#adaptive leadership

[glj2025]

Evolving Workforce and Leadership: Navigating the Past 40 Years and Beyond

By David Dantes The past 40 years have seen profound changes in the workforce and leadership practices, shaped by rapid technological advancements, globalization, and evolving corporate cultures. This article explores these transformations, analyzing how they have impacted leadership and what they portend for the future. Technological Advancements: Reshaping Work and LeadershipThe digital…

[saipushpalearner]

Seven Examples of Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace

In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, emotional intelligence (EI) is increasingly recognized as a critical factor in organizational success. Emotional intelligence is more than just a buzzword; it's a key component of effective leadership and teamwork. This article delves into seven powerful examples of emotional intelligence in the workplace, highlighting how it can transform an organization's culture and drive success.

1. Handling Negative Emotions with Empathy

Every workplace experiences moments when employees feel down, upset, or even angry. How these emotions are managed speaks volumes about the emotional intelligence of both the individuals involved and the organization as a whole. An emotionally intelligent workplace is one where negative emotions are acknowledged with empathy and understanding, rather than being dismissed or ignored.

For instance, if an employee is consistently experiencing a bad mood or showing signs of distress, it’s important to address these feelings with care. Offering support, understanding the underlying issues, and providing appropriate resources such as counseling can prevent these emotions from becoming a persistent problem. This approach not only fosters a supportive work environment but also enhances overall employee well-being and productivity.

2. Active Listening in Meetings

Meetings can often become battlegrounds where everyone competes to have their voice heard. However, in a workplace that values emotional intelligence, meetings are conducted with respect and attentiveness. Active listening is a hallmark of emotional intelligence, where team members listen to each other without interrupting, ensuring that all voices are heard.

In such an environment, discussions are more productive, and decisions are made more collaboratively. This respectful communication reflects a deep understanding of each participant's contributions and fosters a culture of mutual respect. Over time, this practice builds stronger team cohesion and leads to more innovative solutions.

3. Open Expression of Ideas and Emotions

A workplace that encourages the open expression of ideas and emotions is one that thrives on emotional intelligence. When employees feel confident to voice their opinions and express their feelings without fear of retribution, it creates a dynamic and inclusive work environment.

Emotionally intelligent employees do not take offense when their ideas are challenged. Instead, they see it as an opportunity for growth and collaboration. This level of openness leads to diverse perspectives, which in turn drives creativity and innovation. Moreover, when emotions are expressed freely, it reduces the risk of pent-up frustrations that can lead to conflicts or emotional outbursts.

4. Effective Management of Change

Change is a constant in any organization, but how it's managed can make or break a company's success. Emotional intelligence plays a crucial role in how change is perceived and implemented within a workplace. Leaders who are emotionally intelligent understand the impact of change on their employees and manage the transition with empathy.

In workplaces where change initiatives are well-received, it often indicates that leaders have taken the time to understand their employees' concerns and have communicated the benefits of the change effectively. This thoughtful approach ensures that employees feel supported during transitions, leading to smoother implementations and a more resilient organization.

5. Flexibility in Work Practices

Flexibility is a key indicator of emotional intelligence in the workplace. Emotionally intelligent leaders recognize that their employees have diverse needs and preferences and are willing to accommodate these differences to retain top talent.

For example, some employees may work better with flexible hours, while others may thrive in a structured environment. By allowing employees to work in ways that best suit their personal and professional lives, leaders demonstrate respect for their individuality. This flexibility not only boosts morale but also enhances overall job satisfaction and productivity.

6. Encouraging Creativity

Creativity is the lifeblood of innovation, and emotionally intelligent workplaces understand this. These workplaces provide the time, space, and freedom for employees to think creatively and explore new ideas.

Leaders who value emotional intelligence encourage creative thinking by fostering an environment where employees feel safe to take risks and experiment without the fear of failure. This not only leads to the generation of new ideas but also empowers employees to take ownership of their work, driving innovation and business growth.

7. Fostering Social Connections

Social connections in the workplace are often overlooked, but they are a significant aspect of emotional intelligence. When employees form close bonds with their colleagues, it creates a supportive network that can reduce stress and enhance job satisfaction.

Encouraging team-building activities, social gatherings, or even casual interactions during breaks can foster these connections. Leaders who understand the importance of these relationships will see the benefits reflected in improved collaboration, communication, and overall team dynamics.

Conclusion

Emotional intelligence is a vital component of a successful workplace, influencing everything from employee engagement to innovation. By embracing the seven examples outlined above, organizations can create a more emotionally intelligent work environment that not only supports employees' emotional well-being but also drives business success.

