Adaptive leadership is a style of leadership that emphasizes the importance of each and every person and role within the company. Adaptive leadership views the organization as an ever-changing, living organization, where employees can learn, adapt, and grow. Adaptive leaders mobilize people towards a common goal and also have the courage to experiment with new ideas and approaches. Adaptive leadership is the practice of mobilizing groups of people to tackle tough challenges and thrive. Learn how to adopt this style and how to become an adaptive leader!
The term is derived from evolutionary biology and it means ‘getting adapted to the changes for survival’. All types of organizations are facing the need to survive in ever-increasingly complex environments. Adaptive leadership from an organization's context refers to shaping and shifting the organization to a form that is meaningful and relevant to a changing environment. An adaptive leader should be able to discard unnecessary elements, keep essential ones, and must create a new set of organizational elements that can empower the organization to deal with the change.
The main aim of the Adaptive Leadership Style is to enable organizations to adapt to the external and internal pressures for change. It is the style with which this is achieved that makes the evolution of this approach relevant. Modern organizations are very complex and have their own leadership challenges. The competitive world in which they need to exist, survive and thrive in fast-changing due to globalization and rapid technological advances triggered by fast-developing economies all across the globe. To tackle modern leadership issues, we need an adaptive leadership style that draws on the experience and expertise of everyone in an organization to contribute to the survival of the organization. In a nutshell, it is the ability to take on the gradual but meaningful process of adaptation, and the leadership style to achieve this is known as Adaptive Leadership Style.
The principles of adaptive leadership encourage the engagement of followers to help the organization adapt to its environment. Given below are the principles of adaptive management:
1. Vision & Purpose of Organization: The first principle is a clear understanding of the underlying purpose of the organization. An adaptive leader must articulate a clear vision of the organization to the employees aligning the values of the organization with the personal values of your employees. This helps create a shared sense of purpose that motivates employees by giving them an ideal mission to strive for.
2. The utilization of people skills/mix/experience in assisting with adaptation based on commitment and trust between the leader and followers. Adaptive leaders must involve employees in the decision-making process and provide them flexibility over how they perform their work.
3. Adaptive leaders must be able to tolerate ambiguity and provide directions, support, opportunities, coaching, mentoring training, and feedback to one’s followers. This allows your employees to grow professionally and achieve a sense of mastery in their work. It may also bolster their self-esteem and give them a renewed sense of purpose.
4. Adaptive leader provides the team members with the freedom to act. Such a leader rewards employees' for their success and achievements. Rewarding employees gives them a sense of accomplishment and makes them feel part of an organization that cares about them.
“The Practice of Adaptive Leadership” by Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, and Marty Linsky (2009) is a great book for the learners who want to explore this approach further.
Adaptive leadership has a profound impact on the well-being and performance of the workforce. It is a style that helps to embed a Positive Workplace Culture into organizations.
Laissez-faire is a style of leadership that affords the group members a great deal of independence. Tasks are delegated to the group members and they are responsible to see the project through to fruition. Research has shown that this style of leadership leads to the lowest levels of productivity. This article explains this style and covers the implications of having a hands-off approach and the situations where this style could be effective.
“Level 5 Leadership”, this term was coined by Jim Collins in his book “Good to Great” and it is all about achieving "Greatness" as a leader. This article will explain what we mean by Level 5 Leadership and what the characteristics of a Level 5 leader are. What it takes to achieve greatness as a leader, and what are the steps and strategies that one can use to move up to this top level of leadership.
Frederick Winslow Taylor started the “Scientific Management Movement”, and attempted to study the work process scientifically. Scientific management, also called Taylorism, was a theory of management that analyzed and synthesized workflows. It is a system for increasing the efficiency of manpower to its maximum potential and streamlining production to improve efficiency. This article explores this theory in more detail.
Adaptive leadership is a style of leadership that emphasizes the importance of each and every person and role within the company. Adaptive leadership views the organization as an ever-changing, living organization, where employees can learn, adapt, and grow. Adaptive leaders mobilize people towards a common goal and also have the courage to experiment with new ideas and approaches. Adaptive leadership is the practice of mobilizing groups of people to tackle tough challenges and thrive. Learn how to adopt this style and how to become an adaptive leader!
Bureaucratic leadership relies on a clear chain of command and strict regulations. Bureaucratic leadership style is a very decent style for work involving serious safety risks, such as handling toxic substances, moving large objects. The focus is on compliance with rules and laid down procedures to make sure that the group is doing their job correctly and safely. Learn some advantages and disadvantages of this style and situations in which this style could prove to be effective.
Leadership has been defined in different ways by different sets of scholars. In very simple terms leadership can be defined as the skill of a person to influence an individual or a group for achievement of a goal in a given situation. One can use different dimensions and perspectives to define leadership. Through the evolution of leadership thought, leadership has been defined in various ways discussed here.
There are four major factors in leadership called Leader, Follower, Communication, and Situation. The success of the leader is dependent on how the leader is effectively able to communicate and motivate followers to perform desired tasks using the appropriate leadership style best suited for the given situation. Interdependencies and dynamics of these four factors of leadership must be considered by a leader to be effective.
Understanding of how individuals of different cultures interact with each other is very important. Not all individuals can adapt to the leadership styles expected in a different culture whether that culture is organizational or national. In a fast-paced business environment, developing a richer understanding and sensitivity to other cultures is a skill that leaders must possess. Learn to be effective in a cross-cultural setting.
Authoritarian Leadership Style
Although generally considered as a traditional, outdated, and non-preferred style of leadership, the autocratic style still can be used effectively in certain situations. It is a leadership style characterized by individual absolute control over a group. If you work for an autocratic leader, your job is usually to do what you're told. Learn more about this style and situations where this could be an effective style to use and when to avoid this type of approach. Analyze the characteristics of this style to evaluate if your followers consider you an authoritarian leader!
Charles Darwin had once commented that “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” Agility means the capability of rapidly and efficiently adapting to changes and recently, agility has been applied in the context of software development, agile enterprise, and agile leadership. Agile leaders play an important, even essential, role in scaling agility in an organization. Understand how being an agile leader helps in effectively catalyzing organizational change.
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