Adaptive Leadership and Organisational Resilience Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Department Heads, Programme and Project Managers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 7 Nov 2026 Course code SD-LD-146

Before you join: Participants should have experience supervising people, coordinating projects, managing services or contributing to organisational change.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Disruption now arrives through public-health events, cyber incidents, supply interruptions, changing customer behaviour, workforce expectations and regulatory pressure. Leaders must make decisions before all facts are available, sustain service delivery, communicate honestly and help people adapt without exhausting them. The pandemic exposed the limits of command-and-control responses: organisations need leaders who can distinguish urgent technical fixes from deeper behavioural, cultural and operational challenges.

This course develops practical adaptive leadership and organisational resilience skills for managers leading through uncertainty. Participants use the Cynefin framework to match decision approaches to changing conditions, diagnose adaptive challenges, build psychological safety, lead hybrid teams and communicate during disruption. They examine continuity and recovery choices using ISO 22301 concepts, create scenarios for plausible shocks, manage resistance to change and establish decision rhythms that improve learning and accountability.

Teaching combines focused instructor briefings with cases drawn from public services, financial institutions, international businesses and programme-based organisations. Participants analyse incidents, practise leadership conversations, test decisions against scenarios and build plans for their own teams. Each participant leaves with a resilience diagnostic, stakeholder communication plan, hybrid team charter, 90-day change roadmap and personal leadership resilience plan that can be used immediately at work.

The course suits managers and senior professionals responsible for teams, services, programmes or change initiatives where uncertainty, interdependence and people impacts require more than conventional project management.

What you will be able to do

  • Apply the Cynefin framework to select decision approaches under uncertainty
  • Diagnose adaptive challenges using stakeholder, loss and work-avoidance analysis
  • Develop an organisational resilience diagnostic using continuity and scenario-planning methods
  • Create hybrid team charters with explicit communication, meeting and accountability norms
  • Use psychological safety and structured dissent techniques to improve team decisions
  • Construct stakeholder message maps for credible communication during disruption
  • Build a 90-day change roadmap using ADKAR and resistance analysis
  • Produce a personal adaptive leadership action plan with measurable commitments

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Make clearer decisions when evidence is incomplete and conditions change quickly
  • Recognise when a problem requires adaptation rather than an immediate technical fix
  • Lead difficult conversations about loss, uncertainty, performance and resistance
  • Manage personal energy and recovery routines during sustained pressure
  • Present a credible 90-day leadership plan to managers and team members

For your organisation

  • Faster, better-calibrated decisions during operational disruption and emerging risks
  • Stronger continuity leadership alongside existing incident and recovery procedures
  • More consistent communication with employees, customers, partners and communities
  • Higher team participation, challenge and learning before consequential decisions
  • Practical change plans that address resistance, capability gaps and ownership

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can classify uncertainty and select a proportionate leadership response.

  • VUCA and BANI conditions distinguished through observable organisational signals
  • Cynefin domains used to match decisions with uncertainty levels
  • Technical, complicated, complex and chaotic challenges classified accurately
  • Sensemaking routines convert weak signals into decision-relevant evidence
  • Assumption mapping exposes beliefs driving crisis-response choices
  • Leadership stance shifts between directing, coaching and convening

Participants can diagnose the human and systemic work required by difficult change.

  • Adaptive Leadership distinguishes technical fixes from adaptive work
  • Diagnosing system identifies stakeholders, losses, loyalties and avoidance patterns
  • Productive disequilibrium calibrated without overwhelming teams or suppressing dissent
  • Balcony and dance-floor perspectives reveal patterns beneath urgent events
  • Work avoidance recognised through scapegoating, distraction and false certainty
  • Stakeholder heat maps prioritise engagement around difficult change

Participants can assess resilience needs and make leadership choices during disruption.

  • ISO 22301 continuity concepts connect disruption planning with leadership decisions
  • Resilience capacities assessed across anticipation, coping, adaptation and learning
  • Scenario planning tests supply, workforce, cyber and regulatory shocks
  • Impact tolerance defines minimum service levels and recovery priorities
  • Decision rights clarify escalation paths during fast-moving incidents
  • After-action reviews capture lessons, owners and follow-through dates

Participants can manage their own responses and model steady leadership under pressure.

  • SCARF model diagnoses social threats affecting engagement and collaboration
  • Stress appraisal separates controllable demands from uncontrollable conditions
  • Personal resilience plan sets recovery routines, boundaries and support triggers
  • Emotional regulation uses naming, reframing and response pauses
  • Psychological safety behaviours invite challenge, questions and bad news
  • Leader energy audit identifies depletion patterns and renewal practices

Participants can establish effective practices for accountability, inclusion and connection in hybrid teams.

  • Hybrid work charters establish availability, meeting norms and decision channels
  • Outcome-based management replaces visibility with explicit commitments and measures
  • Team agreements define response times, handovers and documentation standards
  • Meeting design differentiates information sharing, decisions, problem solving and connection
  • Digital inclusion addresses time zones, access barriers and participation equity
  • Remote coaching conversations use GROW questions and observable evidence

Participants can communicate clearly and credibly when stakeholders need timely information.

