Dan Harrison, PhD, CEO, and co-founder of Harrison Assessments International, in a recent article in a leading HR Management publication, talked about adaptive capacity. I took notes from that article including the following thought-provoking questions. How would you answer these questions? If you don’t know how to answer, read on and come back when you finish.

Organizations exist for a purpose. Some are for-profit businesses; some are non-profit organizations with purposes that literally span the rainbow. To accomplish an organization’s purpose requires effective leadership. Leadership is not easy to do and can be deceptively hard to understand. A leader is someone that other people follow. If you can’t get anyone to go with you, it’s hard to be a leader. Leadership requires followers.

Leadership implies a relationship, within a constantly changing context, between leaders and followers. A major key to success is how you respond when the context changes. These changing circumstances and the leader’s ability to respond appropriately are key. Your job as the leader is to take your followers, adapt to the changes, and move onward toward accomplishing your company’s goals. There will be times when change is so severe, the leader has a hard time adjusting in an appropriate way. The leader may, despite great effort, ultimately fail. This hypothetical example is rather harsh. On a far less existential basis, decisions and human interactions occur all day long in your company that leaders don’t respond well to. These poor responses can be because of lack of desire, indifference, or lack of competence. Either way, damage is done and the company and the people in it suffer unnecessary negative impacts.