One of the toughest times to be in a leadership position, either in the military or not, is during a crisis, let alone a major, world-wide crisis. Adaptive Leadership is encouraging others to have the ability to change their behaviors to better suit their environments. This leadership style “has been used effectively to explain how leaders encourage effective change across multiple levels, including self, organizational, community, and societal” (Northouse, 2016, p. 257). How many times were decisions made and then changed to adapt to the ever changing situation that is still evolving? An adaptive leadership approach to COVID-19 has been key to each country getting ahead of this virus. If they were not able to think on the fly and adapt to the changing environment, more people would have been effected. The leaders of the world have taught everyone how to adapt to our new environment in the best manner that they could have and we are now, hopefully, in a position to climb back to a normal sense of living. Six months ago, the Earth would never had guessed that we would completely close down the economic systems, crashed the markets, and raided stores in order to prepare for the end of the world. But, it happened, and here we are now, with our face masks on. “Adaptive challenges are problems that are not clear-cut or easy to identify” (Northouse, 2016, p. 262). COVID-19 is 100% an adaptive challenge and our leaders used their authority to combat it as best as they could. They forced everyone inside their homes, made them put masks on, and now we use the term “social distancing.”
The COVID-19 crisis has also been a major concern for the military. How do you successfully protect our country during a virus outbreak? Do terrorists still attack U.S. bases if they have the coronavirus? Even though the world stopped for a few months to let this virus pass over, the military did not. The leaders adapted to the new way of living in stride. They implemented the distancing measures and directed all of the members to wear masks to avoid spreading the disease as best as they could. An example of where the virus played a major impact was in basic military training. Less members were recruited in order to maintain more space in the dorm rooms, but without recruits coming into the military during this timeframe, there would be severe consequences down the road when it comes to promotion testing. This environment is where adaptive leaders, the Instructors, can thrive. We can consider basic training a holding environment. A holding environment is where the adaptive work is completed and plays a critical role in the adaptive process (Northouse, 2016). In this type of changing environment, the Instructors will have freedom to strategically interact with the followers (trainees) and have a grasp on the type of adaptive work that they want to accomplish. The term follower is used in the concept of adaptive leadership not as a subordinate, but rather as the individual that the leader is working with to complete the adaptive work (Northouse, 2016). Yes, basic trainees are very submissive when they first enter training, but after they are mentally striped of their normality, they become an adaptive follower that will be build back up in a few short weeks.
If our leaders had taken a different approach to this crisis, we may be in a very different environment now. Instead, we are looking at returning to normal, with a few contingencies, in a few months. The individuals that experienced this crisis will always remember it, just like the world remembers where they were when the U.S. was attacked on September 11th. We will eventually break away from our struggles and there is a light at the end of the tunnel because of the way our leaders helped us adapt to our new lifestyle.
References
Northouse, P. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice, Seventh Edition. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
anm5670 says
CO-VID 19 hit the world hard and we all had to adapt to the changes that came from it. The Coronavirus brought travel restrictions and social distancing requirements to protect people and their families from the virus. You are right, it created new challenges to supporting missions for the military. “The goal of adaptive leadership is to encourage people to change and learn new ways of living so that they may do well and grow” (Northouse, 2016, p. 258). Adaptive leaders mobilize, motivate, organize, orient, and focus the attention onto others to resolve the changes.
“The Department of Defense developed a risk-based flexible plan to guide leaders on how to protect the health and ensure the safety of service members and their families while continuing to support critical missions” (Military Onsource, 2020, p.1). In this plan, the safety of the military members included: finding an alternate place of duty, promoting remote work, and considering the needs of family members. It was also noted that with training and recruitment, the leaders and followers had to adapt to electronic based distributed learning. CO-VID 19 is something we all are going to remember because our way of life has changed and we have to adapt to the new normal: masks, social distancing, ect.
REFERENCES
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Military Onsource. “How COVID-19 Changes Affect Training, Duty, Pay and Benefits.” 2020. Retrieved at https://www.militaryonesource.mil/family-relationships/family-life/covid-19-resources/how-covid-19-changes-affect-training-duty-pay-and-benefits
cjb127 says
Thanks for this post. I always find it fascinating to read about or discuss the various long-term ramifications of events. There is no doubt that the world will be changed permanently based on what we’ve gone through. I hadn’t thought about the effect on the military, but this makes a lot of sense and Adaptive Leadership certainly seems to be a highly valued skill and approach in this day and age.
I would respectfully disagree with your optimistic outlook however. Certainly, some countries have done very well with handling this crisis. Sadly, the United States is not one of them. On the very day you posted this, 49,932 new cases were confirmed in the United States alone. The very next day (July 2) 55,595 new cases were confirmed. Both of these are record numbers and it just keeps climbing, (The New York Times, 2020).
I agree that adaptive leadership would be the ideal model, but this requires actual adaptation. Adaptive leadership is primarily about the followers, and what leaders need to do to enact appropriate change among followers, (Northouse, p. 258). Our current national leadership (yes, I’m referring to President Trump and his team) simply refused to take this threat seriously at the beginning and have resisted change all along, sending the message to citizens that change wasn’t all that urgent. When masks were being recommended, our president shrugged off the idea as a mere matter of personal choice, (Liptak, 2020). He pushed to re-open the economy long before we had things under control, (NPR, 2020). He endorsed unscientific and pseudoscientific ideas that conveniently supported his wishes, (Sandler, 2020). These are the habits of someone who is looking to justify an agenda, not adapt to a changing landscape.
Only recently, vice president Pence has been seen wearing a mask and promoting their use, (Felicia Sonmez, 2020). This doesn’t represent adaptive leadership. It represents resistance to change. That said, many of our state governors have done an admirable job of adapting to the situation, taking unpopular positions and getting things under reasonable control. I’m extremely glad to be living in Connecticut now where Governor Lamont realized the severity of the situation early, listened to scientists, closed down much of the state, (NBC Connecticut, 2020) and we are now experiencing extraordinarily low levels of new infection. Of the 55,595 new infections in the United States just yesterday, only 74 were from Connecticut, (The New York Times, 2020). That represents 0.133%.
I sincerely wish I could share your optimism. Sadly, I don’t see the data to support it.
References
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
The New York Times. (2020, March 03). Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count. Retrieved July 03, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
Liptak, K. (2020, May 21). Trump says he won’t wear a mask in front of cameras. Retrieved July 03, 2020, from https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/21/politics/donald-trump-michigan-masks/index.html
President Trump Wants To Reopen Economy Despite CDC Warnings. (2020, May 06). Retrieved July 03, 2020, from https://www.npr.org/2020/05/06/851631806/president-trump-wants-to-reopen-economy-despite-cdc-warnings
Sandler, R. (2020, April 22). NIH Panel Recommends Against Using Hydroxychloroquine And Azithromycin, Drug Combination Touted By Trump. Retrieved July 03, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/04/21/nih-panel-recommends-against-using-drug-combination-touted-by-trump-outside-clinical-trials/
Felicia Sonmez, S. (2020, June 28). As U.S. soars past 2.5 million coronavirus cases, Pence urges Americans to wear masks, social distance. Retrieved July 03, 2020, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-us-soars-past-25-million-coronavirus-cases-pence-urges-americans-to-wear-masks-social-distance/2020/06/28/c0006248-b962-11ea-bdaf-a129f921026f_story.html
NBC Connecticut. (2020, March 21). Gov. Lamont Orders Non-Essential Businesses Closed; Urges Residents to Stay Home. Retrieved July 03, 2020, from https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/coronavirus/gov-lamont-to-provide-update-on-connecticut-coronavirus-cases/2242239/