Adaptive leadership is a leadership approach that emphasizes flexibility and innovation in order to navigate complex, evolving challenges. It focuses on mobilizing individuals and organizations to embrace change by fostering learning, resilience, and collaboration.

Imagine that you’re the CEO of a major hospital system. Your facilities are top-tier, and you consistently attract world-class medical professionals. However, over time, burnout among physicians and nurses becomes a growing crisis, leading to staff shortages, increased medical errors, and declining patient outcomes. You have a few options. You can hope that small technical fixes—such as hiring more staff and offering wellness programs—will be enough to manage the problem. Or, you can recognize this as an adaptive challenge that requires deeper cultural and systemic shifts—such as restructuring workloads, reducing administrative burdens, and addressing the unspoken norms that encourage overwork. The latter approach will likely yield better long-term results.

Adaptive leadership is all about navigating external changes by remaining flexible, agile, and innovative. Unlike traditional leadership styles that champion stability and control, adaptive leadership acknowledges that some challenges require fundamental shifts in values, behaviors, and processes. Adaptive leaders empower employees to embrace change and guide their teams through uncertainty and resistance to drive success.¹

Effectively employing adaptive leadership means following Heifetz's Five Adaptive Leadership Principles:

1. Emotional Intelligence: Adaptive leaders are aware and empathetic to the feelings of others with regard to change. Change can be very taxing on employees, and an adaptive leader recognizes the challenges it poses, building trust with their employees by making them feel heard and valued.
2. Organizational Justice: Adaptive leaders foster a culture of transparency and honesty. They know how to introduce change to their employees so that people will embrace them, and also take into account employee feedback and are willing to adjust as required. 
3. Development: The adaptive leader is a lifelong learner. They do not assume they know the best way to do things - instead if one strategy isn’t working, they learn new strategies to tackle the problem.
4. Character: For employees to embrace change, they need to respect the leader. This respect can be gained through strong character, with an openness to admitting mistakes.^2,3
5. Win-Win Problem Solving: Approaching a challenge by considering how both sides (the organization and external stakeholders) can benefit instead of working towards contrasting goals.⁴

Adaptive leadership can be applied across sectors, from business to politics to education. In today’s rapidly evolving world, embracing these four principles to be an adaptive leader is essential to maintain success.¹

Heifetz Five Adaptive Leadership Principles: The five principles that underscore adaptive leadership are emotional intelligence, organizational justice, development, character, and win-win problem solving. Adopting these five characteristics allows someone to practice an adaptive leadership style.⁴

Technical Challenges: Adaptive leadership categorizes challenges into either technical or adaptive challenges. Technical challenges are expected obstacles that arise as part of operations, are clear and understandable, and can be solved by one person/team with pre-existing resources.⁶

Adaptive Challenges: Adaptive challenges are unexpected, complex issues that impact an organization. As they are difficult to understand, there is no pre-existing solution and they require collaboration from various teams and people to tackle. Solving an adaptive challenge will require additional knowledge and resources and often a change in values or strategies.⁶

The Balcony and the Dance Floor: According to Heifetz and Linsky, who developed adaptive leadership, it is important for leaders to spend time both on the balcony — the big picture of an organization and its goals — and the dance floor —the daily operations and everyday activities they are involved in — to be an adaptive leader. Spending time on the balcony allows leaders to identify patterns and reevaluate assumptions while being on the dance floor allows leaders to build relationships with staff, practice emotional intelligence, and gain credibility.⁷

Adaptive Capacity: A system or organization’s ability to respond to change and stress signals. An organization with high adaptive capacity is able to adapt and modify in response to external changes or anticipated stresses.⁸

In the 19th century, the leading theories on leadership suggest that great leaders are born, not made. The Great Man Theory states that some individuals are born with the characteristics to be effective leaders, which is why they rise to positions of power. Since it was assumed that leaders were the most knowledgeable people within the organization, authoritarian and hierarchical leadership styles were prevalent.⁹ Traditional leaders relied on established procedures and a clear chain of command with the goal of maintaining the status quo and minimizing change.¹⁰

The Great Man Theory lost its popularity around the time that behavioral science emerged in the 1940s and 50s, which showed that certain traits and characteristics could be adopted by anyone, not just those with a predisposed inclination. However, still, these leadership theories largely ignored the specific circumstance or environment in which a leader was operating.

