Adaptive Leadership: The Heifetz Collection (3 Items)

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CHAPTER 17

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Understand

Your Roles

C

ONTEXT COUNTS. In addition to your own values, priorities,

and sensitivities, you embody your organization’s values, priori-

ties, and sensitivities. So does every team or group in the organization.

Each person and group contains a piece of the larger picture that is the

organizational system. Depending on the situation, different elements

become activated at different times. This can take the form of alliances

coalescing around a problem or a proposed course of action. For

example, two people from different departments who have a long his-

tory of not getting along may not trust each other at all when negotiat-

ing a solution to a problem that affects both of their departments. But if

someone who is sitting with them ...