[thecoachingdirectory]

Need help from an expert to navigate uncertainty and complexity with purpose? Look no further than Steve Goudswaard of Navigating the Uncertain. He is an executive leader and coach who partners with leaders. He has worked in leadership and change roles for over 30 years, in more than 40 countries. He developed and implemented global leadership courses and has coached leaders for over 12 years. Reach out and connect with him today!

[lostconsultants]

Grasping Everyday Leadership: More Than Just Being in Charge

Leadership is a multifaceted domain with countless approaches, theories, and styles. In our previous posts about leadership, we’ve explored various dimensions of this intriguing subject. Today, we’re taking a deeper dive into an often under-appreciated aspect: the context in which leadership occurs. Welcome to the world of contextual leadership. Before we delve into the nitty-gritty, let’s start…

[leanleaderplus]

What Are The Advantages of Adaptive Leadership?

Adaptive leadership is a helpful way to solve business problems. It helps leaders determine what's important and what can be ignored in a business. It is a way of leading that helps organizations, teams, and individuals deal with difficult and fast-changing situations. It recognizes when an organization or system faces challenges that require more than routine solutions.

[akwyz]

Unlocking the Future of Inclusive Leadership: Empathy, Clarity, and Creativity in a Complex World

🔥 Navigating Leadership in a #VUCA World just got a blueprint! Discover the groundbreaking insights from Rama Gheerawo & Melanie Flory on fostering #InclusiveLeadership with a blend of empathy, clarity, & creativity. Don't miss this transformative read!

Leaders are grappling with new challenges that demand innovative approaches in a world characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). In an episode of Axschat, Neil Milliken and Antonio Santos sat down with Rama Gheerawo and Melanie Flory, two luminaries in inclusive design and neuroscience, to discuss the evolving leadership landscape. Here, we distil their insights…

[trenenlasnubes]

Adaptiv ledelse ~ Adaptive Leadership

Like any group of people in times of change, a congregation needs: time to adapt, appreciation for available talents, coming to terms with the past, overcoming the fear of being rejected by former generations, and identification of its core values – hence to be able to find its Mission and Vision, in order to be able to take off for the future.

Core values should not be mistaken as technical ways of doing things. It is not about how often Sunday school has to take place and when and who did it best, it is not about how often an afternoon for seniors should be provided and whether storytelling or crafting, or travel reports are the best way - as it used to be. It ‘s about: Spreading the Word and sharing the Meal!

Along with that a parish needs to (re-)discover what we need to stand for in this time and in this place.

Not just add 5000 after each preaching…., but rather: how to build community in this time and age and what specific offer can we make as a congregation in the here and now? What is our unique selling point (in German: “Alleinstellungsmerkmal”) as a local congregation? We do need to be fully aware of the fact that protestant/christian congregations are not the only ones to offer community.

First and last though, a congregation in the present needs adaptive leadership!

Define leadership, define adaptive!

Leadership should not just be a means to gain power! Often enough the perception of leadership is (still) shaped by Macchiavelli’s “Better to be feared, then to be loved, if you cannot have both.” (cfr. “The Prince”). Another still wavering view on leadership is about the one, who can tear a sword from a stone, like in King Arthur.

And variations of the theme (male and female) can be found in ancient storytelling (like in Irish myths) about the one being able to haul the sword out of the water or pull a specific gem or key from its cage or glass box.

And then there is the more modern definition: the CEO being at the top of an organization, by appointment, (hopefully) by skills and certainly by salary.

Leadership then is not about the best technical way of doing things and having people follow the demanded course of action. Often enough though, (in people’s mindset) this is the protective barrier laid out between the self and the leader. Like a banner rolled out, when the leader appears. A seemingly valid reason for denial of guidance by the assigned person.

Furthermore, Leadership is not necessarily synonymous with management. Even though management could be defined differently, in this case (for the purpose of comparing) management is used in the sense of planning, making policy decisions and giving instructions. The discourse between different theoretical approaches on Führung, Leadership and Management however remains highly inconsistent. This seems to be the case in German as well as in Anglo-American perspective. * Therefore, it will be necessary to define, what is meant with Leadership in general and Leadership more specific in the church in this time and age.

Leadership in teams used to be very modern. Under the heading: no one should be more important than others. Realistically speaking it also must be said that oftentimes a team still has or needs a leader – but then again not always. Working in teams basically means to use the expertise of the team-members. Choosing or assigning a team-lead may then break up with the idea of a team as such – reshaping the team to a task force with a leader (a person in charge). It certainly needs to be clear, whether that is what we want.

