Leadership Adaptability: A Critical Analysis of Management Theories

This essay discusses the critical importance of flexibility and adaptability in leadership, arguing that these traits are essential for navigating the dynamic challenges faced by organizations. It references the situational theory of leadership, highlighting how effective leaders adjust their styles based on circumstances, employee competency, and commitment levels. The essay contrasts rigid leadership with adaptable approaches, using examples like Steve Jobs' evolution and Nokia's failure to innovate. It emphasizes the need for leaders to embrace continuous learning, strategic planning, and emotional intelligence to foster growth and maintain a competitive edge. The analysis also touches on Daniel Goleman's six leadership styles, Jeff Bezos' transformation at Amazon, and the benefits of engaging and empowering employees. Ultimately, the essay concludes that effective leadership is an art of balancing firmness with flexibility to achieve organizational goals, supported by resources available on Desklib.

Running Head: Business Management
Business Management
Essay

Business Management P a g e | 1
Introduction
Leadership in the simplest words is both a research and practical skill which encompasses the ability
of an individual to lead, guide, motivate, influence and push the organization, teams or the
employees towards the fulfilment of the organizational goals and objectives. Leadership is extremely
critical to the organization and leaders are the prime force responsible to take the organization at
the Zenith of its industry (Bolman & Deal, 2017). The purpose of the essay here is to discuss the
importance of flexibility and adaptability in leadership pertaining to different circumstances an
organization faces in its entire journey. In the past, plethoras of business and political leaders have
changed their leadership style to better accommodate the goals of the organization or the country
(Northouse, 2018).
It is often said and seen that leaders have to be highly flexible and adaptable to the changing
circumstances for the larger interest of the goals of the organization. Steve Jobs in his initial days
was seen as a task master, who did not care about the employees and was focussed solely on the
deliverables of the employee, this put him under a lot of criticism from the board and his employees
(Goleman, 2018).However, during his second journey with Apple, he realized he has to change and
adapt to the new ways of leadership for the overall development of the organization and his
personality. It is often seen that leaders who are full of themselves and think that they know
everything much better than everyone else falls hard on the ground(Ward, 2016). On the contrary,
leaders who are flexible, participative in their styles, learn from the changing situation and adapt
accordingly are proven to be far successful than others. A number of management authors and
experts after thorough analysis on leadership styles have commented that it is always better to have
more than one tool in the toolkit; flexibility and adaptability are additional tools (Antonakis & Day,
2017).
Impact of flexibility and adaptability in Leadership
The above mentioned argument is strongly supported by the situational theory of leadership which
gives strong notions that no leadership style is the best, it all depends on the situation at hand and

Business Management P a g e | 2
which type of leadership style can be best applied to the situation to get the expected result. The
theory further propounds saying that the most effective leaders are the ones who are able to adapt
their style to the changing situation, pick cues for the type of task, and understand the group
cohesion and other factors which might contribute to the success of the job (Heifetz & Linsky, 2017).
Situational leadership is also referred to as “Hershey-Blanchard” situational leadership theory.
According to the theory he has characterized the style into primary four styles of leadership. The first
one is Telling, in this leader tells the people what has to be done and how exactly it has to be done.
The second style is of selling; in this style leaders sell their ideas to their followers. The third style
being participative in nature, in this leaders give less of direction and allow the flow of ideas from
the employees, empowering employees significantly help the company in bringing the entire
company together. The fourth style of leadership is delegating in nature, this involves the group
members to take accountability and responsibility of their own actions. According to the theory a
more “ telling” style is needed at the beginning of the project as the followers are less involved thus
have less responsibility towards the project. As and when the employees become accustomed to the
project, the style is more delegating in nature, and they can take and make their own decision for
the project, implying that the leadership style adopted from being “telling” in the initial stage to
being “ delegative” in the later stage. The situation approach also helps the leaders to avoid any
pitfalls of the single styled leadership style, by assessing the situation and the environment; they can
easily overcome the obstacle by changing their leadership style (Renz & Herman, 2016).
The leaders can benefit tremendously by adopting flexible style of leadership. One of the main
benefits is overcoming challenges by continuous learning. Every team and organization in its journey
to become the best is encountered by plethora of challenges, which must be handled with due
diligence to crush and move past them. In such scenario, the best strategy the leader can use is to sit
back and see what is working and what is not working in the favour (DuBrin, 2015). Through the
concept of “learning agility” the leader can bring all its people together on a common platform ask
for their feedback, assess their performance, coach them and learn about what strategy works best
for the organization. Doing this, the leader can adapt to the situation and change his leadership style
to match the new strategy of the organization. Jack Welch at GE was pioneer in introducing the
learning agility program which set the base for its success in the past and the future (Johnston &
Marshall, 2016).
Strategic planning is significant, crucial and critical to every organization, however the chances that
the initial plan leads to the desired result is extremely low. Thus, the leaders must be flexible to
adapt the plan to the changed circumstances (Tourish, 2014). The present state of the world is

