“Change is the only constant”, as the adage goes. If you fail to embrace change and adapt to it, your organization is likely to become a sitting bird for your competitors, which will be an easy target to smack down! 

I’m sure you don’t want this to happen to your organisation! 

Let’s take Kodak as an example. Remember the photographic film rolls you used in your camera way back in the 80s and 90s? Once an industry leader, Kodak slipped into bankruptcy as it was slow to adapt to digital photography. Blackberry is another name that reminds us of failing to adapt to change. 

The reason for the downfall of Kodak and Blackberry – two market leaders in their own domain – is their failure to innovate before competition and adapt in time! Needless to say, these two are not alone in the ocean of organizations that were once dominating the market, and are now lost in oblivion. 

In this fast-changing world, leaders need to embrace the change and adapt rapidly to their changing environment, before their business is relegated to history.  

How to become an adaptive leader 

It’s not some kind of superpower. The changes may have been birthed of necessity,but an adaptive leader is someone who has potential to go beyond the crisis and enable their team and organization to remain resilient and respond with agility in the face of an ever-changing dynamic world.  

Wondering what adaptive leadership looks like in practice? Let me remind you of the COVID-19 scenario. Millions of people and organizations around the world were forced into virtual work; many for the first time. This shift required systems and policy transformation that under normal circumstances might have taken years to unfold. 

Of course, the unprecedented scale and speed of the pandemic have created “burning platform” impetus for these feats, but it is still remarkable that organizations have been able to make it happen. These achievements couldn’t have been possible if leaders were not adaptive enough to lead their organisation through the times. 

How to embrace adaptive leadership

If you are interested in embracing adaptive leadership, there are a few habits that you could adopt, starting with admitting your mistakes, practicing humility, learning to face hard facts, and discussing your failures with your team.  

In the pursuit of the best possible solution for the adaptive challenge at hand, adaptive leaders need to put their egos aside and be open to letting go of their own ideas, taking responsibility for their failures, and distributing power and authority. 

Conquering these internal battles can be a significant challenge for leaders, but in the face of disruption, it’s important for leaders to look beyond solving immediate challenges; they must also identify root causes, course correct, and anticipate future needs.  

Imagine that you are the HR Leader of a company that is experiencing high attrition. Your highly trained and competent employees are leaving the organization and this is adversely impacting the bottom line. How would you approach this challenge? 

You might consider introducing a new incentive plan to retain your key players, and rewarding them more frequently. Perhaps you might find  their managers lack the ability to provide them with the required guidance, and correct the same. Or there could be other factors at play. 

The point is, these solutions may either not work, or not provide a permanent solution to the issue. To solve this problem in a sustainable way, an adaptive lens might be more effective. 

Diving deep into potential issues could be a good place to start. You might find that it is not the compensation structure or the reward system that is the problem, but the organizational culture that is posing the challenge. For instance, there could be a general lack of accountability across teams and people might be blaming each other for not meeting deliverables. Delving deeper, you might also discover that the leadership team is as much a part of the problem as everyone else within the organization.  

As an adaptive leader wanting to solve this problem, you will need to gather input from the whole organization in changing the culture. There will likely be numerous uncomfortable conversations, conflicts, and challenges associated with this process. You will have to deliver difficult feedback to the leadership team and you may have to deal with your own fears and frustrations.  

The change – like any other major sift – will take time. There might even be resistance from various fronts. But it is only by going through this process that you will truly be able to address this challenge. 

In conclusion, let me state that being an adaptive leader is not easy. You will encounter uncertainties coupled with stiff resistance and calls for strenuous efforts. However, if you are able to harness the power of peer relationships and invest time in building trust and harnessing diverse perspectives, the results will be worth their weight in gold. The other alternative is notto adapt at all. The inherent risk – and a highly probable one at that – is that you might render yourself redundant, and consequently replaceable!