Adaptable Leadership for our VUCA World

Adaptable Leadership for our VUCA World
By
Bill Cottringer

In today’s world of volatility, uncertainty, constant change and ambiguity (VUCA), leaders are being challenged to develop an adaptive approach to coaching others in the organization buy demonstrating essential authentic leadership qualities. In leading by example, the most effective authentic leaders focus on their own self-actualization in all areas of their lives—physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, social and vocational. This lifelong process involves developing and using three main sets of skills to close gaps in their own personal development journeys to model and demonstrate for others to emulate. These three key performance indicators are critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and mindfulness, as discussed briefly below. Adaptive leadership is more of a general framework under which to apply a leader’s preferred leadership style or theory, which matches his or her unique personality, values and ways of thinking and being.

1. Critical Thinking.

Critical thinking has always been needed back to the time when the early Greek Philosophers were struggling to understand perplexing problems like the meaning of life and attempting to answer difficult moral questions about right and wrong. But the present-day demand for critical thinking has become urgent for us all, being prompted by several major inter-related paradigm shifts and trends happening in today’s world. Some of these are the questioning of values, evolution of the Information Age, a dramatic shift from a competitive win-lose mentality to a cooperative win-win one, and going into new, unfamiliar territory without a map.

Most systems of critical thinking identify the needed characteristics of humility, honesty, integrity, civility, empathy, justice, perseverance, courage and confidence in applying completeness, accuracy, relevance, logic, fairness, precision, significance, breadth, clarity and depth to answer questions and solve problems. In thinking critically, it is important to be aware of all the cognitive, emotional, cultural and other built-in biases that can distort the truth of something. And of course, even with critical thinking there is always a leap of faith you have to take regarding the validity of the source you are using, no matter how diligent you are in the process.

Three Benefits of Critical Thinking:

• Finding important principles about how life and people work to apply in similar situations in the future.
• Discovering creative approaches and achieving better problem-solving results.
• Getting to the best truth of a situation, by removing biases, unverified assumptions, illusions, distortions and irrelevant information.

Three Ways to Increase Critical Thinking:

• Reading books and articles about this topic for inspiration.
• Redefining ideas like creativity and intuition, to get more of these things to have in your toolbox.
• Exploring ethical dilemmas for reasonable compromises that are based on sound moral principles.

2. Emotional Intelligence.

People with high emotional intelligence are generally happier, enjoy better relationships, and are more successful than those without it. Emotional intelligence includes self-awareness, self-regulation, reading others’ emotions accurately, empathy, intrinsic motivation and social skills. People with high emotional intelligence understand the value of developing a likeable personality by being agreeable, accepting, positive, honest, humorous and good listeners, which all collectively avoid Glasser’s interpersonal irritability and help others meet Maslow’s essential needs.

Emotional intelligence also helps improve communication, by creating a supportive climate. Being supportive includes the conscious effort to convey the needed qualities of acceptance, freedom, equality, empathy, spontaneity and tentativeness, which we all want. On the other hand, a defensive tone which shuts down communication, is caused by conveying the unwanted qualities of judgment, control, superiority, insensitivity, manipulation and certainty.

Three Benefits of Emotional Intelligence:

• Improving communication which increases productivity and satisfaction in personal and work relationships.
• Resolving conflicts with others by managing unproductive emotions and egos that get in the way.
• Questioning beliefs that may be based more on feelings rather than rational facts.

Three Ways to Increase Emotional Intelligence:

• Seeking honest feedback from trusted others about how they perceive you.
• Sharing vulnerabilities at the right time to reduce the defensiveness of having them.
• Reading stories or watching movies that exemplify strong motivation or empathy by exceptional individuals.

3. Mindfulness.

Although mindfulness was originally practiced as a form of meditation by the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, it has been popularized today by the helping professions, as a means to deal with behavioral health problems. It has been estimated that we spend over 70% of our waking time thinking about everything but what we are doing. This seems like a great waste of time, which is the one most valuable resource that is equally distributed, but very unequally used.

Mindfulness involves decreasing the time we spend thinking about things in the past or what might happen in the future, while increasing the time thinking about the situation we are in at the present moment. The past can only influence us if we let it and we can never know the future, without first knowing the present. By becoming more aware of the most relevant things going on right now, we can become more successful in what we are currently doing, which can ensure a more successful future.

Three Benefits of Mindfulness:

• Managing time better by not wasting it with mind-wandering and improving performance now with the time saved.
• Making better responses to situations by being more aware of what is presently going on.
• Improving cognitive functioning, having better health, and being less stressed, depressed or anxious.

Three Ways to increase Mindfulness:

• Catching yourself mind-wandering, measuring the time being wasted and then thinking about how that keeps you from being more successful by paying less attention to what you are currently doing.
• Practicing some form of meditation to clear rambling thoughts in emptying the mind for important insights to enter.
• Communing with nature and focusing on what you can learn from your observations that can help improve the quality of your life.

The adaptive leadership path involves using these three main skills to reach a healthy balance somewhere between the critical polar behaviors in leadership, so that the leadership toolbox is expanded to cover all bases so to speak. The balanced leader adapts to the situation or problem at hand with the behavior that is most appropriate and effective at the time and place. You can do your own adaptive balance self-assessment on the form below:

Thinking ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Feeling
Extroverted ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Introverted
Inner-directed ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Other-directed
Judging ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Perceiving
Sensing ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Intuitive
Serious ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Playful
Discrete ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Transparent
Calm ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Excitable
Tender-hearted ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Tough-minded
Impatient ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Patient
Big picture ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Detailed
Conforming ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Non-conforming
Creative ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Practical
Suspicious ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Trusting
Flexible ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Fixed
Controlling ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Empowering
Spontaneous ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Restrained Planner
Abstract ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Concrete
Forceful ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Submissive
Empathetic ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Firm
Self-confident ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Humble
Traditional ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Innovative
Task Focused ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ People Focused
Speaking ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Listening
Accountable ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Compassionate
Adaptive ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Stabilizing
Decisive ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Inclusive
Cautioned ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Courageous
Minimalist ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Collector
Optimist ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Pessimist
Dreaming ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Realism
Logical ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Emotional
Structured ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Laizze-faire
Vulnerable ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Resilient
Self-accepting ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Self-improving
Subjective ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Objective
Certainty ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Curiosity
Assertive ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Accommodating
Leading ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Following
Giving ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Taking
Teaching ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Learning
Altruistic ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Self-interest
Generous ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Boundaries
Persistent ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Letting Go
Top-down ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Bottom-up