Want to become a more adaptable and effective leader? In this episode, Kevin Eikenberry—trainer, author, podcaster, and founder—shares powerful strategies from his latest book, Flexible Leadership. As a leadership expert dedicated to helping organizations, leaders, and individuals unlock their full potential, Kevin reveals how to flex your leadership style to navigate uncertainty, make smarter decisions, and empower your team.

Good day dear listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And my guest today is Kevin Eikenberry, a trainer, author, podcaster who’s empowering organizations, leaders, and individuals to fulfill their potential through transformative and effective learning strategies. Kevin, welcome to the show.

Steve, I’m glad to be here. Thanks for having me. 

Well, I was excited to have you because you have some really cool ideas about leadership and how to make it flexible, which is what the people need. I mean, it cannot be one size fits all solution. But let’s start with my favorite question which is, what is your personal ‘Why’ and how are you manifesting it in your practice?

Well, I am fortunate that my personal ‘Why’ is directly connected to our organizational ‘Why’. I suppose when the company has my name on it, that’s a privilege.

We are in the business of helping leaders to be more effective because we know that if leaders are more effective, we can make the world a better place.
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Yeah. So there’s a multiplication going on there and that’s a great opportunity, but also a great responsibility.

A Hundred percent, for sure. I mean, when I think about leadership in general, Steve, that I think about those two things, right? Leadership is a tremendous responsibility, right? If we’re a people leader, a capital L leader, we have positional power, people are watching us. We have the responsibility to make sure that what we’re doing is modeling what we want from others.

We have the responsibility of setting goals and outcomes that are desirable to reach.
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Love it. I love it. So, let’s talk about your brand of leadership, because you developed this concept of Flexible Leadership. So can you explain to our audience what you mean by Flexible Leadership? And then what is your framework around it? Because you also have a framework that you developed around it.

All of this is related to my new book, Flexible Leadership: navigate uncertainty and lead with confidence. And so let’s start here. What does it mean to be a flexible leader? To be a flexible leader is to be a both and leader. Too many folks think, well, I’m either this or I’m that. I’m either going to do this or I’m going to do that.

Leadership is about reaching valuable outcomes, or leadership is about developing the people that work for me. It's either about tasks or people, and I would suggest it's about both of those things.
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Okay, so let’s dissect this because you talked in our pre-interview, you talked about Intention, Content, and Flexor. So how does that all come together? What do you mean by each one of these ideas?

Sure. So that is the Flexible Leadership approach, right?

Intention plus Context plus Flexors equals being a flexible leader.
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And number two, intention to say in this moment, perhaps I need to flex. It’s both a mindset and a skillset and the skillset comes from the other two components. But if we don’t have that mindset right, it doesn’t matter. I mean, I can teach you skills and you can say, those are fine and dandy, Kevin, but I’m not going to do ’em. They don’t match up with what I believe. They’re not what I believe will be most effective. I don’t think they’ll work. So get the mindset with intention, and then the next part is context. Let’s just say it this way, Steve. All of us have had this experience where you have a decision to make as a leader or just as a human, or someone comes to you for advice. And when they ask for it, or when you think about the situation, you say, well, what should I do? Well, it depends.

Well, what does it depend on? Well, it depends on the context. Like, what’s the nature of this situation? And it is understanding the nature of that context that gives us the chance to say, well, maybe I should do it differently. I’ll stop there. I’ve been talking for a long time. Anything you want to add or comment on before I go any further?

Yeah, I like this idea, the mindset that be ready to be flexible if you need to be, so that you can serve your purpose. And then the context service determines that. But can you give an example of different contexts and then the leader being manifesting differently?

