Byron's Babbles

Given the high rate of leadership turnover in many fields nationwide, finding ways to provide leaders with the experience they need quickly is paramount. This is very true in my own area of educational leadership. What makes leadership so challenging is that it is rife with painful trade-offs that make decisions difficult under the best of circumstances. What’s more, leaders are faced with a group of stakeholders—vendors, customers, students, teachers, parents, communities, local, state, and federal government—whose competing demands can make it impossible to satisfy the needs of one group without dramatically upsetting another. By developing adaptive leadership skills we can get help our leaders improve decision making at times of crisis, benefiting, in my particular context, both the school culture and ultimately, student outcomes.

Because of the many stakeholders involved in leadership, leadership is dangerous because we are rarely authorized to lead. We all operate within a limited scope of authority. Opportunities for exercising leadership do not depend on position. Since I believe everyone is a leader, leadership can come from any place within or even outside the organization. With adaptive leadership we need to help those we serve understand that leadership often involves challenging people to live up to their words, to close the gap between their espoused values and their actual behavior. Leadership often entails finding ways to enable people to face up to frustrating realities.

It is important to recognize the difference between technical challenges and adaptive challenges. Technical challenges may be complex but an expert can usually solve – like fixing a car that won’t run or a website glitch. Conversely, adaptive challenges do not lie in technical answers, but in the leader. The technician can fix the car, but he can’t make the owner do the regular service to keep it running. This would be an adaptive leadership challenge. Most social issues are adaptive. They are not resolved with a logical argument. This is what makes my field of education so challenging. This also why there is such a great need to school our leaders.

Successful leaders in any field tend to emphasize personal relationships. These relationships are a tenant of adaptive leadership. Again, with adaptive leadership we are asking people to close the distance between their espoused values and their actual behavior. This kind of leadership can come from anywhere in the organization and can fashion new and better responses to local realities. Are you schooling your leaders?