Adaptive Leadership Examples: Turning Disruption into Growth

Adaptive Leadership Examples matter because most leaders don’t struggle with their effort. They struggle with diagnosing what the actual problem is. When disruption hits, most leaders focus on technical issues, adding training and working harder. Sometimes that works. But when the real issue is communication, trust, or competing values, all the training in the world won’t change anything.

Adaptive leadership is different. It requires people to learn, let go of what used to work, and build new habits that will make a difference in their personal and professional lives.

That is uncomfortable!

Here is what leadership in disruption looks like in practice.

I had a mentor that I speak about often, his name was Dr. Danny Drubin. When he looked at my statistics and realized that I was just coasting and starting to go backwards in my productivity he would call my office.

My staff would tell me it was a personal call and when I picked up the phone all I would hear on the other end was a voice saying, “It’s time to get uncomfortable!” then he would hang up the phone.

Real World Adaptive Leadership Case Example: Leading Through Uncertainty

A CEO of a major charity for veterans approached me after a keynote speech. There was something I said that really stuck with him and hit him hard. I was talking about the difference between certain employees that just showed up and did the job and others that were high achievers.

I said, “Some people are just doing time. They show up, check in, check out, and do the bare minimum to stay employed.” He told me that was exactly what he was experiencing especially with some of his leadership who had been with the charity for a long time.

Not bad people. Not incompetent. Just disconnected.

So, he made the hard call. He upgraded the leadership team with people who were truly involved, who owned results, who participated. The outcome was measurable. They went from two million dollars in donations to nine million the following year. Same mission. Same market. Different leadership behavior.

This is changing leadership that drives performance improvement.

This post is part of the Adaptive Leadership series. For the full model and the other tools, start with the Adaptive Leadership pillar page.

What Makes a Situation in Need of Adaptive Change

An adaptive challenge that needs change has at least one of these traits:

• The communication is not clear, or people do not agree on the answer
• Employees must change their behavior, not just follow a new process or system
• There are competing values and real losses involved if there is no change
• Learning must happen in real time while outcomes still matter before it’s too late

Use the adaptive leadership case examples below to spot common patterns. The industry may change, but people are people.

Adaptive Leadership Examples You Can Apply in Any Organization

Adaptive Leadership Example 1: When Leaders Are Doing Time and Performance Flatlines

The disruption is not always loud and evident. Sometimes it looks like quiet disengagement where people do the minimum amount of work to get by. Projects drag on and standards soften. You get busy work without accountability or ownership. When that shows up in leadership roles, it becomes contagious.

The adaptive leadership move is to confront involvement, not just performance.

This is exactly what my client did, the CEO of that major veteran’s charity and the results spoke for themselves!

That is one of the clearest Adaptive Leadership Examples I can point to. Involvement is a performance improvement multiplier.

Adaptive Leadership Example 2: A Merger Creates Conflict and Slows Decisions

I have gone through this situation a few times with McDonnell Douglas and Boeing, Coopers and Lybrand and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

The disruption becomes a cultural collision when two groups bring a different corporate language and different standards when becoming one. People defend their old identity and turf. Collaboration becomes transactional and communication is diminished. Decision making slows down because every decision becomes a political debate.

This culture shift requires leading through uncertainty.

The adaptive leadership move is to build a shared identity based on outcomes, not history, forming a new cultural identity.

The focus of the leader is to bring cross functional groups together to define three things:

• What core values and cultural identity must be preserved
• What are the changes that need to be made starting now
• What will define our success and what will it look like in the next 60 to 90 days

Then the leader delegates a small number of joint projects with clear goals and KPIs. They determine who owns the project and require a weekly learning review.

Not a status meeting. A learning review. What did we try, what did we learn, what do we change next week.

The result is reduced conflict and roadblock because people stop defending the past and start building shared wins in the present. This is organizational learning in action.

Adaptive Leadership Example 3: Fixing Customer Experience Breakdowns Between Departments

The disruption is that everyone is busy, there is a communication breakdown and the customer still suffers. Each department focuses on its own work. The experience breakdowns happens when two different departments must communicate with each other to satisfy the customer.

