How Adaptive Leaders Can Navigate Uncertainty with Agility

Whether you own a small business or are part of the C-suite of a large, even a multinational firm, running your company is vastly different from our parents’ and grandparents’ time. For every advancement, such as artificial intelligence and automation, heads of companies must work through myriad challenges that are new and unprecedented.

Given this new reality, leaders must learn how to pivot on a dime, so to speak, by adopting skills and the mindset to respond to anything adeptly. Still, many cling to the “tried and true” practice of strategic planning but can’t stand up to today’s challenges.

Their extensive timelines and meticulous details are no match for the fluid nature of geopolitical turmoil, supply chain disruptions and cybersecurity threats, all of which can drop out of the sky without warning. This disconnect makes it difficult for employees — often those tasked with carrying out the plan — to do their jobs.

There is ample evidence of the failure rate of strategic planning. In 2022, Harvard Business School published a study that revealed that 60% of strategic plans failed to yield desired outcomes. Indeed, 95% of employees surveyed in the same study could not articulate the core strategies adopted by their organization.

Small and large companies need new, adaptive, responsive ways to meet today’s challenges.

What is adaptive leadership?

Adaptive leadership means being flexible and responsive amid our “new normal.” It helps leaders pivot on a dime while reassessing their priorities. This enables them to put the best people and resources in place for the best outcomes to respond to day-to-day issues and during crises.

One of the core principles of adaptive leadership is the ability to make decisions in the moment, which is the foundation of my book, From War Zones to Boardrooms: Optimize the Moment When Strategic Planning Fails.

I spent most of my career working with people following the worst day of their lives. Hardly hyperbole, indeed, all had survived global conflicts; however, irrevocably changed. Many had lost family members, limbs, homes and their communities. Often, they had to make life-and-death decisions with little time to consider the implications.

Related: 3 Leadership Qualities That Helped Keep My Business Resilient To Crises

Through intelligence gathering, informed decision-making, data analysis, empathy, and assembling the best teams, in every instance these newly formed teams made decisions on the fly. Ironically, unlike corporations that spend time recruiting the “right people” and creating long-range goals, these teams comprised people who’d only recently met one another.

There’s no time to interview and assess both in a war zone and in the aftermath of one, so they had to go with the next best thing: shared loss and shared desires, along with leaders emerging to inspire others.

Empathy plays a crucial role

The days of the stoic leader are passé. Real leadership means putting oneself in the shoes of those who are expected to follow you and perform the work needed to move the company forward, particularly through challenges.

Empathetic leaders are attuned to their employees’ needs and concerns, which allows them to create an environment where everyone feels valued and heard, leading to more engagement and productivity.

I am a strategic advisor, working with Fortune 100 companies and other great organizations. I’m frequently in a position to see how powerful a motivator empathy is. Here’s one example that I share in Optimize the Moment.

I was in Iraq during the second Gulf War and active conflict. Our mission was to encourage communication among newly elected officials in a highly volatile environment.

Rather than direct or instruct, I listened to understand the perspectives and motivations of all sides. By building trust, listening and applying empathy (three seemingly simple concepts rarely employed in business or politics), we got to meaningful dialogue, which led to outcomes that all parties could get behind.

Related: You Might Think You’re a Great Leader — But Do Your Employees Agree? Here’s How to Harness Empathy to Drive Team Success

When we first arrived, the Iraqi Parliament was a boiling cauldron of sectarian strife and historical grievances. My team and I used an adaptive approach focused on building relationships and understanding the unique dynamics at play.

By prioritizing each participant’s feelings, experiences and suggestions, we quickly gained the trust of political and community leaders. Doing so allowed us to move toward negotiations with more agility, leading to the establishment of a national budget planning process and other critical governance structures.

This process, repeated over and over when I was in conflict and post-conflict zones, became the foundation of my approach to working with Fortune 100 companies. I call it Optimize the Moment™.

How leaders can apply these practical strategies

I am not a prescriptive or instructional person, so any suggestions I offer are based solely on my experience working in conflict and post-conflict zones, which I have continually used with my clients.

1. You can encourage your team to be flexible and open to change–but it starts with you being the same. This can be achieved by creating opportunities for employees to experiment with new ideas and by listening to them. They have excellent suggestions, given their perspectives.
2. I have found that jargon-free communication is essential for getting the thumbs up from team members to ensure everyone understands their role in the mission. Listen to team members’ concerns. It helps to provide constructive feedback immediately and keep the feedback loop reciprocal.
3. Giving team members the autonomy to make decisions is invaluable. This speeds up the decision-making process and results in a sense of ownership and accountability.
4. Part of empathy-based leadership is engagement. Sometimes, it can involve listening to personal struggles. When they’re heard and can work through those struggles, they will be more productive for the mission.
5. I never suggest to my clients that they cling to rigidity. I suggest they be prepared to reassess and be prepared to pivot. Make changes as needed.

I hope these have been helpful. I welcome your feedback.