Some problems can be solved by bringing in the right expert. Others keep coming back, however many experts you bring in. The second kind usually has a human problem underneath: a habit, a belief or a trade-off that the people involved haven't yet faced. Adaptive leadership is a way of leading through that second kind of problem.
This guide covers what adaptive leadership is, how to tell an adaptive challenge from a technical problem, the principles behind it and how to use them. It is part of our wider guide to change leadership.
What is adaptive leadership?
Adaptive leadership is a practice for mobilising people to tackle tough problems that have no known answer. It was developed by Ronald Heifetz at Harvard's Kennedy School (Heifetz 1994). Its central idea is that some challenges can only be resolved by the people who have them, because solving them requires those people to change their own priorities, beliefs or behaviour.
Adaptive leadership treats leadership as an activity, something anyone can do from any position, as well as a role held by people with authority. The leader's job is to help people face reality, work through the losses that change brings and learn their way to something new (Heifetz, Grashow and Linsky 2009).
What is the difference between a technical problem and an adaptive challenge?
A technical problem can be solved with existing know-how: an expert diagnoses it and applies a known fix. An adaptive challenge needs new learning, and the people with the problem have to do that learning themselves. Most real problems have both parts.
| Situation | The technical part | The adaptive part |
|---|---|---|
| Rolling out a new ERP system | Configuring the software, migrating data, training | People giving up workarounds and expertise built on the old system |
| Restructuring a division | Designing the new structure, moving reporting lines | Managers letting go of status and building new working relationships |
| Introducing AI tools | Selecting tools, setting up access and security | People rethinking their roles and trusting new ways of working |
| Improving safety | New equipment, revised procedures | Supervisors no longer tolerating shortcuts to hit production targets |
| Merging two teams | Combining systems, budgets and policies | Two cultures accepting a shared way of doing things |
The most common mistake is treating an adaptive challenge as a technical one. Leaders under pressure reach for the technical fix because it can be planned, scheduled and measured. When the real problem is adaptive, the fix gets delivered and nothing much changes (Heifetz and Laurie 1997).
How do you know you're facing an adaptive challenge?
Some signs that a problem is adaptive:
- The same problem keeps coming back after several technical fixes.
- People disagree on what the problem is, as well as on what to do about it.
- Solving it means someone has to give something up, such as status, a way of working or a long-held belief.
- The people with the problem have to be part of the solution. An expert can't solve it for them.
- People avoid the hard work. Heifetz calls this work avoidance: blaming others, scapegoating, reorganising again, or focusing on easier technical issues (Heifetz, Grashow and Linsky 2009).
If several of these apply, the next technical fix probably won't be the last.
What are the principles of adaptive leadership?
Heifetz and Laurie (1997) set out six principles for leading adaptive work:
- Get on the balcony. Step out of the action now and then to see the patterns you miss while you're in the middle of it. Notice who is talking, who is silent and what keeps getting avoided.
- Identify the adaptive challenge. Work out which parts of the problem are technical and which ask people to change. Name the adaptive part out loud.
- Regulate distress. People need enough pressure to change, but not so much that they shut down. Heifetz and his colleagues call this keeping people in the "productive zone of disequilibrium" (Heifetz, Grashow and Linsky 2009).
- Maintain disciplined attention. Keep people focused on the hard issues, and notice when the conversation drifts towards easier ones.
- Give the work back to the people. Resist the pull to solve everything yourself. The people who own the problem need to do the learning.
- Protect voices of leadership from below. The people raising uncomfortable questions are often seeing something important. Make it safe for them to speak.
Regulating distress is the principle we see leaders get wrong most often. Some protect their people from all discomfort, so nothing changes. Others push too hard, and people burn out or dig in. Our article on change fatigue covers what happens when the pressure runs too high for too long.
How do you practise adaptive leadership?
The core process is simple to describe and harder to do well: observe, interpret, then intervene (Heifetz, Grashow and Linsky 2009).
- Observe. Gather what you can see and hear, without jumping to conclusions. What are people doing, saying and avoiding?
- Interpret. Form a few possible explanations, including ones that make you uncomfortable. Treat them as hypotheses to test.
- Intervene. Act on your best interpretation, often through a small experiment, then observe what happens and adjust.
In our work with leadership teams, a few practical habits make the biggest difference:
- Look for the problem beneath the problem. Ask what would have to change in people's behaviour for the issue to go away.
- Surface competing priorities. Hard problems often persist because two things people care about are pulling against each other. Put both on the table.
- Work with healthy tension. Disagreement is often where the learning happens. Keep it productive and avoid smoothing it over too early.
- Run small experiments. Test a change in one team or one site before rolling it out, and learn from what happens.
- Pace the work. Sequence the change so people can absorb it, and expect some people to need longer than others.
Leadership of this kind carries personal risk. People resist those who ask them to face uncomfortable realities, and Heifetz and Linsky (2002) wrote a whole book on how leaders can stay effective when that happens.
How is adaptive leadership different from transformational leadership?
Transformational leadership, described by Burns (1978) and developed by Bass (1985), centres on leaders who inspire followers through vision, example and personal attention, lifting their motivation and performance. Adaptive leadership focuses on the problem and the people who own it. Its leaders spend less time supplying the answer and more time helping people face the problem and work it out themselves.
The two fit together. A compelling vision helps people see why a change matters. Adaptive leadership helps them do the hard work of changing.
If your organisation is facing a problem that keeps coming back, talk to us about our change management work. Our Leading Without a Playbook workshop gives leaders practical tools for exactly these problems, and our guide to resistance to change covers the losses that sit underneath most adaptive challenges.