Chapter 11 – Adaptive Leadership
Questions for Study
1. Explain how the adaptive leadership approach differs from other leadership theories in our textbook.
The adaptive leadership focuses on the adaptations required of people in response to changing environments.
2. What are the respective roles of leader and follower in this approach?
The adaptive leadership stresses the activities of the leader in relation to the work of followers in the contexts in which they find themselves
3. What are the five activities expected of leaders in this approach? Be able to explain each of them.
The 1st activity is to get on the balcony or finding perspective in the middle of a challenging situation. The 2nd activity is to identify adaptive challenges and differentiating between technical and adaptive challenges. The 3rd activity is regulating distress and keeping beliefs, attitudes, and values the same. The 4th activity is maintaining disciplined attention, or needing to encourage people to focus on the tough work they need to do. The 5th activity is giving the work back to the people and providing some direction and structure to their work to feel secure in what they're doing.
4. What does a systems perspective contribute to our understanding of adaptive leadership?
It contributes problems with interconnected parts between the leaders and followers.
5. What are the key insights of Complexity Leadership Theory?
Focus on strategies that encourage learning, creativity, and adaptation
6. What are the three types of situational challenges leaders face?
Three types are technical, technical and adaptive, and adaptive
7. Explain the six leader behaviors prescribed in the model of Adaptive Leadership.
Get on the balcony, identify adaptive challenges, regulate distress, maintain disciplined attention, give the work back to people, and protect leadership voices from below.
8. What are the four patterns of adaptive change a leader needs to identify in the Adaptive Leadership approach?
Four patterns are activities that mobilize, motivate, organize, orient, and focus the attention of others.
9. What are the three ways leaders can regulate distress in an organization, according to this approach?
Creating a holding environment, provide direction, protection, orientation, conflict management, productive norms, regulate personal distress.
10. Be able to explain and give examples of these five behaviors: providing direction, protection, orientation, conflict management, and productive norms.
Providing direction involves helping identify the adaptive challenges that others face and then framing these so they can be addressed. Protection refers to a leader's responsibility to manage the rate of adaptive change. Orientation is the responsibility a leader has to orient people to new roles and responsibilities that may accompany adaptive change. Conflict management refers to the leader's responsibility to handle conflict effectively. Productive norms is a responsibility of the adaptive leader.
11. What are avoidance behaviors and why should leaders be concerned about them?
12. What are the strengths of the Adaptive Leadership approach?
Adaptive leadership takes a unique approach that emphasizes that leadership is a complex interactive process composed of multiple dimensions and activities. Unlike most other leadership theories, this clearly describes leadership as actions the leaders undertake to afford followers the best opportunity to do adaptive work. It is unique in describing how leaders can help people confront and adjust their values in order to adapt and thrive. It provides a useful and practical set of prescriptions for what leaders and followers should do to facilitate change. Adaptive leadership highlights the important role a holding environment plays in the leadership process.
13. What are the criticisms of the Adaptive Leadership approach?
Little research, models aren't clarified, too wide a range/too abstract, not clear how it integrates moral dimension, unclear how it leads to useful outcomes.