Hence clarity and distinctness are major factors when defining the (new) structure, which we aim to establish. Especially in church, we tend to avoid calling things by name, mainly because, we know people (pastors, preaching teams, church councils, church members) are not going to like it. This however is no solution, since being confronted with unclarity and indistinctness urges “people” to suspect the worst. The latter mostly is an extreme waste of time and energy. Both of which could have been used to create something new and adequate – and creative!

Therefore, it is necessary to look at an even newer way of enhancing leadership.

Like myths and cultural narratives also film and literature are not just fiction but very often a mirror of contemporary perceptions of leadership. Fans of James Bond (e.g.) may have discovered that recently, the protagonist is not always brave, does not always have the solutions, is not really superior to the surrounding women and often works in teams, while appreciating the different expertise of other team members also assigned to the job, or found willing to step in. The same can be said about all-age stories like The Lego Movie, about Emmet, an ordinary Lego minifigure, who helps a resistance movement stop a tyrannical businessman from gluing everything in the Lego world into his vision of perfection. Heroic teams have become quite common as a motif in films. Combining network theory and an unavoidable notion of hierarchy, new forms of leadership are developing. According to Jonatan Jalle Steller** important continua seem to be: “from hierarchy to network, from superordinate to peer-to-peer relations, from networked individuals to makers, and from micromanaging to consensual and interim leadership.”*** “Networks, in this view, emphasise reciprocity and consensual, common goals: a cooperative bike shop, for example, in which workers are also shareholders, distributes power and pay based on a negotiated arrangement that usually changes along with the staff.” **** And as such its about an area of “negotiation between vertical and horizontal power” unifying “both the egalitarian and the hierarchical model.” ***** In this sense, makers “favour trust over micromanagement and expose their interest in cooperation rather than in individually gaining authority” ******.

Adaptive Leadership

According to Harvard Professor Ron Heifetz *******, adaptive leadership is especially required in situations in which the “gap between aspirations and operational capacity” […] cannot be closed by the expertise and procedures currently in place.” *********).

The past COVID-years and the ongoing war in Ukraine certainly account for manyfold situations, in which this gap became highly manifest. Hence the need and the opportunity for adaptive leadership is immense. This goes for, business, society and politics as well as for an organization like church. Adaptive leadership then certainly requires more, then just wanting to be the boss – to put it bluntly. Open mindedness, a (thoughtful) capacity to correct the course of action in the process, and empathy regarding co-workers and employees. It then would need the necessary respect of the talents and skills of all team members, as well as flexibility of negotiating between vertical and horizontal power, as we have seen.

In protestant churches in general and local congregations in specific, we are entwined in a vertical AND a horizontal line of power, at the same time. In protestant churches we have sovereignty of the local congregation – with the council (the main board, the presbyterium or the vestry) being the instrument of shared power on the parish level. On the other hand, we have the church structure, with deanery synodical council on the deanery level and the the church synod with the church board and the church administration on the church level. We also have the pastor (+ in future: church pedagogue and cantor), the dean, the provost and the church president (EKHN), respectively the priest (+ deacon, cathechet, cantor,), prost, bishop, presiding bishop (DNK).

According to Keri Bennington in “What is Adaptive Leadership: Definition & Heifetz Principles, “In an organization with adaptive leadership characteristics, every person’s opinions are valued. Each team member is seen to have the ability to solve an unknown problem. When external factors such as a crisis disrupt an organization, adaptive leadership is needed to find creative solutions. These solutions focus on win-win outcomes and differ from traditional approaches.” **********. And “The adaptive leadership approach doesn’t rely on one individual alone to solve problems. Instead, this model enables a group of people to find practical solutions. It embraces critical thinking among all members of an organization and teaches them to adapt. Instead of sticking to the old methods that worked in the past, it encourages innovation.”

Since especially on the local level in the church, we have (DNK) or we will have (EKHN) multi professional teams not just learning to work together, but at the same time having to deal with unusual situations, such as, the receding number of pastors and members of the church, while the acceptance of church in contemporary society becomes increasingly less, the choice for adaptive leadership seems more then appropriate and timely.

Adaptive leadership and wiggle room

In combination with wiggle room (see former article), adaptive leadership may give the church – especially on the local level – a chance, to line up nicely in order to meet the challenges at hand and ahead.

