Date & Time: December 9, 2025, 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. (CST)

Description: Today’s nonprofit leaders must navigate an environment marked by uncertainty, complexity, and rapid change. “Adaptive Leadership: Thriving Through Change and Challenge” is a 3-hour interactive workshop designed to build leadership capacity for responding to evolving circumstances without losing sight of mission and core values.

Grounded in the adaptive leadership framework developed by Harvard’s Kennedy School and aligned with the Standards for Excellence, this session empowers executive leaders, staff, and board members to distinguish technical problems from adaptive challenges and respond with creativity, resilience, and stakeholder engagement. Through practical tools, real-life case examples, and facilitated discussion, participants will learn to lead their teams through discomfort and disruption—emerging stronger and more mission-focused.

This workshop is ideal for nonprofit professionals at all levels of leadership who are responsible for guiding organizations through strategic shifts, crisis response, or cultural transformation.

Participants will leave equipped to:

• Define adaptive leadership and distinguish it from technical leadership approaches.

• Identify the difference between technical problems and adaptive challenges within their organizations.

• Recognize the leadership behaviors required to mobilize people through uncertainty and resistance.

• Apply a diagnostic framework to assess the adaptive pressures facing their nonprofit.

• Understand how to “hold steady” and maintain focus during organizational disequilibrium.

• Engage multiple stakeholders and encourage diverse perspectives in decision-making.

• Cultivate a leadership culture that embraces experimentation, learning, and iterative progress.

• Develop initial action steps for addressing one key adaptive challenge within their organization.