When the system is failing and complaints rise the retention will begin to slip. Leaders keep asking for better service, but the system keeps producing the same problems.

The change leadership move is to make the communication the work.

The leader needs to outline the customer journey with multiple teams and identify the two biggest breakdown points. The leader then assigns both teams joint ownership of improving the system to serve the customer.

The result is performance improvement that sticks because accountability is shared where customers feel it. This adaptive leadership case example forces collaboration and communication where the system used to fail.

Adaptive Leadership Example 4: When Innovation Stalls Under Pressure

The disruption in this case is fear. Many leaders when under pressure start to play it safe, they stopped taking risks and experimenting with new processes that could make a difference. They are playing a defensive game and if you’re not moving forward, you’re going to be moving backwards sooner or later. They stop offering ideas because ideas feel dangerous when the culture punishes mistakes.

The innovation leadership move is to normalize organizational learning.

The leader sets several projects with achievable goals and defines the key performance indicators that will determine success. Each week a review of processes is set up with the leader and the team. They celebrate the goals that have already been achieved and evaluate the ones yet to be achieved for further improvement and efficiency.

The result is faster learning cycles and better decisions because evidence replaces opinion. This is leading through uncertainty by creating safe spaces for experimentation.

The Leadership Moves Behind These Adaptive Leadership Examples

Across industries, Adaptive Leadership Examples work when leaders make the same three moves consistently.

Move 1: Get Reality into the Room Early

Most teams don’t have an information problem they have a trust problem. People see issues all the time but do not say anything. So, you get last minute surprises instead of early course correction.

This is critical for leading through uncertainty.

Ask for risks and challenges before you ask for updates. Invite dissent. Reward truth telling. Then close the loop by showing what you did and how you are going to use their input. Your team will speak up more when leaders show they have listened and it matters.

Move 2: Create Productive Tension and Regulate It

Adaptive leadership requires discomfort. Your job is not to remove all tension. Your job is to keep it productive.

• Raise the heat when people avoid the real issue challenge them to develop a solution
• Lower the heat when the team is overwhelmed to keep the communication flowing
• Keep the team open to learning long enough for new behavior to form and be adapted

This is what I mean by leadership in disruption. Real time judgment and action steps that provides exceptional results. What does the team need right now to stay engaged, be successful and keep moving.

This skill is essential for change leadership and driving a successful culture shift.

Move 3: Give the Work Back with Guardrails

Leaders get trapped when they become the solution. The more you rescue, the more your team waits. Over time, you train smart people to bring you problems instead of bringing you systems and solutions.

Giving the work back is not dumping tasks. It is a deliberate delegation of ownership to the people closest to the work while you keep responsibility for vision, mission and the tools they need to succeed.

Clarify what decisions can be made on their own and what they need sign off on. Agree on what is reversible and what is not. Define the goals of the project and the key performance indicators that will define success.

Then coach the thinking and the “Why” instead of supplying the answer. This is how ownership becomes a system, not a personality trait.

This approach drives both organizational learning and sustained performance improvement.

Where to Go Deeper with Adaptive Leadership

If you want more leadership insight and research backed guidance, McKinsey’s leadership collection is a strong resource: McKinsey leadership insights.

Many corporations and organizations like to bring these tools to their leaders through a keynote that connects leadership in disruption to performance improvement, explore my leadership keynote speaker programs.

Bottom Line on Adaptive Leadership Examples

Adaptive Leadership Examples reinforce a simple truth. Disruption does not disappear. Leaders win by turning disruption into learning, aligning people around real tradeoffs, and building behaviors that hold under pressure.

One final truth from the field. When people are doing time, you do not coach your way out with more reminders. You change the expectations, you change the conversations, and when needed, you change the leadership. That is how you go from stuck to growth.

These adaptive leadership case examples demonstrate that leading through uncertainty is not about having all the answers. It is about creating the conditions where teams can discover answers together, drive organizational learning, execute culture shifts, and deliver measurable performance improvement.