Shortform Books

Adaptive Leadership Style: Always on Guard

A man in a business suit pointing and showing an adaptive leadership style

An adaptive leadership style is a leadership approach oriented towards tackling adaptive problems—challenges that are brought about by unexpected circumstances, that have no known solutions, and that require a fundamental change to solve. Leaders who adopt an adaptive leadership style constantly assess the landscape within which they operate and the adaptive capacity of their organization to make sure they have what it takes to adapt effectively. In this article, we’ll take a look at the three main qualities of adaptive problems, the traits of adaptive leaders, and some tips for practicing an adaptive leadership style.

The 3 Steps for Assessing Adaptive Challenges

Leadership: What are the Major Traits of a Good Leader

Adaptive challenges are problems with unknown solutions which, by definition, require a fundamental change in order to be solved. There are two steps to solving such challenges: 1) diagnosis, and 2) treatment. In The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, and Marty Linsky recommend that you start by examining your organization to determine what resources you have available and what obstacles you might anticipate. Then, examine the challenge itself. In the article below, we’ll outline their recommendations for both.

6 Adaptive Interventions in Leadership: Adapt or Fail

Scrabble pieces that read "adapt or fail"

When your organization is facing changing conditions or never-before-seen challenges, the only way to survive is to adapt. Adaptive interventions are measures put in place to address “adaptive challenges”—unexpected problems with no known solutions. You can launch an adaptive intervention at any moment of tackling the adaptive challenge, whether that’s during diagnosis or while another intervention is ongoing. In The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, and Marty Linsky offer practical strategies to help leaders navigate these kinds of complex challenges.

Relationship Management & Emotional Intelligence

Relationship management is your ability to use self-awareness, self-management, and social awareness together to build and maintain strong connections with others. According to Bradberry and Greaves in Emotional Intelligence 2.0, this skill allows you to have difficult conversations without damaging trust, give feedback people actually hear, and resolve conflicts in ways that strengthen relationships. Here are 17 tactics to improve your relationship management.

Emotional Self-Awareness: Definition, Benefits, Tactics

Can you improve your emotional intelligence? According to Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, authors of Emotional Intelligence 2.0, the answer is yes—and the foundation starts with emotional self-awareness, your ability to recognize your emotions as they happen and understand your patterns over time. Bradberry and Greaves argue that self-awareness is a skill anyone can develop, but research shows that people experience and express emotional awareness differently. Here’s why you need it and 15 tactics to help you develop it.

Ronald Heifetz: Adaptive Leadership and Political Clout

Three people business leaders with political clout standing side by side

According to the father of adaptive leadership Ronald Heifetz, solving adaptive challenges requires you to have what he calls “political clout.” The more political clout you have, the more power, support, and influence you have, and the less people will resist you. Learning how to gain influence over people will help you in the long run as a business leader. To make sure your business survives any adaptable changes, here are six techniques to increase your political clout.

The Focusing Question: Your ONE Thing for Uncommon Success

The Focusing Question is a powerful productivity tool from Gary Keller’s book The ONE Thing that helps you identify the single most important action you can take to achieve your goals. By asking “What’s the one thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”, you cut through distractions and focus on what truly matters. Continue reading to learn how to ask the Focusing Question effectively, find powerful answers at different time scales, and make it a daily success habit that improves how you work and live.

Emotional Intelligence & Social Awareness: A Guide

Social awareness—your ability to accurately read others’ emotions and understand what drives their behavior—is a core component of emotional intelligence that helps you pick up on social cues others miss. Developing social awareness is more complex than simply observing others, according to Bradberry and Greaves’s research in Emotional Intelligence 2.0. Here’s a look at social awareness and tactics for improving it.

Getting Through Organizational Conflict: The 8 Steps + More

A chess board representing organizational conflict

Adaptive challenges often pit values and perspectives against each other. In The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, and Marty Linsky advise that you don’t suppress this conflict—instead, openly discuss it so everyone can see all disagreements. Openly discussing organizational conflict not only helps get everyone on the same page, but it’s also an important way to surface potential problems. Let’s look at a number of ways you can encourage competing parties to discuss their perspectives openly.

The Multitasking Myth Stands in the Way of Productivity

A person working at a desk with a desktop computer and a laptop while using a mobile phone illustrates the multitasking myth

In a world of endless to-do lists, the multitasking myth suggests that juggling tasks boosts efficiency. In reality, this habit is actually “task-switching,” which forces the brain to constantly reorient, leading to more mistakes and a drop in productivity. To achieve high-quality results, we must move past the distraction of doing everything at once. Read more to explore why sequential focus is the true key to success and how debunking the myth of multitasking can reclaim your time and reduce stress.