SENIOR LEADERSHIP: RELEVANT LEADERSHIP THEORIES AND PRACTICES—Part One of a Six-Part Series

Unlike leading at lower organizational-levels, leadership at the senior level is primarily “indirect” leadership—leading through others. Clearly, as a senior leader, you will practice “direct” leadership with your direct reports and those you personally attempt to persuade or influence—e.g., peers, other senior leaders, partners, suppliers, and stakeholders.

Most leadership research in the past did not focus on indirect leadership. Rather, primary research focused on direct leadership—interactions of change producing behaviors—between the leader and a follower (more of a one-on-one or small group leadership exchange). Yet, a majority of these research efforts and theories are not fully translatable to the indirect leadership modalities available to you as a senior leader. 

While there are other leadership theories and practices relevant to senior or executive leadership, e.g., “path-goal”, “visionary”, “inspirational”, and “servant” leadership, I view them as elements of the theories presented in this series. 

In addition, Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard’s 1976-introduced “situational leadership” is more appropriate for “direct” leadership, i.e., directing others (task-oriented), providing support (relationship-oriented), and follower capability (task maturity). However, the two key attributes embedded in situational leadership—trust between the leader and follower and the concept of “context,” i.e., what is the situation being faced by both the leader and the follower—are certainly relevant for any leader operating at the senior level. 

What follows is a brief discussion of those leadership theories and practices that I consider relevant to leading at the senior level.

Part One: Adaptive Leadership

Many researchers and practitioners consider the practice of adaptive leadership essential to meeting today’s and tomorrow’s strategic and especially “wicked” challenges. Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, and Marty Linsky define adaptive leadership as, “the practice of mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges and thrive.” 

Based on my own experiences, as well as most of the senior leaders I know, I believe that unless you are able to develop the ability to lead adaptively with agility, you may fail to meet the many challenges you will face at the senior level.

Heifetz argues: “The most common cause of failure in leadership is produced by treating adaptive challenges as if they were technical problems.” He defines technical problems as those with “known solutions.” 

Even if very complex and viewed as critically important (he uses the example of a heart surgeon replacing a heart valve as a technical problem—the process and skill sets are known), the pathway to action is known and can be implemented with existing knowledge. 

Obviously, many of yesterday’s adaptive challenges are today’s technical problems. Whereas, he argues that, “Adaptive challenges can only be addressed through changes in people’s priorities, beliefs, habits, and loyalties.”

Thus, not only is the challenge unclear, the solution is often unclear as well. This requires learning to take place before you are able to interpret and understand the challenge and the development of new thinking, skills, and practices to create a proper solution. 

In today’s VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world with “wicked” problems (problems with no known solutions), if you, as the leader, apply a technical solution to an adaptive challenge, you are using a mental model or frame of reference that worked in the past and will likely fail to provide the solution to this new challenge. 

But to know what type of solution to apply, you must diagnose whether the challenge you’re facing is adaptive or technical. Unfortunately, such a diagnosis can be a very difficult undertaking. Clearly, as Heifetz notes, “problems do not always come neatly packaged as either ‘technical’ or ‘adaptive.’” They often have technical and adaptive elements intertwined.

Because the military cannot predict the threats and decisions they will face in the coming years, they began to actively pursue approaches to train and develop adaptive military leaders. For the past two decades, senior military leaders initiated efforts to build a more flexible and adaptable officer corps.

For example, in 2008, the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) released a report regarding their comprehensive study of adaptable leadership in the military. IDA defines adaptability as “the metaskill required to respond effectively to a changed situation and, specifically, to an unpredicted change.” They report that adaptability is a metaskill that requires the integration of both cognitive and relational skills and be able to handle both high cognitive and emotional loads. Included in their model is the requirement for resilience, hardiness, and grit (a measure of passionate, determined, and relentless pursuit of long-term goals). Figure 1 below outlines the IDA adaptability model.

In summary, the practice of adaptive leadership applies to both you, as the senior leader, and to your organization. If the problem is one you have seen previously, then previous knowledge and skill sets should be sufficient to solve the problem. 

In your efforts to interpret and understand the strategic challenge should you have difficulty in matching the issue(s) with current knowledge and frames of reference, then you (with your senior leadership team) must learn and develop new insights as a precursor to connecting the dots that help define and solve (or at least manage) the problem. This will usually require you to learn and develop new strategies, approaches, and tactics to solve the problem. In essence, adaptive leadership is about change.

Managed change—preemptive, planned, thoughtful, organized, and sequenced—is what makes adaptive leadership competence an absolute requirement for you as a senior leader.

Obviously, you are well aware that both internal and external forces influence the organization. Scanning the external environment with the proper “sensors” and analytical rigor improves the chances that threats—and opportunities—can be identified, assessed, and appropriately targeted for action.

Scanning the external environment greatly enhances your capacity to anticipate—and deal with—the need for change. Aligning the organization to take effective advantage of opportunities, or to minimize or even avoid emerging threats, requires adaptive leadership. 

General Chuck Krulak, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, described to me the importance of adaptive leadership with his analogy of “The Dragon of Change.” Krulak explains, “There are three ways that you can deal with the dragon of change. First, you can turn your back on change and you can ignore it; this will allow you to survive for a little bit but ultimately you will fail. Secondly, you can get a big chain and loop it around the dragon's neck, and start pulling the dragon in the direction you want it to go. This can often times be very successful but usually it is not the best way to handle change. Lastly, you must ride the dragon of change. This is the only way to be successful and this approach was one that I employed at the Marine Corps.” 

Krulak’s example illustrates the importance of being both agile and effective at adaptive leadership for success as a senior leader. If you do not have adaptive leadership skills, the “Dragon of Change” can overpower the organization and ultimately drag it into irrelevance. 

Part Two of this six-part series discusses Authentic Leadership. 

Let me know what you think.

1 Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, and Marty Linsky, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press,2009, p. 14.

2 Mental models (MM) and frames of reference (FR) are very similar terms and often used interchangeably. The difference, if any, may be a FR being larger in scope and scale. Both MMs and FRs are the collection of internal assumptions, personal experience, attitude, values, emotions, knowledge, bias, worldview, mindset, blind spots, imagination, and successful and unsuccessful past usage. They’re often habitual. They help us understand the world, perceive a situation or problem, connect the dots, make judgments, and take action. If accurate, they predict an appropriate process and outcome to problem solving. If limited or inaccurate, they can lead the decision-maker astray. Unfortunately, many leaders are unaware of many of their MMs and FRs—making it more difficult to test and update them. Insufficient MMs and FRs could lead to personal derailment and organizational demise.

3 Ibid., 19.

4 William Burns, Jr. and Waldo Freeman, Developing an Adaptability Training Strategy and Policy for the DoD – Interim Report, IDA Paper P-4358 (Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 2008), p. 8.

5 Ibid.

6 Personal interview with General Chuck Krulak, Board of Directors, Union Pacific; former President, Birmingham-Southern College; former Vice Chairman of MBNA and Chairman & CEO for MBNA Europe Bank; former Commandant, US Marine Corps.