Complex Adaptive Leadership

Complex Adaptive Leadership, a Gower bestseller, has been taught in corporate leadership programmes, business schools and universities around the world to high acclaim. In this updated paperback edition, the author argues that leadership is a complex dynamic process and should involve all those engaged in a particular enterprise. Nick Obolensky has practised, researched and taught leadership in the public, private and voluntary sectors, and in this exciting book he brings together his knowledge of theory, his own experience, and the results of 19 years of research involving 2,500 executives in 40 countries around the world.

Complex Adaptive Leadership, a Gower bestseller, has been taught in corporate leadership programmes, business schools and universities around the world to high acclaim. In this updated paperback edition, the author argues that leadership is a complex dynamic process and should involve all those engaged in a particular enterprise. Nick Obolensky has practised, researched and taught leadership in the public, private and voluntary sectors, and in this exciting book he brings together his knowledge of theory, his own experience, and the results of 19 years of research involving 2,500 executives in 40 countries around the world.

Most leadership assumptions are based on a deterministic view of the world. If you do X you should get Y, process can be employed for most things, and more complicated problems can be analysed to enable better decisions. Whilst these approaches suit the Simple and the Complicated, they do not work so well for the Complex. The Complex needs a different approach the core of which is to enable the organisation being led to be agile and self-organising. More for Less introduces a new paradigm for leadership, Leadership 4.0. Based on his previous book, Complex Adaptive Leadership, Nick Obolensky has created a simple and step by step approach to Leadership 4.0 whilst challenging and questioning the reader to be more effective and less busy. This book is an essential tool for the busy leader and manager and will appeal to practitioners wishing to improve their leadership effectiveness. It will also appeal to students and researchers in the field of leadership.

In times of constant change, adaptive leadership is critical. This Harvard Business Review collection brings together the seminal ideas on how to adapt and thrive in challenging environments, from leading thinkers on the topic—most notably Ronald A. Heifetz of the Harvard Kennedy School and Cambridge Leadership Associates. The Heifetz Collection includes two classic books: Leadership on the Line, by Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky, and The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, by Heifetz, Linsky, and Alexander Grashow. Also included is the popular Harvard Business Review article, “Leadership in a (Permanent) Crisis,” written by all three authors. Available together for the first time, this collection includes full digital editions of each work. Adaptive leadership is a practical framework for dealing with today’s mix of urgency, high stakes, and uncertainty. It has been used by individuals, organizations, businesses, and governments worldwide. In a world of challenging environments, adaptive leadership serves as a guide to distinguishing the essential from the expendable, beginning the meaningful process of adaption, and changing the status quo. Ronald A. Heifetz is a cofounder of the international leadership and consulting practice Cambridge Leadership Associates (CLA) and the founding director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is renowned worldwide for his innovative work on the practice and teaching of leadership. Marty Linsky is a cofounder of CLA and has taught at the Kennedy School for more than twenty-five years. Alexander Grashow is a Senior Advisor to CLA, having previously held the position of CEO.

Rooted in the study of chaos and complexity, Adaptive Action introduces a simple, common sense process that will guide you and your organization into reflective action. This elegant method prompts readers to engage with three deceptively simple questions: What? So what? Now what? The first leads to careful observation. The second invites you to thoughtfully consider options and implications. The third ignites effective action. Together, these questions and the tools that support them produce a dynamic and creative dance with uncertainty. The road-tested steps of adaptive action can be used to devise solutions and improve performance across multiple challenges, and they have proven to be scalable from individuals to work groups, from organizations to communities. In addition to laying out the adaptive action framework and clear protocols to support it, Glenda H. Eoyang and Royce J. Holladay introduce best practices from exemplary professionals who have used adaptive action to meet personal, professional, and political challenges in leadership, consulting, Alzheimer's treatment, evaluation, education reform, political advocacy, and cultural engagement—readying readers to employ this new toolkit to meet their own goals with a sense of ingenuity and flexibility.

A hands-on, practical guide, "Practice of Adaptive Leadership" contains stories, tools, diagrams, cases, and worksheets to help managers develop their skills as leaders who are able to take people outside their comfort zones and address the toughest challenges.

This book introduces leadership and organizational scholars to the potenial of complexity science for broadening leadership study beyond its traditional focus on leaders’ actions and influence, to a consideration of leadership as a broader, dynamically and interactive organizing process. The book offers a primer on complexity science and its applications to organization studies, and compares the logics of complexity science with those underlying traditional leadership approaches. It describes methodological approaches for studying leadership from a complexity perspective, and offers examples of applications of complexity science to leadership theory. Chapters are written by top scholars in complexity and leadership theory.

The economy uncertain, education in decline, cities under siege, crime and poverty spiraling upward, international relations roiling: we look to leaders for solutions, and when they don’t deliver, we simply add their failure to our list of woes. In doing do, we do them and ourselves a grave disservice. We are indeed facing an unprecedented crisis of leadership, Ronald Heifetz avows, but it stems as much from our demands and expectations as from any leader’s inability to meet them. His book gets at both of these problems, offering a practical approach to leadership for those who lead as well as those who look to them for answers. Fitting the theory and practice of leadership to our extraordinary times, the book promotes a new social contract, a revitalization of our civic life just when we most need it. Drawing on a dozen years of research among managers, officers, and politicians in the public realm and the private sector, among the nonprofits, and in teaching, Heifetz presents clear, concrete prescriptions for anyone who needs to take the lead in almost any situation, under almost any organizational conditions, no matter who is in charge, His strategy applies not only to people at the top but also to those who must lead without authority—activists as well as presidents, managers as well as workers on the front line.

Written by leading experts in the field, this volume seeks to provide new insights and tools that have only recently become apparent through advances in complexity science.

Lead effectively in today's complex health systems! As hospitals and healthcare organizations strive to meet standards to achieve status in the Magnet Hospital Recognition Program and address the issues in the Institute of Medicine’s Nursing Work Force Issues Initiative, they must be able to respond in ways that embrace rapid change. The 3rd Edition of this groundbreaking text addresses the leadership roles advanced practice nurses can assume in this new environment. It defines the concept of complexity and teaches the leadership skills that are best suited for complex adaptive systems, while also enabling you to build the self-awareness you need to learn new ways to lead. Case studies help you apply your new skills and prepare for your advanced practice roles.