Exercising adaptive leadership in complex environments calls for a unique set of leadership skills that are different from the ones based on authority and expertise. In this introductory session, we will discuss the difference between technical problems and adaptive challenges and explore the nature of adaptive work.

Session 1-HO-Pattern of Change

Session 1-HW #1-Art of Questions

Adaptive leadership is about facilitating transformative change by creating the space for adaptive work. We will begin by exploring the pattern of transformative change in order to get some insights about its typical phases. A first critical step in adaptive work is to help a group shift from focusing on fixing technical problems to instead engage in adaptive (transformative) work. This can be done through a process of reframing, using powerful questions to disrupt old patterns of thinking.

Creating the conditions for creativity and emergence in adaptive work requires careful process design and making diverse interventions. This requires specific capacities, such as, a keen ability to observe, sense, and diagnose a system at any given time; to co-creatively uncover potential and find ways to unleash it; and to know how to appropriately respond to diverse, often disruptive, behaviors. In this session, we will learn how to create an intervention that will unleash the collective intelligence present in a system and generate a field of emergent possibilities.

Session 4-HO-Tetrad

The Power of Seeing Potential

Midway through the course, this session does not introduce new content. Instead, we will use a “fishbowl” format and work with diverse Fellows’ situations to go deeper into our understanding of how to design an intervention. A fishbowl is a learning format in which the faculty asks questions to a Fellow while everyone else outside the fishbowl listen in on the dialogue, while processing their own situation in their mind at the same time.

Session 5-HW #5-Right Left Hand Columns

Adaptive leaders require a high level of self-awareness and self-management in order to remain fully present and aware of the dynamic of the system in which they are embedded and of how they are also affecting the behaviors of other people with whom they interact. In this session, we will use diverse frameworks to help us gain awareness of our own mental state and develop self-management capabilities.

Session 6-HO-Self-Mngt frameworks

Human interactions in a complex project present a broad range of behavioral issues (e.g., work avoidance; resistances; defensive routines; fears and anxiety; feelings of losses; conflicts; etc.) that must be effectively addressed to ensure the team does the adaptive work that is required to bring the project to fruition. In this session, we will inquire into the mental models, assumptions, fears, and losses that might be at the origin of the challenging behaviors that we are often encountering in our work and will devise a set of strategies to transform ‘difficult conversations’ into authentic learning experiences that address these issues.

Session 7-HO-Assumptions

One of an adaptive leader’s main assets is to understand the whole political landscape surrounding a project (e.g., the expectations of various constituencies, competing interests, peer pressures, regulatory constraints, etc.) and use that knowledge to act strategically and with wisdom. In this final session, we will analyze the political influences of stakeholders other than the typical project participants and devise strategies to mitigate risks. We will also explore the pros and cons of leading with and without authority and learn how to expand our informal authority.

Session 8-HO-Political Landscape