Business Management P a g e | 3
dynamic, with the infusion of digital marketing, customers have a lot of control on the information
available on the internet, thus the leaders have to be on their feet at all times, and change according
to the changing dynamics of the market and the industry in general. A rigid mentality will lead to
nothing but failure and disappointment, the recent example of this is the case of Nokia. The
leadership was absolutely rigid about the changing landscape of the mobile phone industry, and they
were focussed on the past success strategy of Nokia, the lack of innovation, inability to adapt to the
changing circumstances was the reason for the failure once upon a time the most famous company
on the face of planet earth(Kornives, 2016). Thus, it is really important that leaders are extremely
flexible in their approach, more so in the present times when the world is changing rapidly and
plethora of disruptions are making their way every single day. A lost opportunity is worth a millions
of dollars, reinstating the argument that leadership style has to be really adaptive and flexible to the
changing circumstances (Collinson, 2014).
Daniel Goleman, an expert in the field of Emotional intelligence and leadership in the year 2016
outlines 6 major leadership style and pointed out that none of the style with utmost surety can be
said are the best. According to Daniel, a democratic style might fit in a particular scenario, while a
command style might be a better fitment in the situation of crisis. Thus, there is no way possible that
one leadership style can help the leader or organization sail through the entire journey. One has to
be highly adaptive and flexible in order to make the most out of the changing circumstances and
situation. Effective leaders always have to be in tune with the changing business environment in
order to make the organization move in the right strategic direction, in the absence of adaptability
and flexibility the organization can easily fall into the trap of redundancy thus losing its position of
strength and competitive edge to a competitor. Leaders have the responsibility of evaluating the
information available to them, use their own sources to get to the bottom of any issue and then
make changes in their style to accommodate the best strategy for further growth and development
of the organization. The only argument against the notion can be that leaders have to demonstrate
perseverance in their act to achieve the goals; this however will yield more productive result if
leader is adaptable and flexible to achieve the set goals. Leadership can thus the art of knowing
when to stand firm and when to be flexible.
Number of experts in their journal on leadership has mentioned that in all there are three factors
which decide the type of leadership in a particular situation. The first one being that leadership has
to be adjusted according to the competency of the employees, a low competent employee needs
more guidance from the leadership to excel in his job duties, and vice versa (Lussier & Achua, 2015).

