The article describes the myths around leadership that pervade our Western culture: myths of the warrior, king, hero or “Lone Ranger”. Just taking some time to look around and these metaphors for leadership are emulated and played out all around us. (A certain Commander-in-Chief comes to mind.) These myths are limiting and do not give the full range of how leadership may be approached. That is one thing I’m particularly interested in as part of this Institute: what are the various ways leadership may be expressed?
Parks puts forward an alternate myth, that of leader not as hero, but as artist. She describes the creative process many artists take and then applies that process to leadership.
Adaptive leadership takes on this metaphor of leadership as artistry. Rather than pencil and paper, or clay, or music, the medium of adaptive leadership is the “dynamic field of relationships” in which the leader is engaged.
“…If one learns to understand the nature of the system that needs to be mobilized (the underlying structure and patters of motion), he or she can become artfully adept at intervening in ways that are more rather than less likely to have a positive affect in helping the group to move to a new place, creating a new reality.”
Since I first participated in Artist Way several years ago, I have been continuing my process of connecting with my artist self and discovering my own creative process.
To tap into one’s own creativity, one must be willing to work on an edge, to explore the unknown. True creativity happens when one is willing to do things outside of one’s comfort zone. This has been true for me in my development as an artist. As I have learned how to draw, I’ve had to try new things. Drawing from new angles, new subject matter, or new methods for creating the result. Do I use a soft pencil less? Or a hard pencil more to get a particular shade? It’s no means a high risk sort of situation, but it is still the process of trying new things, exploring options and testing new ideas.
By working on the edge “between the familiar and the emergent,” a leader must remain open to questions and doubt as well as taking action.
“Those who practice adaptive leadership must confront, disappoint and dismantle and at the same time energize, inspire and empower. The creativity that emerges from working on the paradoxical edge is integral to adaptive work, building out of what has come before, yet stirring into being something new and unprecedented — the character of leadership that is needed at this threshold time in human history.”
This also relates to the concept of sustainable leadership. One of the principles of sustainable leadership is to be willing to work around a certain degree of chaos.
As leaders, we need to develop the courage to create. I’ve learned that creativity takes practice. To bring out something new from things that have existed once before requires some courage and risk-taking.
Part of finding the creativity in leadership is to look to where there is conflict, “conscious conflict”, and explore ways to collectively resolve that conflict. Adaptive leaders recognize the opportunity within the conflict. A leader can learn not only to take action to resolve the conflict, but to pause to allow for new insights to develop.
In the end, an artist must be invested in the work to truly reach an inspired result. The same is true with an adaptive leader, one must be invested to bringing out to potential that lies within the group, organization or society.
