Embodying adaptive leadership means taking on a whole new vision for what leadership can be. Too often, leadership is associated with authority figures who provide protection, direction, and order. Adaptive leadership, on the other hand, is about engaging people in the activity of leadership.
Adaptive work requires the multitude, not just the manager, to be engaged. Making progress relies on collaboration rather than commands from above. It allows each of us to leverage our gifts, abilities, and passions against our weaknesses and challenges. It’s about using the insights, discernment, and energy of as many stakeholders as possible. But in order for people to get involved, we have to create a trustworthy process.
To bring a group of diverse individuals with varying perspectives to the same table, they have to know that they can trust the process even if they’re not sure about everyone with them at the table. It’s not about who is right and wrong, about who is winning or losing, but how the group can make progress. For that to happen we have to feel that we are safe enough to work together, which requires processes we can trust.
There is no formula for creating a trustworthy process but it is often found when a balance of transparency and confidentiality is present. Transparency without confidentiality creates an unsafe environment to share openly with vulnerability. Confidentiality without transparency creates suspicion of those leading. A balance of the two allows for hard truths to be shared without leaving those sharing them exposed or demonized.
The way Jesus engaged people around meal tables is an interesting example of creating a trustworthy process. Jesus abandoned the typical restrictions on who he should and shouldn’t eat with. In Luke 5:27-32, Jesus dines with “tax collectors and sinners.” Jesus made a place, literally around a table, where a variety of people could interact and work together. While he faced opposition from the outside, those dining with him became his followers and joined in Jesus’ Kingdom work.
“Don’t confuse trustworthy with conflict-free,” write Ed O’Malley and Amanda Cebula in Your Leadership Edge. “A trustworthy process doesn’t mean there’s an absence of tension. Rather, it’s by working through the tension that people make progress.” In many cases, our inability to make progress is based on the fact that trust has been eroded. But even when we disagree, if we have trustworthy processes in place we can begin to experience change in a positive way!
--Clayton Gladish