The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World

Allow for Silence

Fourth, there are the meetings after the meeting, those conversations that occur at the coffee machine or by e-mail soon after everyone streams out of the conference room. Those

At least five major constraints can hold you back from summoning courage for the work of leadership: • Loyalties to people who may not believe you are doing the right thing • Fear of incompetence

Whenever members of an organization come together and have a conversation, there are actually two types of conversation going on. One is manifested in what people are saying publicly. The other is unfolding in each person’s head. Only

5. Encourage accepting and managing losses. Give each person or faction an opportunity to reflect more fully on the nature of the losses they would be asking each of their factions to accept.

To lean into your incompetence, practice viewing your stories about reality as just that, stories, and treating them as assumptions, not truths. Then test those assumptions, and revise them if your findings suggest that they are not quite on target. The two factions arguing over the compensation system might be able to get together to devise a low-

The key assumption behind thinking politically is that people in an organization are seeking to meet the expectations of their various constituencies. When you understand the nature of those expectations, you can mobilize people more effectively.

The need to go beyond what you are authorized to do, both formally and informally, is what distinguishes adaptive leadership from good management.

An interpretation is only a guess, although the more you practice this activity, the better your guesses will be.