Mary Uhl-Bien
Leading in Complexity: Enabling the Adaptive Process
January 11, 2023
3:30 PM to 4:15 PM EST
Leading in Complexity: Enabling the Adaptive Process
The world of leadership has changed–have you changed with it?
All who have experienced the global pandemic of 2020 can tell you that we live in a changed world. People no longer question whether we are in complexity, that reality has been made explicitly clear. What they want to know now is, what do we do about it, and what does it mean for how we need to lead differently? In this talk Prof. Uhl-Bien discusses leading in complexity from the standpoint of how to enable the adaptive process in people and organizations. The adaptive process happens when individuals and systems engage tensions between pressures for change (e.g., innovation, novelty, learning, growth) and pressures for stability (e.g., current performance, short-term results, status quo) through conflicting and connecting to generate adaptive outcomes. It is a fractal dynamic, meaning that the same process occurs across any level. The good news is that once you know the process, you can enact it in any situation that requires adaptability. The talk begins by focusing on the adaptive process at the individual level (cognitive process) and then applies it to the organizational level (system-level change). It concludes by discussing implications of the adaptive process model for leadership and followership behaviors, skills and mindsets.
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About Mary Uhl-Bien
Mary Uhl-Bien is the BNSF Railway Endowed Professor of Leadership in the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University (TCU). Her research focuses on complexity leadership, relational leadership, and followership. Mary was ranked the #6 Most Influential Leadership Scholar from 1990-2017 and recognized by Poets and Quants as a Top 50 Undergraduate Business Professor. She is active in executive education nationally and internationally and has been a visiting scholar in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe, including Sweden, Denmark, Portugal and Spain. Mary also has been a regular commentator on CNBC and Squawk Box.