TEACHING AUTHENTIC ADAPTIVE LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGIES USING A CASE STUDY

Abstract

ABSTRACT Teaching authentic adaptive leadership strategies can be made real and reinforced through using a case study approach. This paper illustrates how leadership praxis can be taught using a case study. The challenges Xerox Corporation faced in their efforts to repurpose the organization, regain customer loyalty, and increase employee morale represent the challenges applicable to complex, global organizations. The leadership skills required to forecast changes and opportunities in the global business economy and the strategies necessary to lead a complex organization through reinvention, innovation, and repurposing, are the practices of leaders who are authentic and adaptive. Following a series of adversities in the organization, Xerox returned to basic management principles by reinventing itself as a global leader. The Xerox process of reinvention was purposeful, strategic, and focused on the adaptive and authentic leadership models of its senior leaders, Anne Mulcahy and Ursula Burns. Keywords Strategy, authentic leadership, adaptive leadership, change management, global leadership.