a·dapt/əˈdapt/Learn to pronounce verb
- make (something) suitable for a new use or purpose; modify.
- become adjusted to new conditions
The Adaptive Leadership Framework
Ronald Heifetz founded the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and he co-developed the adaptive leadership framework. His research focuses on building the adaptive capacity of organizations and societies as change happens.[1] Organizations have a choice: to either adapt or die.
According to Heifetz, two types of or problems exist: adaptive challenges and technical challenges. Technical challenges may be complex and controversial, but an organization has the resources available to make a good decision, even if some disagree with the outcome. For example, changing a church’s governance model may be multifaceted, complex, and controversial, but there are resources readily available that can help the leader guide the process, like the governance models of other churches, denominational resources, or leadership and governance books.
With adaptive challenges, leaders do not have tools or know-how readily available to solve a problem. Adaptive problems are grounded “in the complexity of values, belief, and loyalties.” They and stir up intense emotions and “have human complexity because the problems themselves cannot be abstracted from the people who are part of the problem scenario itself.” [1] Instead, adaptive challenges require people, and the system, to change.
Because adaptive challenges are also laden with emotion, leaders cannot merely use their authority to solve the problem. When they do so, they are unintentionally creating distance from their constituents and are viewed as uncaring or out of touch. According to Heifetz et al.,
Authorities cannot solve adaptive challenges by issuing a directive or bringing together a group of experts, because solutions to adaptive problems lie in the new attitudes, competencies, and coordination of the people with the problem itself. Because the problem lies in people, the solution lies in them, too.[2]
With adaptive problems, the responsibility of the leader is not to decide for the organization (something they can and should do with a technical challenge). With these emotional, value-laden, relationally-driven challenges, the work of the leader becomes mobilizing the community to do the hard work of problem-solving themselves.
The adaptive process, as proposed by Heifetz et al., provides an effective way forward on adaptive challenges. This framework acknowledges the problem in all its complexities. It honors the past while seeking to live faithfully into the future. It creates a safe space for people to do the transformational work that is required. It guides the people through the challenge together. It trusts that a solution will be discovered.
Adaptive leadership guides organizations during changing times. It provides tools for leaders to mobilize their people. It values the complexity of the people gathered, and it offers ways the leader can stay healthy in the mess of it. The goal of adaptive leadership is not merely organizational survival. It seeks to see the whole system, and those within it, thrive.
[1] Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, Marty Linsky. The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World (Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2009), 69.
[2] Heifetz, et al., 73.
[1]“Faculty: Ronald Heifetz,” Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University accessed Oct. 19, 2018 https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/ronald-heifetz.
Always. Be. Reforming.
Adaptive Church 