Adaptive leadership is about change that enables the capacity to thrive.

1. ‘‘Seeing the Unseen’’
Adaptive Leadership to Change
Educational Systems
Based on: Heifetz, Linsky and Grashow (2009)
By Girma Shimelis Muluneh
Bahir Dar University
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2. Why Resistance to Change?
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 Resistance to change stems from a fear of losing
something important. Identifying the losses is not
easy.
These are some losses that might happen:
_ Identity _ Competence
_ Comfort _ Security
_ Reputation _ Time
_ Money _ Power
_ Control _ Status
_ Resources _ Independence
_ Righteousness _ Job
_ Life

3. Introduction
 Adaptive Leadership is the
practice of mobilizing people
to tackle tough challenges &
thrive’’.
 If a system is broken, it must be diagnosed
& fixed by taking risks & challenging the
status quo in order to provoke change.
 Adaptive work
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4. Adaptive Leadership’s Basic
Assumptions:
 Adaptive leadership is about change that
enables the capacity to thrive.
 Adaptive change interventions build on the
past rather than jettison it.
 Organizational change happens through
experimentation.
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5. Cont’d
 New adaptations have the potential of
significantly displacing, re-regulating, &
rearranging old structure.
 Disrupt the status-quo to provoke forward
momentum.
 Leadership may not be only a
position/authority.
 Anyone who does adaptive work can be a
leader
 Adaptive change takes time
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6. As an Adaptive Leader
1. Get rid of the broken system’s illusion.
2. Distinguish technical problems from
adaptive challenges
3. Differentiate leadership from authority
4. Learn to live in the productive zone of
disequilibrium
5. Observe, interpret, intervene
6. Engage above and below the neck
7. Connect to purpose
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7. Diagnose the System
Get on the balcony:
 Structure,
Culture,
Defaults.
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8. Diagnose the Adaptive Challenges
 Separate a problem’s technical/adaptive
elements
 Cycle of failure &
 Persistent dependence on authority
 Look beyond what people are saying about
adaptive challenges
 Distinguish the challenge:
1. Gap between espoused values and behavior,
2. Competing commitments,
3. Speaking the unspeakable, 8

9. Key Characteristics of Adaptive
Systems:
 Elephants in the room are named:
no issue is too sensitive &
no questions are off-limits.
 Responsibility for the organization’s
future is shared:
 Independent judgment is expected:
everybody can make decisions
 Leadership capacity is developed:
 Reflection & continuous learning are
institutionalized:
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10. Mobilizing the System
 ‘Act politically’’ expanding informal authority,
finding allies, connected to opposition,
managing authority figures,
 ‘Orchestrate the conflict’’ create situation
where d/t factions come up with conflicting
ideas
 ‘Build an adaptive culture through nurturing
shared responsibility
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11. Design Effective Interventions
 Get on the balcony
 Determine the ripeness of the issue in the
system
 Ask, who am I in this picture?
 Think hard about your framing
 Hold steady- interventions have their own
life, people need time to digest it, think
about it…
 Analyze the factions that begin to emerge
 Keep the work at the center of peoples
attention 11

12. Summary
 Get on the balcony to observe patterns and
diagnose the problem
 Interpret accurately through listening for the
“song beneath the words”.
 Intervene up to the “zone of productive
disequilibrium”.
 Change
 Thrive
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13. Discussion Points
 How far are our problems
need adaptive
leadership?
 Are there good lessons we can
apply in Ethiopian education context?
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14. Thank You!
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