Video Transcript: Week 10

hello class. Welcome to Module 10. So that leaves us with 10, 11, and 12. So for those of you keeping score, you are, let's see 1/3 left. You are over 75% done with the class. So you are doing well, I think my math on that for a 12 you might be at 75% I think my math on that is pretty good, but I think you are over 75% so at this point, I'm not teaching you math courses for a reason, if you can't tell. But at this point, we are now moving into really, really, really new territory, and we're moving into adaptive leadership, which is, I'll be honest with you, adaptive leadership is complex, and I'm actually doing a major study on complexity right now, complex adaptive leadership, and I can tell you that this is a theory that's kind of all over the place, and I mentioned earlier lecture, UhlBien. Mary Uhl-Bien. She is kind of leading the way in this she is my academic hero. I she would be on my Mount Rushmore of leadership theorists. I don't know if she would make others, but she certainly makes mine. But this one is going to be complex, so let's buckle in and we'll try to make it as simple as possible, and I'll try to share some of what I've been learning as I've been studying this. But let's do what we always do, and open in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father. Thank you so much for this class. Thank you for helping us get to this point. Lord. You know, this is quite the accomplishment, quite the milestone, to be in module 10 with only a couple lectures left to go. So Lord, this is an incredibly difficult topic. Adaptive leadership is there's no consensus on it, and Lord, just give me the ability to speak clearly and be able to present this in a way that this class can understand and then apply it for the betterment of your kingdom in Jesus name, Amen. So adaptive leadership that you'll sometimes hear it called complex adaptive leadership. You'll sometimes hear it called adaptability, which is Heifetz, is the main researcher there. You'll hear it called a few things, but it's all about complexity and complex organizational processes. It's closely linked to crisis leadership. That's about the closest thing. So if you've, if you've thought about some leading through crisis, or if there's a major crisis, and kind of the leaders, leaders, attributes that are necessary for that, that's about the closest thing that you're going to get to it. But it's, it's quite a it's quite a difficult undertaking, because I will be honest that the researchers that have studied complex adaptive leadership, or complexity or adaptive leadership, have made it as as horribly complex as possible. It's like they they try to out complex each other in writing it, but it does break down into some very basic principles, some of them you've heard before, like dyads. You'll remember that from an earlier lecture, which is the follower and leader interactions. This is an interesting theory, because it's not really a leadership theory, in a sense. It's not about the leader and the follower. Certainly it discusses those, but it's more about organizational values. So there's different units of measurement. So you can look at the follower in this, the leader in this, the organization in this, you can look at the community in this at different levels that kind of make up this theory. So you know, to be honest with you, I think I could sit here and explain it for about 10 hours, and we would still not really scratch the surface of it. So I'm not saying that to intimidate you. What I guess, what I'm saying is we're going to try and break it down into some basic concepts, just to familiarize yourself with it. And then more. So what I want you to do is I want you to think about this theory in in your life, and then some of the complex situations that have occurred. So a good example of this would be covid 19. I think that provides a great kind of launching point for understanding some of the complexity of this and also managing through a crisis of which this is kind of part of so and then, oh just Well, no, all right, we'll come to that later. So adaptations, that's one of the definitions of adaptive leadership, and that those are changes that require people to deal with changing environments. If you remember, there's going to be internal factors that change environments, and there's going to be external factors, right? So covid 19 is. An example of an external factor that changed an environment and in organizations and in people within those organizations, including leaders, had to shift immediately. So one of the things that happened in the United States when that happened was people who made alcohol switched to making hand sanitizer. So that was an adaptation that was forced on the organization. And specifically on the leaders to adapt to to the changing environment and then ways for them to survive during the covid 19 pandemic. So this is a little bit different, because a lot of the writings have been spacing the anecdotal or observational data rather than rigorous scientific inquiry, and the reason why is because it's so complex that nobody has been able to come up with an assessment to be able to assess it. In fact, we originally were trying to come up with an assessment, and frankly, we couldn't do it, not yet, not yet. So we are working on getting there eventually, and by the time I update this class, maybe I can sit here and say, Hey, I was part of a research team that developed an assessment for complex adaptive leadership and talks about the complexity. But we're not there yet. Right now, you're just going to have to suffer through some musings about it, without a lot of theoretical support, more anecdotal support. So that is called prescriptive. And just remember that's going to be prescriptive over descriptive. So rather, this theory is unique in a sense that rather than seeing a leader as a savior who solves problems for people, the leader is one who plays a role in assisting people kind of confront tough problems. So that's a little bit different from some of the other leadership theories. So the leader isn't the All Knowing one. In this instance, the leader is part of a team that tries to solve complex problems. Like, hey, our business is going under. We have to fire a bunch of people. Nobody's buying alcohol right now. Is there something else we can do to make our business successful? Hey, let's make hand sanitizer. Everybody needs it, and it doesn't require a big change to our formula, by the way. Incidentally, one of my pet peeves is using a bottle from a distillery and a hand sanitizer and then having that smell of like vodka or rum or whatever alcohol on my hands all day. I really don't like that a lot. But anyway, no, I digress. So what a leader does in these situations is he challenges others to face the difficult situation, and then he really, or she, she really, would give them the space or the opportunity to conceptualize ways to deal with those problems and then to enact those behaviors. So what is the definition of adaptive leadership? It's the practice of mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges and thrive. There's that word thrive. Again. You remember that from authentic and then adaptive leaders engage in activities that mobilize, motivate, organize, orient and focus the attention of others. So they also that also may result in the exploration of changing values. So as part of this, the leaders will encourage people to make a change, and make that change that's central to their lives, and then also as part of an organizational change. So what is the catalyst for that change? Well, we can go to Lewin's organizational theory on Freeze, refreeze, but we're going to stay away from that, and we'll just talk about the catalyst that change can be anything, right? So it could be something like the covid 19 impact. It could be something internal, like you have a life, life crisis. It could be you got a promotion or a demotion. It could be any number of things that are a catalyst for change, which cause you to have to adapt to that change. So there's different perspectives with that. And adaptive leadership kind of makes some assumptions from some different perspectives, and one of those is the systems perspective, and what that says what many of the problems that people face are complex, multifaceted and dynamically embedded in complex, interactive systems. And to put that in plain terms, what that means is we live in a complex world that's hyper turbulent, that has a lot going on, and there's a lot of things that are forces that are interacting with us on a daily basis. So let me give you an example. Right now, I am sitting in CLI headquarters, CLC headquarters, and it is 11:47pm and I'm recording a video. And some of the factors that I'm dealing with is I'm a little cold in here. Last time I recorded a few months ago. Was a little hot because you couldn't turn on air conditioning. So that's certainly a factor that that required a change. In this case, me putting on a long sleeve shirt. There are other factors, like, mentally, I have a lot going on, certainly with some personal priorities as well as work priorities. And I have my screen up over here. I'm wearing a watch. I have my phone here. I have an iPad over there. And anytime there's an alert, you know, certainly there's things that draw my attention away from what I'm supposed to be doing, which is focusing on you all and teaching you material. And there's stuff that's drawing me away. There's other forces at play that are drawing me away from my primary task and distracting me from that task. So that would be a systems perspective, in a sense that there's a lot of competing priorities and a lot of competing forces that are constantly on everybody. So that would be a good example of that. Well, it's an example. I don't know if it's good biological perspective. It recognizes that people develop and evolve, that they have to adapt to internal cues and the external environments. So, you know, this is an evolutionary bio, biological approach, primarily which we're not going to comment too much on this class, given that we are creationists, but, but a great example of this is the adaptability of humans. So as we look at the planet, and we look at melting polar ice caps, and we look at, you know, deforestization, we look at those kind of things. And again, this is not a political thing. This is just a reality that will result in rising sea levels. Well, the adaptability of people is you're not going to stay on the coast when your land is getting flooded. So we're going to find ways to adapt to that, whether that is to move inland, whether that is to build houses higher, whether that is to develop systems for being able to protect our family. Those are some of the the evolution that we have to go through. And that's, and again, that's not a that's kind of a systems perspective as well, but think of the biological is that that's just one example of evolutions that we have to make as a people. You know, an evolutionary biologist would say that that, and again, I don't prescribe to this as a Christian, but an evolutionary biologist would say that we've adapted to walking fully upright because we have found that that is the most efficient way to whatever right. So that would be a biological perspective. A service oriented perspective is use of expertise or authority to serve people by diagnosing problems and helping them find solutions. So you see this a lot in many different ways, specifically in the organizational context where people with a certain expertise a consultant, perhaps, will come into an organization, diagnose problem and then help people figure out how to move on in that program. Then there's the psychotherapy perspective, which states that you understand people's need for a supportive environment when they face difficult challenges, and you help them distinguish between fantasy and reality, resolve those internal conflicts and learn new attitudes and behaviors. When we talk about adaptive leadership, we also, I also threw out the terms complexity, complexity leadership theory, and that explains how the interplay of these forces within the 21st environment. Remember that knowledge, or information is a core component of this. So technology plays a major factor. Certainly being able to look up anything on Wikipedia, being able to use Google to look anything up is a com as a comment on that where the knowledge age, which is age we're currently in, is different from the previous age, the industrial era, where the production of goods and services mattered. In this age and complex leadership had to emerge because we are in a knowledge and information gathering phase. So that sounds confusing, it is. But basically what it's saying is that, again, with that adaptability, we had to find ways to to change and adapt, because we are more concerned about the information and then the power of information, as opposed to the creation of goods and services with that becomes learning, creativity and adaptation. Okay, so there are some situational challenges when we're talking about adaptive leadership, and there's. Technical challenges, which is about solving problems in the workplace or in the community or the self. These are clearly defined problems with known solutions, so they're solvable with experts. So an example would be, say, your process, you're you're taking 15 days to develop a plug, and really you need to do it in two days. Well, then an efficiency expert can come in, and that person, she can come in and solve that problem right away. And she knows what the problem is. She knows how to articulate it, she knows how to achieve it, and she is able to do it. And then you adapt that new process and you move on. There's also adaptive challenges. And these problems, by the way, the person who came up with this is named Snowden, in case you're in case you want to look him up later. There's also adaptive challenges which are involved and Heifetz. Snowden was part of this, and so was Heifetz. I'm sorry, don't want to give Ronald Heifetz from Harvard University. I want to make sure he gets his credit as well. There's adaptive challenges, so problems that are not clear cutters he did identify, and those can't be solved by the leaders, authority or expertise. So that requires everybody to come in and kind of define the challenge and then to implement solutions. And that might be met with the most resistance by followers, because they don't see the clear cut advantage to that. They don't know if it's going to work. So they don't know if it's going to if it's going to fix it. There's also some leadership behaviors that are very prevalent when it comes to adaptability. And there's this turn, yeah, now we're thrilled fully in Heifetx's his wheelhouse. There's this term of get on the balcony, which requires leaders to remove themselves from the fray and find perspective. So sometimes when you're in the thick of it, you don't have perspective, so you got to remove yourself and kind of get above it, and then you can see what the problem is, what the challenges are, how the followers are working together, what the internal and external forces are, and how all those come together. And then that helps you solve problems. Identification of the adaptive challenge is another very, very, very difficult thing to do, right? So that's how you analyze and diagnose the challenge, and then how you come up with a solution regulating distress is maintaining consistency. So remember, anytime you're going through a change process, whether that's a planned or an unplanned change process that comes with a lot of anxiety, people, as human beings, tend to like the status quo, and they don't like it when things are challenged. So you have to manage that. You have to maintain disciplined attention. You can't be distracted. You can't ignore you can't ignore problems. You can't blame them on others. You got to be able to support the tough topics. You got to be able to talk about them. You got to be able to work to a solution. Another thing is, you can't solve all these problems on your own, so you got to lean on the people in your organization and give the work back to them, and then you got to protect their voices from below, and you got to make sure that the voices from below, who are on the fringe or marginalized, that they have a they they are heard as well, because they might have a good idea. So even though they're marginalized and they're devalued, they might have a really good idea of how to save the organization. And then also, as part of this, you got to maintain productive stress levels. There has to be a safe space for people. You got to provide direction, protection, orientation, conflict management, and maintain some level of the norms of the organization. And then you got to acknowledge the tension without letting it overtake you and focus you. It's a lot, right? So let's, let's keep diving into it, because this part I actually want to spend a moment on before we get to the adaptive work situation. So there's ways to handle all this uncertainty and stress. You can provide direction, and that's something that you'll see a lot in crisis leadership literature as well, where it talks about providing that direction, providing that support, keeping that vision protection. You got to protect and rate the adaptive change for people, so you can't overwhelm people. So you got to understand and protect them, and remember, you're trying to protect them in the middle of a major change initiative with a bunch of forces coming at you. I mean, that's incredibly difficult to do orientation is to make sure that people understand their new responsibilities and roles, and that comes with change and being able to help them get on the path for success. And then obviously, conflict management is a big one, where you have to manage the conflict and make sure that those conflicts are combated effectively. And then finally, you got to establish your productive norms, which is how the in this new reality, what is it going to look like, and how are people going to work together? So that is another major component of this. So remember when we're talking about adaptive work, that's how adaptive leaders are directing their work, and they're focusing on the intended goals. So some days it might be on organizational outcomes, other days it might be on follower outcomes. But whatever it is, it's just this, this very complex ever moving, a challenge for adaptive leaders to be able to adapt to the situation in a productive way. Followers are they? They are often avoided, but in adaptive leadership, leaders need to use their authority not to control followers, but interact with people, help them see the importance of the adaptation, and also to listen to input into and to have them as part of the process. So what are some of the weaknesses of this theory? Well, the strengths are, it's very unique, and it's very directive, and it helps deal with conflict there. The major concern with this theory is something I've already discussed, and that is, there is not a lot of research on this, and the research that exists does not really unify the theory, and it's also very complex. But what's really cool is this actually is a way on a practical application. Is it's a way to provide a framework that we constantly need to change and pay attention to what's going on around us in this hyper, turbulent, complex world, and how looking at the different complexities of the world allow us to make some organizational moves that are going to protect us. So again, going back to the covid 19 pandemic, there's a lot of organizations that did some changes during the pandemic, and some offered streaming services that they're in the movie industry. Some, some found alternative work environments and arrangements you got to be able to adapt to that change. So this a very practical theory, especially in a post covid enough in a covid slash post covid or pandemic world, where you have to find ways to adapt in quick ways. And I think something else that you're seeing as a result of the covid 19 pandemic, at least in the United States, is what's called the Great resignation, where a lot of people are finding other jobs that that meet more out more me, outcomes that are more related to what how they like to work. So that's also something that leaders and organizations and followers and everybody else has to adapt to. Certainly, I'm seeing that in one of my organizations, and that's something that we have to adapt to. Okay, so remember that the adaptive leadership approach is prescriptive. Remember that leaders and followers mutually affect each other, making leadership a complex, interactive process that is a strength of the theory. And then remember that archetypes are the identification of basic patterns that can determine the difference between adaptive and technical challenges. So hopefully that helps you, and we will close in prayer. And then next module, we are going to move on to Leadership Ethics, which should be a fairly quick chapter. Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for our time together. Lord, I want to thank you for helping us learn about this very complex topic of adaptability. Certainly, there's so much more to say but but one of the important things is that this environment is always changing, and that you have given us the tools as human beings to be able to adapt to those challenges and understand those challenges and then work together for creative solutions. There's nothing like the creative faculties of man which you gave us and when you created us in your image. So Lord, thank you so much for that. Thank you for time together, and I pray you will bless us as we move on to Leadership Ethics in Jesus name we pray amen.