Adaptive Leadership: Essential Wisdom for Active Practice

This lesson explores the powerful impact of adaptive leadership in support of an organization’s implementation goals. A practice example of adaptive challenges faced during the BBI-Six Core pilot project and related resources for additional learning are provided.

Supporting the use of new programs, practices, and policies often bumps up against “the way we always do things.” We use a lot of technical strategies when managing people, projects, and services. But when the same conversations keep happening with little action and ongoing frustration, there is likely more going on than regular meetings can solve. We cannot manage our way through adaptive, complex challenges that impact people in different ways, have competing perspectives, and have no clear solutions. Adaptive leadership creates safe space to give the work back to the people where the problems are happening, encourages innovation, and nurtures shared ownership for moving forward.