Boiled Frog or Adaptive Leader? Which Will You Be in 2026?
Navigating Organizational Change: The Essential Framework for Leading Through Complexity and Uncertainty
Change continues to accelerate around us and within our organizations. Over the past several years, this reality has been described as a VUCA world and a Never-Normal world. Regardless of the label, one truth remains unavoidable: as leaders, we have a choice.
We can adapt to change—or we can slowly become irrelevant.
We can either lead our organizations out of the pan of boiling water or become the boiled frog.
So what will you do?
Will you play it safe—keeping your head underwater, doing what you’ve always done, viewing your organization strictly through a functional lens?
Or will you lift your head above the surface, look around, assess your organization holistically, and ask the difficult questions: What truly matters and must be preserved? What no longer serves us and must be discarded?
The latter is the essence of adaptive leadership.
From Conventional to Adaptive Leadership
Conventional leadership models suggest that leaders should shepherd and protect their flock, create a vision, build alignment, and champion execution (VAE). This approach works well for technical challenges—situations where the world is relatively stable and organizations already possess the capabilities needed to implement change.
But today’s environment is far more complex, fast-paced, and unpredictable. Organizations must operate in fundamentally different ways.
Adaptive leadership requires learning and acting in ways that are not immediately apparent—even to leaders themselves. Responsibility for solving organizational challenges does not rest solely in the C-suite; it shifts to the collective intelligence of the people closest to the work.
Adaptive change is stressful. It introduces new roles, new relationships, and new ways of working. Rather than shielding people from this stress, adaptive leaders allow it—because stress is often what challenges entrenched assumptions and makes room for better solutions.
Six Principles of Adaptive Leadership
1. Get on the Balcony
Leaders must step back from the battlefield to observe patterns, dynamics, and context. From the balcony, leaders can recognize struggles over values and power, distinguish functional from dysfunctional responses to change, and identify habits or policies that sabotage adaptive work.
Getting on the balcony is a prerequisite for the remaining principles.
2. Identify the Adaptive Challenge
Organizations cannot respond effectively to challenges they have not clearly identified. Leaders must understand themselves, their people, and potential sources of conflict while diagnosing the true nature of the challenge.
3. Regulate Stress
People can only absorb so much change at once. Too much stress overwhelms learning; too little removes the motivation to change. Leaders must maintain a productive level of tension.
This can be achieved by:
- Creating a holding environment where diverse groups openly discuss shared challenges
- Providing direction by framing key questions and issues
- Demonstrating steadiness through presence and poise
This may be the leader’s toughest role—tolerating uncertainty, frustration, and discomfort while projecting confidence.
“Followers want comfort, stability, and solutions from their leaders, but that’s babysitting. Real leaders ask hard questions and knock people out of their comfort zones. There they manage the distress.”
— Ronald Heifetz & Donald Laurie
4. Maintain Disciplined Attention
Adaptive challenges require confronting difficult trade-offs. Leaders must surface conflict and use it as fuel for creativity rather than allowing avoidance behaviors such as scapegoating, denial, or technical distractions.
Distractions must be named, and attention redirected to what truly matters.
5. Give the Work Back to the People
Employees often assume leaders know everything—a human impossibility. Leaders who reinforce this belief burn out themselves and create organizational dependency.
Those closest to the work—often at the periphery—frequently see change first. Adaptive leaders empower these individuals to define and solve problems, adopting a supporting rather than controlling role.
6. Protect Leadership Voices from Below
Learning organizations give voice to all perspectives. While dissent can create discomfort, it often contains insights essential for growth.
Leaders must protect those who surface contradictions—even when the message is imperfectly delivered. Listening, asking questions, and resisting the urge to silence dissent are critical adaptive behaviors.
Before You Begin: Four Practical Tips
1. Don’t Go Alone
Adaptive leadership can be isolating. Find partners who will share the risks, test assumptions with you, and learn alongside you.
2. Live Life as a Leadership Laboratory
Leadership opportunities exist everywhere, every day. Experiment. Learn. Make mistakes. Build skill and confidence through practice.
“The difference between a beginner and a master is that the master practices a whole lot more.”
— Yehudi Menuhin
3. Resist the Leap to Action
Adaptive challenges require diagnosis before action. Leaders must assess the situation, their capabilities, and the risks involved before deciding how—and whether—to lead the work.
4. Discover the Joy of Making Hard Decisions
Adaptive leadership requires deciding what must be preserved and what must be left behind. These choices clarify identity and purpose. Finding meaning in them is the opposite of loss—it is leadership maturity.
So—Which Will You Be in 2026?
Now that you understand adaptive leadership, the question remains:
Will you be the boiled frog—or the adaptive leader?
The choice is yours.
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.”
— Dr. Seuss
References
- Hendrickson, C. (2010). Leadership in Complex Times. Pfeiffer Annual Leadership Development.
- Heifetz, R., Grashow, A., & Linsky, M. (2009). The Practice of Adaptive Leadership. Harvard Business Review Press.
- Heifetz, R. A., & Laurie, D. L. (2001). The Work of Leadership. Harvard Business Review.
- Heifetz, R. A. (1994). Leadership Without Easy Answers. Harvard University Press.
