Adaptive leadership

From everyday experience, how do we define leadership? Is it “ruling” over people in order to make decisions and compel obedience? The fact is for the leader to effectively wield authority, his followers must willingly and voluntarily obey his orders.

Leadership by and large, is rooted in “power” which cannot be used interchangeably with authority. Power is the ability to create results by effectively and responsibly mobilising those in the leader’s charge. The leader leads through inspiration, mentoring, open and clear communication, accountability, clear guidelines and the ability to resolve conflict in a healthy manner.

My take is that an effective leader is the one that can be future-proofed through sustainable adaptive intelligence. The leader must move strategies forward regularly by actions (execution). He moves the immovable. He is a champion of innovation and does not tolerate “sacred cows”. He leads through influence and value-delivering relationship with his people. The atmosphere he creates can be described as co-efficient standings of his people, unflinching loyalty, resilience, energy and never-waning determination.

For me, the leader’s career is inextricably tied to the success of the business. He therefore adapts regularly and creatively. He energises trust and creditably influences dedicated hard work.

The adaptive leader takes bold decisions, sees opportunities others miss out on and takes visionary paths forward always. His direction is strategic and he excels in it.

It is not his person but how he effectively inputs activities, time, skills and experience into implementation. He creates more value-delivering responsibilities and also encourages regular strategic inputs from colleagues and team members.

To the adaptable leader ROI (Return on Investment, a major KPI) is not as critical as Cost of Inaction (COI). He is constantly “reloading” and always moving forward in value-delivering activities. He does not tolerate procrastination and delayed decisions. He always makes decisive decisions.

Do you know that your impact on those you are leading is a skill in leadership? The intent of a message is conveyed through words and actions but the leader must be aware (at all times) of the impact he is making with his change efforts. The workplace must understand his intentions and naturally engage with them. A critical aspect of leadership is that there must be clarity on the leader’s intentions and the expected impact on followers.

Paying close attention to the impact of the leader’s intentions on team members engenders the following pillars of performance: Encouragement and promotion of conversations for progress, formal and informal meetings for accountability, benchmarks for results and performance and activities that need to shift.

These “healthy” conversations remarkably create a sense of responsibility in the workplace. Also, formal and informal reviews of results create a sense of belonging. It also engenders bonding and value-adding connection. Definitely, collaboration is promoted. Fresh perspectives, hidden patterns and insights are also very useful offshoots. All these make mentoring by the leader luminous.

It is clear that these expectations from an adaptive leader require high visionary knowledge. The leader needs, at all times, learning in order to receive, process and retain knowledge. He will with regularly renewed knowledge, navigate successfully new business landscapes and create greater influence, prioritize process, make decisions with discipline and cultivate courage to move his team forward.

Let me share with you a recent quote by a popular entrepreneur that “success is not a degree.” He said to succeed, you only require grit and vision. Only these two will turn dreams into reality. But he also added, that we should not disregard resilience, deep thinking, relentless determination, power of self-belief, creativity, hard work and bold steps.

But as I said earlier, “thinking is doing”. You need knowledge-based imagination in creative thinking, critical thinking and adaptive intelligence. Technical skills can become outdated. The adaptive leader needs renewal and re-loading. He must always “shuttle” between relevant technology, big ideas and opportunities, and of course, the unique requirements of his business.

The adaptive leader is “ambidextrous”. He is competent in metaphorically using both hands. He rejuvenates and enhances the status quo in some of his activities to maintain stability but thrives most importantly, with innovation and creativity. His feedback loop (internal and external) is always open and efficiently managed. His identity as a professional is never compromised. Also, his values and self-worth.

This unique leader is guided in his daily activities by the organisation’s core values in order to maintain authenticity and differentiation. Promises to customers are painstakingly satisfied with his organisation’s adaptable outcome-based model.

Customers become lifelong partners and are even encouraged through a unique customer-organisation-feedback machinery to attract and bring additional customers.

Let me conclude with the following facts:

Education is the life blood of breakthroughs and human understanding. It pushes boundaries and enables change and innovation. It is the sanctuary of big ideas and shapes identity, authenticity and credibility. It is the citadel of limitless creativity, innovation and decision-making skills.

It is the “freedom that leads to other freedoms” and the fire of adaptive leadership. It is the lifeline of purpose and the indispensable ingredient of differentiation.

Another positive of education (through learning) is the art and science of interacting with colleagues and other stakeholders meaningfully, and exchanging great ideas. Humans desire goals to achieve and are therefore better than artificial intelligence (AI) and robots. Humans ensure intellectual connection and are always learning new information.

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