Dissonance with Adaptive Leadership

Contributor: Shashank

This piece was written in response to the experience of Adaptive Leadership as I experienced in Acumen Academy in 2016. 

Adaptive Leadership is a popular leadership theory and practice that got developed in the Harvard University and spread through several corporate and social sector platforms. This article and this film gives a good introduction to the practice.

• Heat: This idea of surfacing the heat that’s already there in the room by the facilitator and letting the group get exposed to that is flawed to me.
•  There is a very important place of ‘तप’- just enough heat to let one journey on inner work - not more one would burn out- not less it would not lead to progress. This is so unique to each individuals journey. 
• When the facilitator becomes the ‘doer’ and decided to surface / raise the heat - it misses the point. The practice is built by a western mind based on eastern philosophy of samoohik Sadhana -  however the Harvard folks wouldn’t fully understand it because they may not have lived it. 
• Collective Churning happens in collective fields cultivated over years of practice alone and together. 
• Adaptive Leadership blind spots need for a collective field that holds the ego of the facilitator and enables her / him to become aware of that. In wherever I have experienced that wouldn’t happen. Because facilitator is sitting on the balcony and not on the dance floor with the group. 

• Facilitator:  A lot of inner work for me happens in *pre-verbal space*- space beyond words. Because language is based on principles of distinctive mind. And inner work takes us to places of coming face to face with our wounds / traumas > that needs a *healing heart* more Than a distinctive mind. Else the heat will burn the group out (Seminar 2) 

• Balcony - Sitting on the balcony seems to be an important idea in AL. I understand it as a practice of cultivating a subjective distance from what’s happening. I see it of a lot of value > becoming aware of a situation. However what’s the balcony for the balcony? because balcony more often than not becomes an ego trip for those in authority. What’s the practice of observing the observer- becoming aware of one’s own awareness - without that balcony become an analytical place rather an intuitive space. 

• Leadership seen from POV of authority and then AL’s effort to disrupt it - As is the case AL got developed in Harvard > practised with folks already in authority to disappoint their own people at a tolerable pace. From authority trying to give way to leadership. However *what’s a way of building leadership that’s not based on conventional authority structures is not reflected in AL at all.* For me our Adaptive Design seminar lost the case - for AL - I didn’t have the language then to communicate it. Because AL starts at a noble place of values however doesn’t let those values call out the systemic reality. It’s kind of a safe middle class way of engaging with the system.