The fourth in our suite of Leadership Development trainings, Adaptive Leadership is designed for experienced lay leaders and professional staff who are looking to help their congregations face challenges without easy answers.
The “Adaptive Leadership” framework, pioneered by Harvard’s Dr. Ronald Heifetz, is more than a toolbox of tips. It will change the way you think about your own leadership and will equip you to lead through any change, welcome or unwelcome.
Training materials are divided into modules, available “on demand” as pre-recorded presentations with additional reading materials, discussion questions and other resources.
For the best results, take this training with several other congregational leaders as a team. You will use the concepts and strategies taught in the training to address a real case study from your own congregation with the instructor.
Leadership Development Teams!
Each module has discussion questions (and sometimes activities) that you can use in person so your leaders can learn together and build deeper relationships and trust. The Facilitators monitor and respond to the discussion threads.
This training works best for people who have a grounding in systems thinking, including but not limited to
- Centered Leadership 100/101,
- Healthy Congregations®
- Regional Leadership School/Experience or equivalent
- Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times by Peter Steinke
- Thinking in Systems by Donella H. Meadows
- The Whole Church by Ken Reeves
Optional Text: The Practice of Adaptive Leadership By Ronald A. Heifetz, Marty Linsky, Alexander Grashow
Learning Goals
• Understand the difference between adaptive and technical challenges
• Understand the form and purpose of “powerful questions” for adaptive challenges
• The need for low-risk / high-learning experiments
• Developing a culture of vulnerability-based trust
• The qualities of a cohesive leadership team
• Strategies to create “balcony space” (i.e. get the big picture)
• Using a sample case study, learn how to apply different adaptive strategies
• How to keep the organization in “learning mode”
• A deeper understanding in how to modulate conflict to keep it in the “creative zone”
• Understanding that some social virtues can also be enabling behaviors
• The Fifth Discipline – Using systems thinking to make the congregation smarter
• 8 habits of a learning community
Rev. Renée Ruchotzke, UUA Congregational Life Consultant
