Leading Dynamically: Achieve What Others Say is Impossible

This month's ATTRACTORS is written by Associate, Kristine Quade, JD, MSOD, HSDP.


Environmental conditions change rapidly. Information is available to anyone at any time. Social networks erode the established hierarchy. Product development cycle times decrease at a shocking pace. Market conditions respond to a different set of rules. In these shifting conditions, traditional leadership models are not working. How can any modern-day leader function effectively in the face of these enormous challenges?

In turbulent times, when outcomes are unpredictable, those who lead dynamically will succeed. Dynamical leaders pay attention to three conditions to ensure an effective, highly functioning organization: coherence, resilience, and fitness. The leader who masters these conditions will achieve what others say is impossible!

Coherence can be thought of as smooth functioning among interdependent parts. An organization needs to be coherent with market conditions to remain strong in its strategic space. Departments need coherence of both process and outcomes to ensure their activities are well coordinated. Teams need coherent behavior among team members and with organizational direction and goals to work effectively for the organization’s benefit. Patterns of interaction and decision making that build coherence keep communication open and honest, ensure clarity of roles and responsibilities, build shared identity, and create a rhythm of high performance.

Resilience is the ability to integrate, re-calibrate, and recover quickly when challenged. The normal inclination is to fall back to familiar ground, carefully observing and exploring until the new becomes familiar once again. Resilient leaders constantly place themselves in unfamiliar conditions, stretching their capacity to absorb and adjust. They seek what is different in perspective, approach, or opinion; they connect across boundaries; and they explore new ideas and technologies like curious scientists. Resilient leaders regularly look for constraints in thinking, decision making, relationships, and behavior. They actively explore their own and others’ filters, viewpoints, and judgments. They constantly seek ways to break constraints to keep themselves open and adaptive. Patterns that build resilience include multiple perspectives, continuous learning, and effective feedback. The resilient cycle of exploration and knowledge generation depends on insights about external markets, interactions with customers, attention to shifting conditions, and employee curiosity. A resilient leader notices patterns such as creativity, exploration, collaboration, and integration.

Fitness, from a leader’s point of view, is not about athletics. Instead, it is about constantly scanning the environment for potential surprises to see how their organizations can use new information, prepare for possible challenges, and avoid potential pitfalls. As leaders scan their environments, they regard blips of activity and trends of behavior as pieces of a larger puzzle to be solved. They know it is their job to make meaning of the valuable information drawn from these changes. These leaders have inquiring minds and build organizational cultures where people talk candidly about what they notice, listen attentively to different perspectives, and discern emerging patterns from what they see, hear and experience.

How does paying attention to coherence, resilience, and fitness ensure capacity to accomplish what others think is impossible? Some leaders choose to focus their attention on building coherence. For instance, they focus on clarity of mission, vision, values, etc. Other leaders use their energy to build resilience and strength across their organizations. A few leaders even seek to learn from their environments. YES! These are all necessary to organizational success, but none of them alone is sufficient. Coherence forms the ground floor of an effective organization, but what keeps an organization alive is resilience and fitness—the ability to adapt to what is important.

Sad as it may be, it is no longer possible to execute a strategic plan that projects out five years. Dynamical leaders know their approach to business opportunities requires constant vigilance for shifting environmental conditions and the ability to adapt with urgency. Operating in these conditions means that leaders must expand their focus to grow their organizations’ capabilities to be resilient and fit into an environment of rapid change.

If you wish to learn more about this type of thinking and how to become a dynamical leader, register for the two-day course Lead Dynamically: Achieve What Others Say Is Impossible offered by The Center for Human Systems Dynamics at St. Thomas University. You can also buy the book Dynamical Leadership: Building Adaptive Capacity in Uncertain Times on the HSD Institute website.

Kristine Quade
JD, MSOD, HSDP