Adaptive Leadership
Renew 145 invites teams to use some of the techniques of adaptive leadership to help nurture health and vitality in your congregation. Adaptive leadership involves observing the existing situation, interpreting the data and information you gather, and implementing an intervention designed to impact the situation you have observed. The approach is designed to be a continuous loop where each intervention provides the opportunity for more observations and allows for refinement and growth.
Siddharth Rajgarhia, Chief Learner-Director, Delhi Public School, Nashik, Varanasi & Lava Nagpur authored a helpful summary of the Adaptive Leadership approach in a publication called Scoo News. The article is designed for school leaders, but the excerpts which follow provide a quick overview of the process. You can read the full article using the link at the end of the excerpt.
“In simple terms, adaptive leadership is a practical leadership framework and approach that helps individuals and organizations adapt and thrive in challenging environments. An effective adaptive leadership enables both, individually and collectively, to take on the gradual but meaningful process of change. The framework and approach towards effective adaptive leadership can be implemented in a 3 step process, namely – ‘Observation, Interpretation and Intervention’. . . .
The Observation stage of the adaptive leadership framework is the most primary and important phase. . . . Without understanding and comprehending the current situation it would become nearly impossible for the organization to adapt to any changes.
This stage of adaptive leadership involves collecting the present data, analyzing the problem and figuring out whether the problem requires a technical fix or a more modified and novel solution to deal with it. . . . Having a ‘bird’s eye view’ for a particular situation really helps the leader to correctly observe and analyze the situation.
Next comes the Interpretation stage. Once the data is collected and analyzed it becomes important to decipher the meaning of the data and information. . . . It is important for the leader to observe the data and also to comprehend the underlying meaning. The interpretation stage really requires and also challenges the leader’s management and leadership skills, along with their skill to analyze a given situation in a deeper manner.
The last stage is the Intervention stage in which the leader should see to it that proper assessment is taken and monitored regularly along with the implementation of the newly planned policies and changes in the organization.”
(Graphic and quotations from https://www.scoonews.com/news/a-call-for-adaptive-change-approach-to-leadership-10520 – accessed 7/1/21)
Reflection Questions
- How does your congregation currently gather information about the health and vitality of your congregation?
- In addition to the members on your team, who could help you accurately observe and interpret the health and vitality of your congregation?