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*) cfr. Marco Böhmer: „Die Form(en) von Führung, Leadership und Management: Eine differenztheoretische Explizierung“, Der Verlag für Systemische Forschung im Internet: www.systemische-forschung.de und Carl-Auer im Internet: www.carl-auer.de , 2014 p. 11

**) In: “Maker ideology: The representation of small collectives in present-day Anglo-American blockbuster fiction”, Doctoral Dissertation in the field of English Social Studies by Jonatan Jalle Steller (Dr. Phil, Leipzig 2020), / with kind permission of the Author

***) “Maker Ideology” p. 36

****) Idem p.48

*****) Idem p. 59

******) Idem p. 210

*******) cfr. Ron Heifetz: Adaptive Leadership, in Creelman Research, 2009 Vol. 2.5 file:///C:/Users/lieve/Downloads/Adaptive_Leadership_by_Dr_Heifetz.pdf

*********) Ron Heifetz: Adaptive Leadership, in Creelman Research, p. 1

**********) WDHB (Warm Decent Human Beings), founded in 1989 as Learning Expedition  https://wdhb.com/blog/what-is-adaptive-leadership/

[censemaking]

Leadership Lessons For 3-D Times

Moving our leadership language from 2-D to 3-D to meet the situations we face

There is no shortage of advice on how to lead. Most leadership lessons are designed for 2-D times when we are living in more than three dimensions. I used to love reading about leadership. I thought leadership was the key to successful organizations during my studies, and I was partly right. What I got wrong was that I thought reading about and studying leadership would make a big difference to…

[naturepointstheway]

Vienna 1989/90 giving me that tasty Tuggoffelees juice at the end of Mistoffelees' number. Love how Misto just spins Tugger away. It also actually reminds me a lot of a very similar duo spin dance at the end of this number that happens in Zurich with Lindsay Chambers' Misto, but instead it's with Munkustrap rather than Tugger.

And in Zurich's case, well, let's say that this Misto has a very different experience to Valentin's (who reminds me a lot of Tim Scott's Misto, especially with the makeup), and Munk is more showing he has accepted him fully.

@absolutehumandisaster - hope you don't mind me tagging you as I feel you'd be interested in my "little" tag ramble/thoughts on Valentin's vs Chambers' Mistos and how Valentin's is Chambers' Misto once he is fully accepted and has grown exponentially in confidence by the next Jellicle Ball.

[thisisadonaldduckblognow]

bangs pots and pans

raph was never any less suited to leadership than leo

raph was never any less suited to leadership than leo

raph was N E V E R any less suited to leadership than leo

idk how many times i can say it before it sinks in that in rise there was never once any point where that was the point being made

if you just like leo’s character better than you like raph’s, that’s fine! if you just like it better when leo is leader, that’s fine! i have no issue!

but we need to stop trying to circle that leadership change back to somehow being about better or worse or ~more cut out for it~ because it sucks to throw the great job raph did through the series under the bus in order to prop up leo’s good qualities. 

they’re both great leaders. they both have strong suits and weak suits in the role, they both have growth and development when they’re in that role. they BOTH make on-screen mistakes in that role and aren’t very good at it at first! not getting a more in-depth explanation about it in the movie or series stinks and it’s very interesting to explore, but seriously. 

[elisabethbabarci]

Inspire, lead, and motivate. Accept your true authentic self unapologetically. Be willing to own your truth, even if it is not the norm, and goes against the grain. Embrace your positive and negative aspects, as they are all part of your divine mission to evolve and grow.

Elisabeth Babarci

[t-u-i-t-c]

Jiro → One Gif Per Episode (41-50)

[foxsoulcourt]

twas a gift to hear this human read out loud

Back in my mid-twenties when I decided I would, in fact, go to university after all, I studied history, the sciences, and educational theory w/a smattering of art. Very little literature, minimal poetry. My lifelong self-directed education on poetry has been, at best, cAsUaL. Which means I came to this experience with so.little.knowledge of Seamus Heaney or his work. WOW. The combination of Heaney's words + Ben's voice was a most excellent morsel to whet my appetite for more.

TY @amongthejumbledheap for posting about this in person + virtual event. I never would have known about it if not for your post. 💜 I sipped some citrusy-mint-water + thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

[thecoachingdirectory]

Looking for an executive coach? Look no further than Steve Goudswaard of Navigating the Uncertain. He is an executive leader and coach who partners with leaders to navigate uncertainty and complexity with purpose. Steve has worked in leadership and change roles for over 30 years, in more than 40 countries. Steve has developed systems for global, regional, and national organizations. Reach out and connect with him today!

[wellconstructedsentences]

Emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.

Complex Adaptive Leadership by Nick Obolensky