Yeah, absolutely. So in the book, I share the work of Dave Snowden with what’s called the Cynefin Framework. And in the Cynefin Framework, it’s think about it like a map. Like, if I put you in the wilderness and I said, okay, get out, leave to this location. The first thing you’d ask me for is a map. I mean, the first thing a lot of people ask me for, is there a GPS on their phone? I say, well, there’s no cell signal. I say, okay, I’ll take a map. And the Cynefin Framework is like a map to help us see the terrain. In this thought experiment, once you see the terrain, it gives you a clue about which direction you should walk to your desired destination. And the Cynefin Framework is like that. It gives us a picture for us to help us see where are we now so we can decide where to go next or what to do next. So the Cynefin Framework has four parts. There are four parts to the framework, and one of those is called the clear context. And Steve, that’s the one that most of us are most comfortable in. Most of us have spent the most time in, and importantly, assume that we’re in most of the time. And the clear context is a situation where we sort of know the causes and effects. We sort of know what will happen. We’ve done it before. 

Our expertise or someone’s expertise is enough and policies will work and best practices reign, and

if we've got the right process, we'll probably get the right result, clear context.
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Maybe we can find them out or get a clue about them. We probably can’t do it alone. We probably need to do it with others. We might be able to develop some good practices that might help us a lot of the time, but there are unknowns that we either need to try to figure out or at a minimum, we have to recognize. But a complex situation, well, a complex situation is the ones that we’re in a lot of the time. There are unknowns that we don’t even know about. Like anytime you think about a situation that happened six months ago and say, man, I wish I would’ve known all those things. I would’ve done something differently. I didn’t realize those dominoes were going to fall. There were going to be those unintended consequences. If I had known that, I’d have done something differently. And that’s an awful lot of our work today. And so if we find ourselves in that complicated or complex situation, the way we need to lead is different than when everything’s clear.

The fourth context is what’s called chaotic. And my observation is that a lot of people say, well, that’s where I’m at all the time. Kevin, it’s either clear or it’s chaotic. And I would say, and Snowden would say in the creation of this framework, that there’s very little that we live in. That’s chaos, truly. And even if it is, it very quickly becomes complex because when things are chaotic, we just need to do something. Think about where you live. It was about 5 years ago, Steve, as you and I were having this conversation, that we locked everything down and we sent people to work from home. At first, it was chaotic and we just needed a leader to tell us what to do. Here’s what we’re going to do first, but very quickly, it was no longer chaotic. It was actually highly complex. And yet, in many cases, leaders continued to act like it was chaos for a very long time with all sorts of consequences that people didn’t love. So that’s a very quick, very high level sort of look at the context. And what I have come to learn, Steve, is that the more we understand the context of our situation, the smarter we are, the wiser we are, perhaps, and that when we have this framework or this map that we can pull out and think about and look at, we put ourselves in a much better position to lead more effectively.

Okay, got it. So, we have to have the intention to be flexible. Then the context can be simple, it can be complex or chaotic or a mixture of those, right? And then you have this flexor. So what are these flexors, anyhow, I think you have 19 of them? And what do they do and how do they help you to navigate in these different contexts so that you can make and exert the right leadership?

Yeah. And so flexors is a word related to our muscles, but I took the word to describe what we’re about to talk about. So I’ve hinted at this already. When I said that we can have two things that may seem like they’re opposed, but they’re actually symbiotic. I said, are we trying to be consistent or are we trying to be flexible? While that’s not one of the 19 flexors, that’s a flexor, because the reality is it’s not one or the other, it’s both. It’s not either or it’s both ends. And so the question is how can we be like the tree? How can we be both consistent and flexible? And which direction on that flexor do we need to be leaning to be most successful in the context in which we’re living in that moment? And so, like you said, there are 19 of them in the book. And then I say in the book, okay, it’s really not about the 19. As you start to see this, you will see flexors everywhere, right?

You will see this idea that there’s a tension between two ideas, both of which have merit and value, but if we lean into one end of that or the other, we’ll likely have challenges or problems. The thing for us, as leaders, is that we have a natural tendency that’s probably or very possibly near one end or the other of one of those flexors. And so what we have to do is, intention says, oh, maybe I need to think about this differently. Context says, how should I think about it differently? And the flexor says, what do I do about that? So let’s just pick one, a simple one. Let’s call it the answering-asking flexor. So the answering-asking flexor is, should I answer people’s questions or should I ask more questions? And the answer is yes. The question is, when should I do more of one or the other? And all of you listening probably know of a leader that you think of, well, they’re on the answering end all the time. Like, you have a question, they’ve got an answer, they’re like the answer person. And at some point, that’s not serving them or you very well, right? Like the ends of the flexors aren’t usually the best answer.