Business Management P a g e | 4
The second one being the commitment level the employees have on the company and the
leadership. Thirdly, the style of leadership which is finally adopted by the leader would also be
affected by the ability of the leaders to provide such changeable leadership.
A recent example of developing flexibility and adaptability in the leadership style is the current
visionary and the one of the greatest leader of present times, Jeff Bezos. Jeff who started off with
the idea of Amazon in the year 1994 grew from a dozen of employees delivering books to more than
500,000 people selling almost everything in almost 180 countries. The journey was definitely an
inspiring one for the youth and the business leaders and experts. Jeff leadership style in the start of
his journey with Amazon was absolutely crude, or as some people call it rough, brutal and raw, he
faced a lot of flak due to his leadership style (Johnson, 2017). The company was facing a lot of
troubles due to high employee turnover and in a number of exit interviews employees mentioned
that they are leaving the company because of Jeff’s leadership style. Jeff Bezos so was engaged in
being customer-centric that he completely forgot about the core strength of Amazon, its employees.
Jeff was really smart at picking up the cues and transformed his leadership style. He started valuing
the employees and appreciated and motivated them whenever it was necessary, he realized the
importance of building a company together. In one of his recent interviews he mentioned about the
change in his leadership style as one of the reasons for the success of Amazon. The above real life
example is self-explanatory towards the importance of practicing flexibility and adaptability in
leadership (Verba, 2015).
Leaders have to ensure that they engage the employees in the daily activities of the organization and
empower them by making them liable for their own actions; they have to ensure that even the
lowest employee in the food chain is highly motivated and feels strong connection with the
employee (Cashman, 2017). Ensuring all this is definitely not easy when the leader has so many
important things to do in a limited time thus comes flexibility and adaptability in the picture. Leader
has to understand the circumstance and then distribute his time towards different activities, be
flexible and not rigid in talking to the employees when they need the most. According to one of the
recent study conducted by Harvard Business School, it was founded that leaders who keeps on
bringing changes in their leadership style have a lot to contribute to the organization. They are not
bounded by the elementary thinking, are high risk takers and a people’s person, flexibility and
adaptability just adds feather in their cap and help them in taking the organization to the envisioned
heights. An analogy which explains the above mentioned argument, a flexible and adapting leader is
like a train, which keeps on adjusting its speed according to the approaching station and the distance

Business Management P a g e | 5
to be covered, leaders in the same way have to adapt to different styles and be flexible in their
business conduct in changing circumstances (Beck & Cowan, 2014).
Conclusion
To conclude, there are no two notions that the art of effective leadership results out of flexibility and
adaptability to different situation. No two situations are same, thus it will be absolutely imbecile to
use the same leadership style in every situation. A cogent leader is one who correctly assesses the
situation and the business environment and makes a right call depending on the severity of the
situation, and by moulding his leadership style. It is impossible to comment which leadership style is
the best, but it can be easily said that leadership has to be a synergy of two or many styles to better
accommodate the mission and vision of the organization and take the company on the path of
increased business momentum ensuring sustainability at all times.

Business Management P a g e | 6

Business Management P a g e | 7
References
Antonakis, J., & Day, D. V. (Eds.). (2017). The nature of leadership. Sage publications.
Beck, D. E., & Cowan, C. (2014). Spiral dynamics: Mastering values, leadership and change. John
Wiley & Sons.
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership. John
Wiley & Sons.
Cashman, K. (2017). Leadership from the inside out: Becoming a leader for life. Berrett-Koehler
Publishers.
Collinson, D. (2014). Dichotomies, dialectics and dilemmas: New directions for critical leadership
studies?. Leadership, 10(1), 36-55.
DuBrin, A. J. (2015). Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills. Nelson Education.
Goleman, D. (2017). Leadership That Gets Results (Harvard Business Review Classics). Harvard
Business Press.
Heifetz, R., & Linsky, M. (2017). Leadership on the Line, With a New Preface: Staying Alive Through
the Dangers of Change. Harvard Business Press.
Johnson, C. E. (2017). Meeting the ethical challenges of leadership: Casting light or shadow. Sage
Publications.
Johnston, M. W., & Marshall, G. W. (2016). Sales force management: Leadership, innovation,
technology. Routledge.
Komives, S. R. (2016). Leadership for a better world: Understanding the social change model of
leadership development. John Wiley & Sons.
Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2015). Leadership: Theory, application, & skill development. Nelson
Education.
Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
Renz, D. O., & Herman, R. D. (Eds.). (2016). The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and
management. John Wiley & Sons.

Business Management P a g e | 8
Tourish, D. (2014). Leadership, more or less? A processual, communication perspective on the role of
agency in leadership theory. Leadership, 10(1), 79-98.
Verba, S. (2015). Small groups and political behavior: A study of leadership. Princeton University
Press.
Ward, J. (2016). Keeping the family business healthy: How to plan for continuing growth,
profitability, and family leadership. Springer.