It’s been exciting to see some colleagues attend the recent Harvard Kennedy School adaptive leadership program(1) and share their experiences of what is a unique and challenging professional development experience. This time ten years ago, I had just returned from Boston with my own experiences from doing the work of provocative leadership learning. Eight days in the Harvard horseshoe classroom with an eighty-strong cohort of leadership development practitioners from all around the world, co-creating our own learning out of the emergent mess. Looking back, it was quite a transformative experience and I have done my best since to keep the spirit of that learning alive and evolving; in myself and in my work. This is the first of a series of adaptive leadership pieces- four foundations and four future directions. I’ve set out the headings below to indicate what I think about regarding adaptive leadership in my own practice and teaching. This piece will begin to expand on the first two foundations with the rest to follow in future writings, allowing for some emergence and adaptation along the way:
Foundations:
- Tools and tactics
- Practice and pedagogy
- Individual development
- Collective development
Future Directions:
- Adaptive cultures
- Individual development
- Social practices
- Scientific foundations
Expanding on first two foundations:
1. Tools and Tactics:
Heifitz, Linsky and colleagues have built a framework – a set of ideas – on leadership, that resonate with people and that leaders (no title required) frequently find practical and useful. Not always easy to grasp or deliver, but helpful in making sense of and progress on tough challenges over time. These tools and approaches have become well known in leadership and leadership development circles and taught in business schools and consultancies around the world:
- Technical vs adaptive challenges
- Balcony and dance floor
- Productive zone of disequilibrium
- Leadership vs authority
- Thinking and acting politically
- Observation, interpretation, intervention
These (and other tools) are well captured in Heifitz, Grashow & Linsky’s book, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Tools and tactics for changing your organization and the world(2), which I regularly reference and recommend when teaching or working with clients with these ideas. My copy once came with me as I hiked the Kokoda trek on a fathers and sons trip (perhaps a story for another time). I try where possible, to stay true to these ideas and the language used, both out of respect to the original work and so that some consistency and precision might be achieved – despite the language at times being a bit of an obstacle
for some. Knowledge of these tools, like all leadership learning, is rarely enough for people to really get going with the application of adaptive leadership. Necessary but not sufficient. The theory into practice gap always requires some further work.
2. Practice and Pedagogy:
Adaptive leadership makes unique and innovative contributions in two key areas – the practice, and teaching of leadership. Heifitz is clear that his focus has been on building a framework for the analysis and practice of leadership based on his experience working with, listening to and observing leaders over many years. This idea of leadership as a practice has a specific meaning in sociology(3) where adaptive leadership most likely belongs. It takes us away from the idea of leadership as a set of traits or behaviours embodied in the leader and instead towards leadership as a collective, contextual, emergent process with leadership embedded in the day-to-day processes and practices, or ways of working / doing in the organisation / community. Leadership practice then becomes part science, part art and part craft. It is a radical idea for some initially and yet one that is gaining momentum within both leadership research and practice, beyond adaptive leadership specifically.
The aspect of this work that I get most excited about as an educator is the pedagogy (teaching methods and practices) that facilitate the provocative learning of these disruptive ideas. The facilitator is co-creator in a collective, contextual, emergent learning process; experimenting with their own leadership learning / teaching practice in the moment. Part science, part art, part craft. Helping create awareness of the group dynamics and intervening to stimulate often provocative learning in service of individual and group development. Some might call it a radical pedagogy. The central method here is case-in-point teaching(4). That’s all I will outline on these two initial principles, Foundations three and four to follow soon…
References:
- Art and Practice of Leadership Development, Harvard Kennedy School, Executive education program https://www.hks.harvard.edu/educational-programs/executive-education/art-and-practice-leadership-development
- Heifetz, R. A., Grashow, A., & Linsky, M. (2009). The practice of adaptive leadership: Tools and tactics for changing your organization and the world. Harvard business press.
- Raelin, J. A. (2016). Leadership-as-practice. Taylor & Francis.
- Green, C. (2017) Case-In-Point, A taxing and transforming leadership education art form https://kansasleadershipcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/CIP_Final_SglPage.pdf.pdf