunctional, in reality, may be best fitted out to accomplish their current

determination. Therefore, as the government makes drastic changes, we should realize that

organizational development processes do not merely embrace change at all but they assist in

maintaining those characteristics, which promise the endurance of our organization. This will
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produce uninterrupted small changes in order to adapt our organization to the shifting conditions

laid out by the federal government.

Life gives us the greatest leadership workshop for working out adaptive leadership. The

development of the best leadership style takes place when a leader in an organization discovers

the many prospects to implement adaptive leadership in the diverse parts of his or her life. This

book, however, has taught me that leadership is not purely a matter of best tactics and practices. I

feel that our leaders should be tasked to create our organizations view with themselves as the

most significant system in order for us and our organization to move forward. Like any other

organization, I have confidence in our leaders as they can form a complex unit with opposing

principles, interests, partialities, tendencies, ambitions, and fears to tackle the problem at hand. I

believe that an understanding of the personal system will benefit any leader to develop the

selections essential to leading an organization effectively through adaptive tasks.

There are a couple of things we have struggled with while trying to make changes to my personal

life but I have realized that one of the most imperative codes of adaptive tasks is “getting on the

balcony.” Leaders always feel that they must engage themselves in things that will not at one

have the capacity to establish their problems and apprehend their roots. We as leaders

consequently need the aptitude to step back and to see the changed developments as if we are

standing on a balcony with the intention of looking at the scenario in a wider and deeper

perspective. It is only during this time that we will learn about the magnitude of the damage the

government imposed on us and identify value conflicts and power struggles, recognize patterns

of work avoidance, and watch out for dysfunctional system procedures.

I believe that real leadership is risky, as it involves guiding individuals through

challenging transitions, thereby stimulating their daily habits, devotions, principles and ways of
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life. As executives of this successful company, I would like to urge you to look at leadership in a

different angle that does not donate to our own demise. We should ask ourselves, the reasons

why leaders do not attain success in their endeavors. We need to contemplate on this enquiry

deeply but the simplest answer is leaders fail to make out adaptive challenges. Leaders can in

positions of power, mostly confuse adaptive challenges with technical problems. I need to

reiterate that there is a big difference between the two since the issues we need to deal with at the

moment carries both technical problems, which are easy to identify, as well as adaptive

challenges, which are difficult to identify and easy to deny. Our staff can help us in solving this

since we should also look at it as an adaptive challenge. On the other hand, we should come up

with technical solutions, which are generally accepted to integrate our efforts to deal with the

issue at hand. In this sense, I have a strong feeling that the executive staff have a mandate to

practice shrewd leadership so that we are not understood as unsatisfactory and irritating, but even

so, in such a way that our staff can absorb. Consequently, the more heat you can take as

executive members of this organization, the more contented you will be in observing our

problems and keeping ourselves alive in business. You must repeatedly teach yourself how to be

cautious and keep yourself levelheaded when everything around you is at stake. This will make

our staff have the capacity to take in the shocks with confidence since silence is also a form of

action.

Conclusion

We can only achieve solutions to our harms when the individuals with the problem, and

that I mean all of us, experience the process as a team to turn out to be the people with the

solution. Internalization, possession and resolution to these issues is a vital remedy to our

organization. Our staff might echo their grievances every day, but it is only us as leaders, and
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especially you as the senior leaders, help resolve and achieve lasting progress. It is a mutual ploy

to distinguish the discussion over issues as a plan for taking you out of action. By

counterattacking efforts to personalize the issues, conceivably by struggling to describe yourself,

you can expand the odds of your endurance. You deny the staff members the chance to include

your input into the concern, and you support the accountability for the work where it should be.

It is worth noting, that I challenge many people as a leader of my staff in this organization but I

have realized that those you challenge will experiment your stability and judge your merit by

your reaction to their annoyance. If we have the endurance to hold firm long enough, continuing

to hold respect to their anguishes and defending their viewpoint without feeling you must protect

yourself, you may discover that in the succeeding calm, relationships in this organization become

stronger. It stresses that we stay true to the vision and mission of this company.

References
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Heifetz, R., & Linsky, M. (2002). Leadership on the line. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business

School Press.