  • Stakeholder mapping identifies influence, interests, concerns and communication needs
  • Message maps connect facts, empathy, action and uncertainty
  • Risk communication avoids false reassurance and unsupported precision
  • Two-way listening channels capture employee, customer and community feedback
  • Rumour control distinguishes verified information from assumptions and speculation
  • Trust repair applies acknowledgement, explanation, remedy and commitment

Participants can create conditions for candid challenge, learning and inclusive decision-making.

  • Psychological safety assessed through speaking-up, learning and inclusion indicators
  • Inclusive decision protocols reduce dominance, bias and groupthink
  • Structured dissent assigns red-team roles before consequential decisions
  • Equity impact questions test how change burdens differ
  • Conflict conversations use SBI feedback and interest-based negotiation
  • Allyship behaviours interrupt exclusion and distribute voice deliberately

Participants can plan adoption activities that address readiness, resistance and capability needs.

  • ADKAR assessment identifies awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement gaps
  • Change story links disruption, purpose, choices and near-term actions
  • Change readiness analysis tests sponsorship, capacity, resistance and dependencies
  • Coalition mapping identifies credible sponsors, influencers and local champions
  • Resistance conversations surface loss, risk, identity and practical barriers
  • 90-day change roadmap sequences communications, capability and adoption measures

Participants can test strategic choices against uncertainty, risk and reversibility.

  • Scenario matrix combines critical uncertainties into plausible operating futures
  • Pre-mortem analysis identifies failure modes before major commitments
  • Decision journal records assumptions, evidence, confidence and review dates
  • OODA loops shorten observation, orientation, decision and action cycles
  • Portfolio review reallocates resources using impact, urgency and reversibility
  • Trigger points define when scenarios require revised action

Participants can translate course methods into an accountable implementation plan.

  • Resilience diagnostic consolidates vulnerabilities, strengths, dependencies and priority risks
  • Leadership operating system sets decision forums, escalation rules and review cadence
  • Personal stakeholder plan schedules conversations, messages and listening channels
  • Team resilience commitments assign owners, measures and review dates
  • Implementation barriers anticipated through pre-mortem and mitigation actions
  • 30-60-90 day action plan specifies outcomes, milestones and evidence
  • Peer accountability arrangements establish follow-up questions and review intervals

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Cynefin decision-making guide
  2. Organisational resilience diagnostic
  3. Hybrid team charter template
  4. Stakeholder communication message map
  5. 90-day change roadmap
  6. Personal adaptive leadership action plan

Who should attend

  • Department Heads — need to sustain performance while priorities, risks and workforce needs shift
  • Programme and Project Managers — need to manage uncertainty, dependencies and stakeholder resistance
  • Operations Managers — need to protect critical services during incidents and recovery periods
  • HR and People Leaders — need to support wellbeing, hybrid work and organisational change
  • Risk and Business Continuity Managers — need leadership methods that complement continuity planning
  • Senior Professionals and Emerging Leaders — need practical tools for leading through ambiguity

Skills and tools covered

Adaptive leadershipOrganisational resilienceCrisis communicationHybrid team leadershipChange leadershipScenario planning

Tools and standards

Cynefin framework, SCARF model, ADKAR model, ISO 22301

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce each framework, followed by facilitated case analysis, small-group diagnosis and structured simulations. Participants work with disruption scenarios involving service interruption, workforce pressure, stakeholder concern and changing priorities. Leadership conversations are practised using realistic manager, employee and stakeholder roles. Individual reflection links methods to participants’ own responsibilities, while peer review strengthens draft resilience diagnostics, team charters and action plans. The final sessions focus on implementation priorities, owners, measures and review points.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience supervising people, coordinating projects, managing services or contributing to organisational change. They should understand their organisation’s basic structure, key stakeholders and current operational pressures. Familiarity with risk registers, business continuity plans or change programmes is useful but not essential. No prior study of leadership theory, crisis management, ISO standards or formal resilience frameworks is required. Participants should be prepared to discuss a current or recent leadership challenge without disclosing confidential information.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

You should have experience leading people, projects, services or change activity. Prior knowledge of resilience standards, crisis management or leadership models is not required.

Bring a current or recent leadership challenge involving uncertainty, disruption, hybrid working or change. You do not need to bring confidential documents; anonymised examples are sufficient.

It is designed for managers, department heads, project leaders, HR professionals, operations managers and risk professionals. It is most useful for people who must coordinate others through uncertain conditions.

The course focuses specifically on leading when facts are incomplete, conditions shift and stakeholders face real losses or concerns. It combines adaptive leadership, organisational resilience, continuity concepts, hybrid team practices and change methods.

Participants build reusable working documents, including a resilience diagnostic, communication map, team charter and 90-day action plan. These can be adapted to a service disruption, change initiative, workforce issue or strategic review.

Each day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides about 6.5 contact hours. The five days progress from uncertainty diagnosis and resilience to communication, hybrid leadership, change planning and implementation actions.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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