Leadership 2.0

Become an Adaptive Leader

"You should approach your practice of new leadership skills with the mindset of an athlete. Any day you walk into the office could be the most challenging day you’ve faced."- Leadership 2.0, page 15

If you really want to up your leadership game and take your impact and effectiveness to the next level, you need to focus on those leadership skills that aren’t as traditional or obvious.

Everyone seems to be aware of the importance of being an effective communicator or of having vision and mobilizing others as a leader, but how many of us regularly take the time to self reflect, seeking to better understand how our emotions drive our behaviours and how to manage them? To seek truth and really ensure the people we are leading feel valued? To be the kind of leader who stops and ask themselves “Am I walking my talk?”

Adaptive leadership is about having the integrity to do what you say, the credibility to authentically move others toward action, and about constantly finding or creating new and innovative ways to expand the boundaries of your leadership effectiveness. It’s about lifelong learning and development of ourselves and of those we lead.

Adapt Your Leadership Style to the Situation

"The best leaders are adept at tailoring their leadership styles to the unique needs of their employees. Unfortunately, this is not the norm."- Leadership 2.0, page 119

As a leader, it’s easy to believe that the most effective way to lead others is to know your leadership style and simply apply that to those you lead. We may go as far as demanding those we lead to adapt to our style rather than the other way around.

But that’s an old school way of looking at leadership. As a leader, you need to have the ability and agility to adjust your style to meet the needs of those you lead and to the situation at hand. This is the new way of the adaptive leader.

So how do we go about doing this? How do we really seek to maximize our potential and the potential of those we lead? This can be particularly hard if you’re the kind of leader who may be stuck in your ways.

One of the ways to do this is to stop looking at what you can’t do or can’t change and start to own what you have control over and focus on staying flexible and open-minded, despite what the situation may be.

Talk to those who aren’t affected by the change that you’re experiencing, get fresh, new perspectives and seek out those who you trust to help you view your situation from a different vantage point.

Doing this will help you better understand not only the situation but also you in that situation. Stop asking yourself questions like “What kind of leader am I?” and start asking the question “In this situation, what kind of leader do I need to be?”

Improve Your Self-Awareness

"When you are self aware, you are far more likely to pursue the right opportunities, put your strengths to work, and – perhaps most importantly – keep your emotions from holding you back."- Leadership 2.0, page 135

Self-awareness is the most important skill that an adaptive and effective leader needs to develop.

There, I said it.

If you’re unable, as a leader to accurately perceive and understand your own emotional tendencies in the moment and across situations, how could you possibly understand those of others?

Being self-aware means staying on top of and accountable to your reactions to events, people and challenges. Leaders who are high in self-awareness are exceptionally clear in understanding what drives them, their areas of strength and weakness, and what people or situations trigger them or set them off most often. Developing a strong sense of self-awareness is foundational to leadership and makes everything else (managing emotions in tense situations, for example) that much easier.

In fact, self-awareness is so important that studies have shown that as it increases so does an individual’s satisfaction with life. Not only that, but it has been shown to be important for job satisfaction. 83% of people who are high in self-awareness are identified as top performers (whereas only 2% of bottom performers were identified as such).