LEADERSHIP THEORY AND PRACTICE EIGHTH EDITION 1

Adaptive Leadership

Chapter 11
Leadership: Theory and Practice
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Description
 Adaptive Leadership:
 Focuses on the adaptations workers need to make in
response to changing environments.
 Stresses the activities of the leader that optimize
the work of followers in the contexts in which they
find themselves.
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Definition
 “The practice of mobilizing people to tackle
tough challenges and thrive.”
 Adaptive leaders help others do the work by:
 Mobilizing them
 Motivating them
 Organizing them
 Orienting them
 Focusing their attention of what’s important
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When is Adaptive Leadership Relevant?

What type of situational challenges are workers
facing?
1. Technical problems: Problems that are clearly defined with
known solutions that can be implemented through existing
organizational procedures

Example: Some new software at an accounting firm isn’t working. If the

accountant has authority to address the problem (e.g., contact the software
company and have program modified to meet the company’s needs), this is a
technical problem.
=> No need for adaptive leadership
LEADERSHIP THEORY AND PRACTICE EIGHTH EDITION
When is Adaptive Leadership Relevant?
What type of situational challenges are workers
facing?
2. Adaptive Challenges: Problems that are not clearly defined or
easy to identify, and which do not have a clear solution.
They require innovation and learning.

Example: A hospital wants to begin hospice care for terminally ill patients.
The patients and their families will face immense uncertainty about how and
when the patients will die. The staff, patients, and families will face many
questions about the dying process, what the loss means, how to prepare for it
and cope with it.
=> The challenges facing the organization are not clearly defined, nor are the
solutions. These challenges require adaptive leadership.
=> Adaptive challenges are value-laden and stir up people’s emotions.
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Six Adaptive Leader Behaviors

(No specific order to them)

1. Get on the Balcony

Understand the big picture and all that involved in the situation, not taking
the problems personally.

2. Identify Adaptive Challenges

Distinguish between technical and adaptive challenges.
4 Types of Adaptive Challenges
a. A gap between espoused values and behavior
b. Competing commitments/goals (quality vs. cost)
c. Elephants in the room (Problems people don’t want to address)
d. People avoiding work
LEADERSHIP THEORY AND PRACTICE EIGHTH EDITION
Six Adaptive Leader Behaviors
(No specific order to them)

3. Regulate Distress
Help others recognize the need for change but not be overwhelmed by it.
The leader must. . .
a. Create a holding environment (safe atmosphere to discuss everything)
b. Provide direction, protection, orientation, conflict management,
productive norms
c. Regulate his or her own personal distress and the distress of workers,
keeping it in the productive range.

4. Maintain Disciplined Attention

Encouraging people to focus on the tough work they need to do.
LEADERSHIP THEORY AND PRACTICE EIGHTH EDITION
Six Adaptive Leader Behaviors
(No specific order to them)

5. Give the Work Back to the People

Avoid micro-managing.

6. Protect Leadership Voices from Below

Consider the ideas of people who may blame you, be at the fringe,
marginalized, or even deviant in the group or organization.
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Adaptive Work
 What adaptive leaders want to see happen.
 A holding environment is essential.
 Adaptive work grows out of the communication between
leaders and followers but is primarily the work done by
followers.
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Strengths
 In contrast to some leadership theories, Adaptive Leadership
takes a process approach; leadership is a complex transaction
between leaders and followers.
 Adaptive Leadership is follower centered. Adaptive leaders
mobilize people to engage in adaptive work.
 Helps followers deal with conflicting values that emerge in
changing work environments.
 Prescribes useful leadership behaviors.
 Introduces the concept of a “holding environment” as an
important part of the leadership process.
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Criticisms
 Very little empirical research has been conducted to test
the claims of the theory.
 Complex processes are difficult to define, test and
measure.
 Somewhat abstract and general, makes simple practical
recommendations difficult to implement.
LEADERSHIP THEORY AND PRACTICE EIGHTH EDITION
Biblical Reflection

 Adaptive leadership is similar to church

leadership as described in the Bible.
 God has given leaders to the church “to prepare
God’s people for works of service, so that the
body of Christ might be built up.”
 Ephesians 4:12