HKS Affiliated Authors
Abstract
Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky’s adaptive leadership (AL) framework is among the most influential approaches to leadership today. What is its relationship to ethics? This article — written for AL practitioners — examines four positions and defends one called Limited Ethics: certain ethical requirements are built into AL — epistemic honesty about reality, respect for persons as learning agents, and participatory rather than authoritarian processes. These commitments are not incidental; they follow from what “adaptation” means when applied to human communities. The Hitler case serves as a crucial test: by these standards, Hitler was not practicing AL despite appearing to deploy some of its techniques. However, Limited Ethics leaves many crucial questions open — what justice requires, how to balance competing values, whether adaptive goals are themselves worth pursuing, and how to treat people outside the holding environment. Practitioners need both AL skills and independent ethical judgment about what is worth adapting toward, why, and for whom.