The 20th century brought with it a lot of innovation and change thanks to the Industrial Revolution and technological advancements. People recognized a new form of leadership was required for businesses to succeed in an ever-changing environment.¹¹ In 1994, Harvard Professor Ronald Heifetz laid the groundwork for adaptive leadership in his book Leadership Without Easy Answers. There, Heifetz outlined the distinction between technical and adaptive challenges. He claimed that while traditional leadership styles are well suited to tackle technical challenges, those styles are not well suited for confronting adaptive challenges. For Heitz, the role of the leader was to help reconcile the differences between shifting circumstances that adaptive challenges pose and core organizational values. Adaptive challenges require changing from the status quo, which can be met with some resistance. So, leaders need to guide their teams in adjusting behaviors, mindsets, or strategies without losing sight of what’s important to them. They help the organization stay true to its values while adapting to new circumstances.¹² He defined adaptive leadership as “the practice of mobilizing people to tackle tough problems and thrive.”¹³

In 2009, Heifetz co-authored The Practice of Adaptive Leadership with his Harvard colleagues, Marly Linsky and Alexander Grashow. The book provided a guide with tools and tactics for leaders to embrace change and adapt strategies accordingly. The guide emphasized the importance of building adaptive capacity, engaging stakeholders, and fostering a culture of experimentation where staff are empowered. This requires leaders to spend time both on the balcony and the dance floor to mobilize others towards a common goal.¹⁴

Since 2009, change has only occurred at a faster pace. Advancements in technology have revolutionized every aspect of our lives, the economic landscape fluctuates daily, and consumer demands continue to evolve. This fast-paced culture has made adaptive leadership an imperative for businesses to succeed under conditions of uncertainty and disruption.¹⁵

Ronald Heifetz

Pioneer of adaptive leadership, Heifetz is one of the most well-known authorities on leadership. He introduced adaptive leadership in his 1994 book Leadership Without Easy Answers and later co-wrote The Practice of Adaptive Leadership. Although currently a Harvard professor of Public Leadership, Heifetz initially trained as a physician before finding his passion for public leadership. Heifetz also co-founded Cambridge Leadership Associates with Marly Linsky.¹⁶

Marly Linsky

One of the central figures in adaptive leadership, Linsky co wrote The Practice of Adaptive Leadership and co-founded the Cambridge Leadership Associates, a consulting practice providing guidance to public, private, and non-profit clients.¹⁷ Linsky was nominated for the House of Representatives but unfortunately lost.  A professor at Harvard for almost 40 years, Linsky is now enjoying his retirement.¹⁸

Alexander “Zander” Grashow

Founder of Adaptive Leadership+, a company dedicated to training and coaching companies for adaptive leadership, and co-author of The Practice of Adaptive Leadership,  Zander Grashow is a well-known and respected leadership consultant. Grashow has advised businesses, presidents, and activists on how to succeed in states of crisis and transition.¹⁹

Adaptive leadership has profound implications for organizations, shaping how they navigate change, foster resilience, and promote inclusivity. By prioritizing adaptability and collaboration, it transforms workplaces into dynamic, forward-thinking environments equipped to meet evolving challenges.

Present Focused

As Heifetz, Linsky and Grashow state in their book The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, “the improvisational ability to lead adaptively relies on responding to the present situation rather than importing the past into the present and laying it on the current situation like an imperfect template.” Instead of reinforcing the status quo, adaptive leaders embrace change and look for new ways to do things that fit the current environment. 

