ADAPTIVE LEADERSHIP
Part of the follow ministry resources: Christian Leadership, Empowerment, Transformational Leadership
Introduction
Adaptive leadership is a kind of transformational and empowering leadership as expressed in the research of Ron Heifetz. Heifetz draws the distinction between “adaptive” work that requires deeply questioning existing frameworks vs. “technical” challenges that can be addressed by current understandings and resources. He calls effective leaders to concentrate on the adaptive challenges.
Terms that owe their origin to Heifetz such as “adaptive work” and “adaptive leadership” are found increasingly in materials on church leadership. His theories are useful especially when considering our current era has so radically shifted away from churched-culture foundations that we cannot simply do the “technical” fixes of redoubling efforts in established models. Completely new paradigms are needed, and adaptive leadership helps us engage these challenges more effectively.
Standard Works
Heifetz’ insights are found in three books:
- Ron Heifetz, Leadership Without the Easy Answers – Stresses the importance of leadership competence to tolerate ambiguity, uncertainty, and complexity and embrace “adaptive” challenges that require deep change.
- Ron Heifetz and Martin Linsky, Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading – Addresses the reality that because adaptive leaders are willing to tackle tough conflict-ridden, belief-stretching issues, their leadership often causes pain for themselves and others.
- Ronald Heifetz, Martin Linsky, and Alexander Grashow, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization — A dense field manual or developmental guide for serious devotees of adaptive leadership.
Ministry Based Resources
Several church-related resources apply Heifetz’ adaptive leadership model to the specifics of congregational renewal.
- Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory – An excellent application of adaptive vs. technical leadership to the challenges of church leadership in the 21st century. Bolsinger builds on the theme of “canoeing the mountains,” hearkening back to the early expeditions of the northwestern American territories. The explorers envisioned only a river voyage but were surprised when the rivers ended and seemingly unconquerable mountain peaks stood before them. It forced them to learn entirely new ways of exploring, just as our era requires entirely new ways of leading.
- Richard Hamm, Recreating The Church: Leadership for the Postmodern Age (TCP Leadership Series) — Echoes Heifetz’ suggestion to “get up on the balcony” to see beyond the frantic noise of the committees, programs, activities, and drives of the dying churched-culture church. Here they can achieve a more realistic sense of the larger picture, and imagine possibilities that go beyond the management of the status quo.
- Anthony B. Robinson, Transforming Congregational Culture — Uses Heifetz’ model to call leaders to recognize the growing discontinuity of churches, as well as all social institutions, in the post-Christendom era, and then ask probing questions, let people feel the pinch of reality, dis-orient, draw out conflict, and challenge norms.
- Kevin Ford, Transforming Church: Bringing Out the Good to Great — An integration of adaptive leadership with the “Transformative Church Index” that measures five key indicators of church health.
- Peter L. Steinke, A Door Set Open: Grounding Change in Mission and Hope — An approach to church leadership that integrates emotional systems with John P. Kotter’s change theory and Ron Heifetz’ adaptive leadership.
This echoes the importance of one of the four key competencies of transformational leadership, that leaders stimulate their followers’ efforts to be innovative and creative by questioning assumptions, reframing problems, and approaching old situations in new ways. (Bass, Transformational Leadership)
A similar idea is found in the research on Empowering Leadership as articulated by Max De Pree, Warren Bennis, Burt Nanus, James Kouzes, Barry Posner, and others. De Pree calls this “defining reality” toward “organizational renewal.” Bennis and Nanus list among their main emphases such things as “creating social architecture,” “strong determination,” and “enrolling people in a vision.” Kouzes and Posner call it “challenging the process by confronting and changing the status quo.” It is closely associated with Jim Collins’ Level Five Leadership.
Related Areas
See Other Resources on Leadership:
See Resources on Over 100 Areas of Ministry Leadership: