Adaptive Leadership

The HBR book On Leadership is great, in that each chapter is creative and inspiring wisdom from some gurus of leadership. The chapter I've dug into here is on the work of leadership.

Ronald Heifetz and Donald Laurie describe the requirements to meet the challenges of changes in our work. These ideas grounded from a business perspective and readily translatable to healthcare. Increasing demands, reduced funding, increasing expectations, challenges with maintaining a workforce, growing populations, emerging (and usually expensive) treatments and tools to name a few we face. 

In the face of these factors adaptive work and leadership is necessary but we aren't necessarily set up to achieve that. The work of finding answers in a murky and unsure world requires a different approach to that of the all knowing and wise technical expert as the leader. 

They describe 6 principles of adaptive leadership 

Get on the balcony
The ability to both see the big picture with a twist. It's about being able to move back and forth with the action and then to the balcony to see the trends, connections and themes. 

Identify your adaptive challenge
Diagnose if you will. Know what is going on and where the changes need to occur. Look from many perspectives and viewpoints to get this information. Don't just rely on the loud voices or the usual people you speak to. 

Regulate distress
Pace the work, let staff debate the issues and then provide direction. Maintain enough pressure to keep the changes coming but allow the time and space to let off steam. The example of a pressure cooker worked really well in describing this principle. 

Maintain disciplined action
Really get into it. Don't avoid or step into denial when getting to the really chewy aspects of the change required. Deepen the debate to unlock what is below the surface. "No-one learns anything without being open to contrasting points of view"

Give the work back to the people 
"Everyone in the organisation has special access to information that comes from his or her particular vantage point". Leaders need to support rather than control, encourage risk taking and responsibility, then have their backs if mistakes are made. To help people recognise that they contain the solutions and that the leaders really do want to hear from them can be a massive shift to make for both the leaders and those who have the solutions. 

Protect voices of leadership from below 
Don't silence the creative deviants and those that expose things or make you feel uncomfortable. That perspective is exactly what you need . Ask more questions - what have we missed, what are they really talking about. Closing someone down who is brave and courageous enough to tell it from their expert lens means you'll never hear from them again - and you need their wisdom. 

Moving to an adaptive leadership approach is difficult for a couple of reason. It requires, you, me, the leader to break from the long standing habit of being in charge, that leadership is providing solutions. "Solutions to adaptive challenges do not reside with the leaders, but with the collective intelligence of employees at all levels, who need to use one another as resources, often across boundaries and learn their way to those solutions". 

Secondly is tough because it's tough for those going though it. Everyone has to take on new roles, responsibilities. It's not OK to just turn up, do your job and head home. New behaviours and approaches have to be taken on, the pressure of reality has to be felt and understood and the responsibility that everyone has a part to play has to be shared and owned.