With “development” being a key principle of adaptive leadership, it fosters a sense of continuous learning instead of leaders believing that they already know everything. Lifelong learning is vital to align organizational practices with evolving needs and realities, preventing companies from getting left behind because they are too stuck in the past.¹⁵

Builds Resilience

Growing a company’s adaptive capacity is what will allow it to weather the changes that inevitably come its way. Consider how older buildings were often constructed using rigid materials like brick or stone, which made them susceptible to collapsing under environmental stresses. Nowadays, contractors ensure that buildings are created with shock-absorbing technologies so that they are more flexible and can withstand environmental factors, which allows them to last. Just like how a concrete building collapses under pressure, a rigid organization will not be able to withstand change unless it is flexible.

Adaptive leadership motivates employees to embrace change, be flexible, and deviate from the status quo for better results. It therefore builds resilience and gives the organization a better chance to succeed even in changing environments.²⁰

Inclusivity

Adaptive leadership deemphasizes formal structures and hierarchies, instead encouraging multiple opinions from all levels of the organization. The adaptive leader has strong emotional intelligence and is attuned to the feelings of others, making them feel safe and included. They involve multiple people in the decision-making process, which creates an inclusive and collaborative environment.

By tapping into the collective knowledge of employees, the organization can lead with more creative and well-rounded solutions that are built on the diverse experiences of everyone. When people feel included in a decision, they are also more likely to take on the responsibility that comes with it and embrace change. Adaptive leadership, therefore, contributes to a positive work environment where people are motivated to help the company reach its goals.³ 

Adaptive leadership, though celebrated for its flexibility and ability to tackle complex problems, has been critiqued for prioritizing the present over the future and creating instability through its lack of formal structure. Additionally, it can be difficult to implement adaptive leadership as many tend to resist change.

Risk of Resistance and Conflict

For adaptive leadership to be effective, all people must buy into its style. Everyone has to be willing to embrace change and be flexible, and let’s face it: humans are creatures of habit.²¹ It can also be difficult for a CEO or Founder to let go of power, which makes adaptive leadership appear as a threat. When adaptive leaders ask people to embrace discomfort, it can provoke anxiety, defensiveness, or even outright conflict among team members.

By nature, adaptive leadership means an organization has to be willing to admit that there may be better ways of doing things. For people very set in their ways and beliefs, it can be challenging to make this admission. The status quo bias tells us that we resist change, which can prevent progress. A famous example is Kodak, a pioneering company in the 20th century that failed to embrace the shift towards digital technologies. Despite the fact that an engineer at Kodak made the first prototype of a digital camera in 1975, they feared that releasing it would lead to decreased sales of their film cameras. Kodak's inability to adapt its organizational culture and business strategy to the rapidly changing technological landscape ultimately contributed to its decline.²²

Although it can be difficult to get people on board with change, the Kodak example illustrates how vital adaptive leadership can be to a company’s ongoing success.

Adapting Rather than Leading Change

Although adaptive leadership avoids the pitfall of being stuck in the past, it is very focused on the present. While this can lead to quick, smart decisions for the short term, it may be missing the mark on long term impact. 

Other leadership styles, like transformational leadership, instead focus on how leaders can create positive change, not just react to changing circumstances. Transformational leaders have a future-focused vision and can motivate others to follow it, empowering them to become leaders themselves. While adaptive leaders can roll with the punches, transformational leaders create the change, leading to greater innovation.²⁰

Lack of Structure Can Lead to Chaos

Although, in some ways, getting rid of rigid structures and formal processes can encourage creativity and inclusivity, it can also make people feel very lost. As adaptive leadership emphasizes experimentation, it can lead to a lot of trial-and-error which may cause people to feel discouraged.¹

Even for the adaptive leader, it can be very taxing trying to involve everyone and spend adequate time on the balcony and on the dance floor. They have to juggle multiple demands, which can lead to ineffective time management or burnout.²⁰ It’s a very delicate balance of trying to be involved in daily operations whilst still maintaining the big picture.⁷

