Ronald Heifetz: The Challenges Of Adaptive Leadership

Shannon, you give a great and very complete example of an adaptive leadership experience. You definitely showed different adaptive leadership behaviors described by Northouse, such as "getting on the balcony" by seeing the big picture of everything that was happening to the patient, from her physical problems to her emotions, and how different aspects of her life would change after this. By getting on the balcony and figuring out the different concerns, you were also able to identify the patient's adaptive challenges, and you were there to tell the patient and her husband to discuss their concerns, and to talk about ways to cope and adapt to the situation. By discussion the different treatment options, you and your boss provided the patient

In adaptive leadership the leader challenges people to face tough problems and learn new ways of dealing with change (Heifetz (1994).

As Burns quotes E.P. Hollander, “Followers also have the potential for making significant contributions to successful leadership” (160). The leader and follower paradox demonstrates their intertwined and fluid relationship. Initiatives can come from followers in which the leader responds to. The resolution of this paradox proposed by Burn is in the "distinction between persons with unrealized wants, unexpressed attitudes, and underlying predispositions, on the one hand, and, on the other, persons with strong motivations to initiate an action relevant to those with such wants” (160). The key role in leadership is taking initiative. Leaders become “merely enhancers” of the

Derrick, stating the purpose of the assignment was a brilliant way to initiate your summary on Heiftz's book The Practice of Adaptive Leadership. The two things I truly appreciate about your summary was the sequential flow and organization of the paper and your clear understanding of the subject material. While reading your summary, I also like the fact that you incorporated a portion of the lecture material into your final draft. Great job!

A leader must be aware that their leadership decisions will affect those who they meet and lead daily. When an individual makes decisions that can ultimately affect me and/or the people around them one should attempt to ethically rationalize their decisions. It takes a group of individuals to share their notions with me so that I can assist in bringing those ideas to

The processes are diagnosis and action. Furthermore, these two process aim to an additional two dimensions: “toward the organizational or social system you are operating in and toward yourself”(6) . Under these two dimensions, a leader evaluates his/her mindset and reflects on his/her behaviors. At this point, a leader calibrates the two processes and the two dimensions to create synergy in taking action toward change. The process of implementing change commences with “data collection, leading to problem identification, then interpretation and ultimately to the development of an action plan” (8) . The essential skill for processing adaptive leadership is keen diagnosis. To have successful adaptive leadership demands persistence, patience, identify barriers, and have a passion to overcome resistance. The constant conflict of adaptive change moves the system from its norms to acceptance of

Out of all the leadership styles found in Northouses’ textbook I classify my interviewee as having an Adaptive leadership style. “ It (adaptive leadership) focuses primarily on how leaders help others do the work they need to do, in order to adapt to the challenges they face” (Northouse, 2015, p. 258). The O.R. Supervisor discussed many times about everyone helping each other out to accomplish their goals. Even in her free time she would go to other areas, such as pre-op, PACU or with techs, to help them with what ever they needed. She clearly deals with the mix technical and adaptive problems when new policies and procedures are put into action. As the book states, the leader may act as a resource for others and provide support, but the people need to do the work- they need

The leaders of the TeamPark initiative also demonstrated the practice of adaptive leadership during this process. Adaptive leadership is an approach that analyzes how leaders of an organization work with their followers in a changing environment. Specifically, it looks at how leaders mobilize their followers to overcome challenges in the workplace. The types of situational challenges that arise are categorized into technical challenges, technical and adaptive challenges, and purely adaptive challenges. The Sogeti leaders had to address all these issues during the launch of the TeamPark initiative.

Adaptive leadership provides new and different ideas, innovation, and improvements that will foster success for the organization. This type of leadership knowledge enables organizations to work comprehensively as it will facilitate the adoption of this process, which may be organized by individuals and teams at the front line. The balance of the regulatory system, will be able to perform well in different environments because of the flexibility in of its informal networking structures. Healthcare organizations must acknowledge the adaptive process or administrative leadership roles as they allow clinicians, engineers, information technology staff, and other support personnel in the facility to innovate and practice leadership opportunities for synergy, dialogue, and improvement. According to the class presentation, the right adaptive leadership would provide improvements and innovations that leaders must compose from their heart, not from their head. This is because organizations face many challenges and to truly figure out the solutions, healthcare providers and leaders need to devices organizational plans and communicate accordingly.

The idea of leadership has transformed throughout the years to encompass varying aspects of leadership approaches, leadership types and the like. According to Summerfield (2014), C. F. Rauch and O. Behling, quote leadership as: Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an organized group toward goal achievement. Given its broad definition, leadership is understood to have different meanings when applied to diverse situations. For example, there are different types of approaches to leadership, including adaptive and transformative leadership. Adaptive leadership refers to the manner in which leaders are able to encourage and prepare people to deal with change. On the other hand, transformational leadership incorporates

Some researchers address leaders based on leading individuals, some according to leading a team, while others focus only on specific leadership theories practiced in an organizational environment (Yukl, 2012). Leadership processes and practices have an impact (positively or negatively) on the work habits and performance of individuals, teams, and an organization as a whole. According to Mætrîx (n.d.a), an individual’s ability to effectively lead can be grouped into three major categories; technical qualifications, cognitive abilities, and emotional intelligence (EI). Regardless of how well-developed an individual’s leadership skills appear to be, there is always room for improvement. One approach that a leader can take

This theory can help managers find a stable balance between different styles of leadership, and to decide how to behave as a leader, depending on concerns for productivity and people.

1. Leadership and Development: Leadership Synthesis-Successful leaders, I learned, need to adjust their leadership style to their working climate. Leaders need to carry a combination of leadership styles such as authoritative, affiliative, collaborative, and coaching style to drive performance. When these leadership styles are used at the right time, right place and right combination, they can help leaders yield optimal results in problem solving. This assignment helped me to understand, that there is no specific leadership style that is better than the other. Depending on the work situation and the climate, optimal results can be obtained if leaders can identify the right leadership style to the right person, at the right time, and for the right situation. Failure to draw the right match can have some drawbacks. However, if leaders can learn from their mistakes and work to improve which leadership style to draw, the skill will slowly become natural (Appendix A).

Trait approach (Lang 1999) leadership theory can function better for D by making a few adjustments.

In contrast, the Hersey and Blanchard’s situational theory on leadership relied on leaders were capable of being flexible with their range of skills to adapt their behavior to the maturity of their followers. It is comprised of three components: the amount of task-related behaviors a leader displays, the amount of relationship-related behaviors a leader displays, and the level of maturity of the followers to perform a specific task. The first and second components are similar to that of the leader-member relations and task structure from the Fiedler contingency model. Whereas, the maturity of the employees given the specific tasks can vary depending on the individual follower. Someone with a high maturity indicates self-confidence and the ability to perform the task, and low maturity indicates a lack of ability and self-confidence. Therefore, leaders should assess each of their employees for their varying levels of self-confidence and ability to perform the task. Then they can tailor their response to the individual employee depending on the four levels of maturity that they display: guide, direct, delegate and support.