Leadership is a tasking job that requires a lot of self sacrifice. The leadership strategies illuminated in this paper are technical leadership and on extensive coverage the adaptive leadership. To just define and compare the two leadership strategies highlighted, technical leadership deals mainly with professional and experts in a certain field holding leadership position. Adaptive leadership is different since it requires the leader to have the ability to cope with the dynamicity in the leadership strategies that can cause discontent in the organization he/she is leading.
According to Heifetz’s book ‘Leadership in line’, adaptive leadership is quite difficult to achieve. The book analyses most of the challenges faced by leaders who practice adaptive leadership. The topic sentence guiding this book is ‘The people with the problem are the problem and they are the solution’. The challenges faced by the organizations while trying to make use of adaptive leadership are known as adaptive challenges. These challenges usually go beyond the actual capacity of the leader or organization. This makes adaptive leadership difficult since for the leader or organization to be successful, a lot of self sacrifice, complex learning or even sophisticated technology may require to be used. The organization or leader must always push to the unknown (beyond the scope of the leader or organization) so as to cope with the requirements of adaptive leadership.
So as to achieve adaptive leadership, the leader must follow the five steps analyzed by the book. In the first step, the leader must sit on the balcony and then dance on the floor. Sitting on the balcony means that the leader must distance him/her from the leadership position and observe circumstances surrounding it from a distance. This allows the leader to know what to do and lay down strategies of achieving the required outcome. Also, from a distance, a leader has a better chance of studying the challenges compared to when acting in full leadership authority. After setting the necessary plans in motion, the leader observes the consequences and comes back in full force to take any further steps. This is what the book calls dancing on the floor.
The second thing that the leaders should do is thinking politically. This means that the leader should look at the working environment and learn what the opponents are doing. With the information on what the opponents are doing, the leader stands a better chance of making a better leadership strategy than the opponents. This follows the general law of politics in which one observes the opponents, learns of their weaknesses and exploits them making a better decision. It also allows the leader to learn how to relate with the opponents and gradually induce the change to which they should adapt to.
The third step is called orchestrating the conflict. This involves controlling the temperature or tension within the organization developed due to the change. The leader must first elevate the temperature to levels favoring the change. This results in great tension within the working environment. For productivity to remain high, the leader lowers the temperatures. This allows the organization to relax enhancing productivity.
The fourth step is defined as giving back the work. This is derived from the main topic sentence that ‘The people with the problem are the problem and the same people are the solution’. This allows the leader to give a possible response to the problem and apply it as a sample solution. The sample solution makes the problem to react in the best and expected manner to confirm the idea that work is given back.
The fifth step is to hold steady as the temperature elevate. This is one of the toughest tasks of a leader since it requires a lot of tolerance. This makes the leader to stand his/her ground in the event of change and remain focused on the set goal. Though this is one of the hardest tasks, it is one of the most vital tasks since it makes the leader understand the organization that he/she leads. If he/she surrenders to the pressure, the whole organization ends in a mess.
