Adaptive Leadership™

Adaptive Leadership™ is the proven business methodology created by the founders of Cambridge Leadership Associates (CLA).

It is a set of frameworks, strategies and practices that can help an organisation and its people overcome gridlocks, accomplish deep change and develop the adaptability to thrive in complex, competitive and challenging environments.

Adaptive Leadership™ is not about individuals and how well they are doing. It is about understanding adaptive pressures and dynamics, and using those insights to be more successful in leading change in a changing environment. It is also about developing the understanding, practices and disciplines necessary to thrive in an organisation that is historically non-adaptive.

What makes Adaptive Leadership™ different?

Adaptive Leadership™ differs from other leadership approaches in such core beliefs as:

• Leadership can be learned. It is not an inherent set of traits such as charisma, it is about understanding, behaviours and actions
• The adaptability of an organisation depends on having widespread leadership that can come from anywhere within, not just from those in top positions of authority
• Adaptive change generates resistance so exercising leadership can be both difficult and dangerous
• Adaptive change generates resistance so exercising leadership can be both difficult and dangerous
• Real business and change challenges provide the ideal context for developing key skills

Who benefits most from Adaptive Leadership™?

At an organisational level:

• Adaptive Leadership™ will benefit any company or group that seeks to achieve its goals, realise its mission quickly and sustain the changes required at all levels within the organisation
• An organisation will often turn to Adaptive Leadership™ when change initiatives have stalled and it wants to create a more adaptive culture, able to deal with change more openly and effectively. It can also be used in successful organisations to develop greater organisational adaptive capacity in order to deal with foreseen changes in the external environment

At a personal level:

• Adaptive Leadership™ is ideal for leaders who want to introduce and manage change more skillfully
• It enables leaders to work through deep value conflicts within their organisation and resolve issues with dysfunctional and uncommunicative senior management teams
• It benefits every practitioner as it promotes a better understanding of what is required to achieve and sustain success and to reduce personal risks
• It also increases personal tolerance of the chaos and conflict that inevitably accompany systemic change

Who is CLA?

CLA was founded in 2002 by Professor Ronald A. Heifetz (Director of the Centre for Public Leadership at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government) and Marty Linksy (faculty member, Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government) following the tremendous response to their book, Leadership on the Line (Harvard Business Press, 2002).

CLA applies the principles of Adaptive Leadership™, first presented in the book, to commercial, government and educational institutions globally.
CLA’s partnership with Corven will give European organisations the opportunity to resolve difficult business issues by harnessing the combined power of CLA’s proven methodology and Corven’s results-driven consulting.

“Corven and CLA share many of the same values. We have great respect for their work. We’re very excited about joining with their professionals to make the framework of Adaptive Leadership more widely available.” Marty Linsky