Session Three Episode 4 - Discover the joy of making hard choices

Welcome to our video series on practicing adaptive leadership.
In the previous video we covered the second tip of practicing adaptive leadership - Resist the leap to
action (Please visit our previous video for the second tip).
In this video lesson, we’ll look at the third tip of practicing adaptive leadership, discover the joy of
making hard choices.
Adaptive leadership is a difficult practice that requires learning, unlearning and relearning. What makes
adaptive leadership more complicated is that it entails making decisions on what is so essential that must
be preserved going forward and what value can be left behind. Determining what should be kept and what
should be left behind requires making hard choices as it involves protecting what is dear to you and
letting go of things that you held so dearly. It is a tough process; a moment of clarification which is
different from making choices of right and wrong; which is straightforward as you already have the
knowledge.
Adaptive challenges are encountered quite often. Acknowledging that you have opted not to exercise
leadership because of something that is more important to you is a step towards self knowledge. Taking
responsibility for your choices helps you understand yourself more.
If you want to exercise adaptive leadership more than you have in the past, you will have to make some
different choices from those you have made before. You will have to risk whatever commitment or
concern that held you back on behalf of something else that you have been saying is more important to
you.
Scenario
Having been imprisoned for opposing Apatheid regime, Nelson Mandela was focused on liberating the
people of South Africa from oppression by the whites. He valued this and believed that the freedom of his
fellow blacks supersedes his personal freedom.
While in prison, president Botha offered Mandela conditional freedom. Mandela was to denounce
opposition to the apartheid government. He was to be released from prison if he accepted this condition.
Mandela would then rejoin his family and friends. However, he refused since the freedom that was
offered would be short lived and his fellow people would never enjoy the freedom that he was fighting
for. He responded through his letter that was read by his daughter questioning the kind of freedom he
would enjoy "What freedom am I being offered while the organisation of the people remains banned?”
In making hard decisions, one is supposed to focus on the big picture as our life is the sum total of all the
decisions we make every day, decisions are determined by our priorities. We have to know and believe in
what we value while creating a necessary environment to learn from self and others.