{"id":53,"date":"2014-08-11T03:00:56","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T03:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/?p=53"},"modified":"2014-10-19T03:24:08","modified_gmt":"2014-10-19T03:24:08","slug":"adaptive-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/?p=53","title":{"rendered":"Adaptive Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been said managers maintain order and leaders change it; the best measure of a leader is the breadth and depth of effective change. \u00a0In\u00a0<em>The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and Your World (<\/em>HBP 2009) Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, and Mary Linsky\u00a0suggest that most leaders aren\u2019t adaptive leaders. They exercise authority, power and\/or influence, but not adaptive leadership.<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to technical issues, most leaders demonstrate advanced technical skill. \u00a0However, when it comes to adaptive challenges, most leaders fall short, either because they fail to recognize adaptive challenges, they fear the costs of exercising adaptive leadership (e.g. losing their job), or they lack the right tools and tactics (so they fail <em>and<\/em> lose their job).<\/p>\n<p>A table from <em>The Practice of Adaptive Leadership<\/em> compares technical leadership to adaptive (Figure 2.3: \u00a0Leadership from a position of authority \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Figure_2_3.pdf\">Figure_2_3<\/a>\u00a0).<\/p>\n<p>Technical problems often involve managerial intervention and systems engineering. Adaptive challenges often involve people and culture. Technical problems are solved fast by a small group. \u00a0Adaptive challenges are dealt with over time and involve many people. Technical problems are well defined and contained. \u00a0Adaptive challenges are messy and require framing and reframing. \u00a0Technical problems are relatively easy. \u00a0Adaptive challenges are hard.<\/p>\n<p>For leaders in healthcare this is a time for adaptive leadership <em>and<\/em>\u00a0 technical leadership; too much disruption might threaten access to services and erode quality, but not enough disruption and an organization may fail. \u00a0Health care reform is necessary given high costs and less than desirable outcomes. Thus adaptive challenges will continue to surface.<\/p>\n<p>Because adaptive change involves people\u00a0and culture, and requires courage balanced with consideration, a certain collective leadership capacity across the system is needed to meet adaptive challenges. \u00a0The physician workforce as a whole is perceived to be resistant to change, overly protective of our self-interests, and lacking a full perspective on the issues. \u00a0If physician leaders communicate unilaterally, listen poorly, and learn slowly, they won&#8217;t be effective adaptive leaders. \u00a0Adaptive leaders can\u2019t be overly dogmatic know-it-alls. \u00a0Rather they must possess the skills to effectively participate in constructive conversations about the need to change, how to change and how to help people cope with the losses that come with change.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been said managers maintain order and leaders change it; the best measure of a leader is the breadth and depth of effective change. \u00a0In\u00a0The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and Your World (HBP 2009) Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, and Mary Linsky\u00a0suggest that most leaders aren\u2019t adaptive leaders. They [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions\/100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}