To mitigate the risk associated with a lack of structure, an adaptive leader should ensure to clearly communicate their vision. Although the organization might not know how to reach the goal, having buy-in for a particular vision can guide people in their day-to-day activities. Some organizations also create “holding environments,” a space that is both psychologically safe and uncomfortable. These spaces offer psychological safety to support the organization as they undergo change. For example, a leader might implement a rule of “deferring judgment” during brainstorming sessions, where no idea is immediately dismissed or criticized. This allows people to feel safe bringing up out-of-the-box suggestions without fear of being ridiculed.²³

Adaptive Leadership to Improve Student Outcomes²⁴

In order to improve student outcomes, schools will often focus on making technical changes, such as increased school funding, increased teacher pay to motivate them, or changing the teaching methodology. In these instances, there is an external stakeholder — often coming from federal or state mandates — guiding and enforcing changes. Professional learning communities within schools will often focus on similar technical issues, such as schedule changes rather than innovative ways for continuous learning to improve student outcomes.

Unfortunately, many of these initiatives have little impact on student outcomes, as they do not address a culture change within the school. Tina Smith, a PhD student at Arkansas Tech University, wanted to explore how the adaptive leadership of a principal could improve professional learning communities and in turn, student outcomes. The theory was that a principal who embodies an adaptive leadership style will be better poised to mobilize the learning communities to tackle tough challenges and succeed.

Smith’s study involved ten schools that were involved in the Arkansas Department of Education Professional Learning Communities Project. By interviewing teachers, she sought to understand the principal’s perception of change and see if they adopted adaptive leadership. The results revealed that when a principal leveraged adaptive leadership, teachers within the professional learning community took more ownership of student learning outcomes and focused on adaptive challenges rather than technical changes. Teachers who worked under adaptive principals had a more positive outlook on change and were passionate about continuous learning.

Although Smith’s study did not show how adaptive leadership impacts student outcomes, there are a myriad of educational studies that show that effectively functioning professional learning communities and having teachers invested in student outcomes contribute positively to student outcomes. 

Improving Police Investigations Through Adaptive Leadership²⁵

Many of the issues faced by law enforcement today related to Internal Affairs investigations have been around for numerous years. The longstanding nature of these challenges suggest that the current ways of resolving issues related to internal affairs, promotional processes, and investigations are insufficient. More innovative ways are required to address these problems, which means an adaptive mindset is necessary for police agency leaders.

One municipal police agency in California received complaints that it took them too long to complete Internal Affairs investigations, with an average completion time of around 200 days. The agency’s leadership wanted to address the issue and found that the problem lay with the mindset of investigators. Although there was a 30-day maximum completion time for these cases, it was rarely met, with investigators believing this was an unachievable deadline. At first, some technical changes were made, which reduced the completion time to about 140 days, but leaders still wanted to reduce the length of time. 

The commander of the Internal Affairs Agency introduced an adaptive leadership framework to supervisors and investigators. This involved involving multiple stakeholders in identifying historical issues and brainstorming possible solutions. Some of these were technical changes, such as changing the process from working on one case as a whole to dividing it up into pieces, but a big change came from empowering the supervisors and shifting the mindset so that they believed investigators were capable of increased productivity and meeting a new 60-day maximum completion deadline.

The implementation of an adaptive leadership model led to a significant reduction in completion time for internal affairs investigators, and working relationships improved as there was an environment of respect across all levels.

Situational Leadership Theory

While adaptive leadership is about being agile and innovative in response to external changes, situational leadership theory suggests effective leadership is about adapting to the needs of employees in specific situations. In this article, our writer Isaac Koenig-Workman explores different dimensions of behavior a leader can approach situations with, depending on the context and employee.

Charismatic Leadership

There are various ways that a leader can gain authority, one being through charismatic leadership. Charismatic leaders are confident, have a clear vision, have strong communication skills and are emotionally intelligent, which helps them build trust. In this article, our writer Emilie Rose Jones explores the characteristics that make up a charismatic leader and the benefit of implementing this leadership style.

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