The Power of Adaptive Leadership with Mitzi Johnson

On The Balcony

On today’s episode, Mitzi Johnson, the former Speaker of the House in Vermont, joins Michael to talk about Chapter 2 of Ron Heifetz’s Leadership Without Easy Answers. This chapter focuses on Adaptive Leadership, and it’s unfortunately timely that Johnson is here to discuss this chapter, given her extensive work with gun reform in Vermont. Both she and Kohler agree that leadership is a team effort. They explore what leadership looks like from roles of power and authority that rely on the feedback of the governed. Johnson recalls how restorative responses elicited pushback from the gun community, how she tried to empathetically listen to her opposition, and how that made all the difference in the world.

Michael and Mitzi go on to chat about Mitzi’s very own restorative response to change. As her tenure as Speaker of House in Vermont has come to a close and she moves forward, she aims to maintain a semblance of productivity and charity in her daily life. Later, as Michael welcomes his coach, Andy Cahill, back to the podcast, he undergoes a similar introspection. Michael is set to return to Germany soon, and he touches on his apprehension toward digging up past and ancestral trauma. In response and as a conclusion to this episode, Andy urges him to focus on acknowledging his thoughts and bodily reactions to change whilst practicing self compassion.

The Finer Details of This Episode:

• Why leadership is a team effort
• Adaptive Leadership
• Changing gun laws
• How stress and conflict elicit pushback in the form of restorative responses
• Fear of loss in the gun community
• Johnson’s restorative response to her tenure’s end
• Michael’s reorientation
• Acknowledgement and self-compassion

Quotes:

“People disagree or even disengage, not because they resist change per se. It's because they resist the loss embedded in addressing the problem.”

“I have to work to get myself into the headspace with people who are really frustrated that progress doesn't happen quickly. I, on the inside, understand why things don't happen faster so I really identify with people who feel those constraints of authority.”

“Leadership is a team sport, and adaptive leadership really accentuates that.”

“So, in the natural world, when nature gets a curveball, it finds some way of fixing and settling into a new normal. And one of the examples that's used in the book is about those moths that used to be light colored, but then during the Industrial Revolution, there's so much pollution that the light colored moths kept getting picked off by the birds, because they stood out.”

“Knocked out of equilibrium, living systems summon a set of restorative responses.”

“Leaders not only influence followers, but are under their influence as well. And there is very much a symbiotic relationship there.”

“I think, in a way, practicing leadership always means you are in touch with various stakeholders and factions. Maybe they are the different departments in your firm, the different beneficiaries, the funders in your nonprofit, or in your community people with different values, but there's always different stories, and different groups will be knocked out of equilibrium in different ways.”

“I committed to talking to two of my American friends about ancestors. I've been wanting to engage more deeply in conversations around social justice, and I feel that my experience as a German might be helpful in an American context, especially for looking back and talking more about history, particularly when it's hard.”

“There's also something about the absence of a vision or its opposite that produces disequilibrium, discomfort, or discord. There's something about your leadership right now that you sense is missing or lacking.”

“As you imagine yourself exercising leadership, I want you to notice how it feels in your body to make that move or to take that risk.”

Links:

On The Balcony

Leadership Without Easy Answers

Mitzi on Twitter

Mitzi on Facebook

Andy Cahill

Mentioned in this episode:

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