The ends of the flexor are not very flexible.

Exactly. And so it’s about, where should I be leaning in this moment, with this person in this conversation for this decision to help us get better success? So intention. Yeah, it’s a good idea and it’s worth considering being flexible, in this situation, context, what does that tell me? And then where should I or how should I flex on one or more of these things based on that context?

Yeah. So I’m trying to translate this. So I’m thinking about the 3 contexts you mentioned. The first one is a simple context. So I’m a leader. It’s a simple context. Everything is according to plan perhaps, or according to best practices and so on. So as a leader, I can maybe make decisions relatively easy. So my goal is to engage my team, that’s why I’m asking questions, but I also can be fairly dynamically directive. In a complex situation, a complex context, I would think that I have to ask a lot of questions to understand really what’s going on, but then I have to reduce the complexity so that people can move forward. So I have to make some decisions as a leader. And then the chaotic things is maybe it’s just make decision. It’s when you appoint a dictator basically to get things done and to move you out of danger, little danger kind of thing. Is this how that works?

It’s pretty darn close, I would say. And the thing is about the chaotic piece. You got that right, except that people end up staying there too long because it’s kind of seductive. I’ll just keep making decisions. I’ll just keep pointing and people will go, and at some point, it’s no longer chaos, it’s actually complex, which means we need to engage people. Like, what are we actually seeing on the ground? What’s actually happening? What’s going on? And the goal then is not to create a new policy, but to pilot stuff, to try stuff. Let’s see what happens. Let’s take 7 steps this way and see what we learn. If you think about any movie that you’ve seen, I don’t know, about a war situation, during Covid, I watched a lot of old Westerns.

So like, if a group of people are trying to figure out what’s going on, they all walk around with a flashlight, maybe not in a Western, maybe it’s a lantern, but they’re all walking in a different direction and they’re communicating. So in a movie today, they’d then be communicating on the radios about what they’re seeing, and they’re all gathering information to help us decide what to do. And that’s kind of a somewhat oversimplified way, but it’s a way to think about complexity. Like all of us should be gathering the data.

As a leader, we need to be making sure that we're hearing all that, valuing all of that, and taking and trying stuff based on what we're learning as we're learning,
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Okay. I love it. So tell me a little bit about the book, I mean, obviously, Flexible Leadership. So probably, you’re discussing many of these things. Why did you decide to write this book, and what is the main message of the book?

Well, I think because of your great question so far, Steve, we’ve unpacked the big message. The big message is that in times of uncertainty, which we live today, the anecdote for that is to be flexible. If we’re not changing, think about it this way. Let’s say at the beginning of 2020, you were leading in a certain way, before the pandemic. If you’re leading in exactly that same way, being consistent, not being flexible, right, being consistent. If you’re leading the same way that you were leading then, do you think the world has conspired to help you be more successful? Like, has the world sort of moved in the direction of your natural tendencies from the beginning of 2020? Not likely. I’d bet against that. So we need to be able to flex, to navigate uncertainty. And when we can do that, we can build our confidence.

So that’s the big picture message of the book. And why did I write it? Well, because there’s more uncertainty than ever. What I was trying to codify and capitalize on is what I’ve been learning as I’ve been on this leadership journey for 30 years. I’ve written a bunch of other books. I believe, hopefully, and with the help of people like you having me on your podcast. Hopefully, we’ll be the most impactful of all, because I think it’s a way to help us frame uncertainty so we can get our arms around it enough so we can act, but not act out of cockiness or overconfidence, but act from sort of a sense of perspective and wisdom that can help us be more successful. I’m not telling you exactly what to do here. What I’m telling you is giving you a framework for you to figure that out in real time.

Yeah, love it. And I’m sure these flexors will help the readers navigate in different situations where they’re wondering, okay, how should I be more flexible in this context, whether it’s chaotic or complex and what are the tools available to me to flex and to respond? Is that right?

That’s exactly right. I believe that when people read the book, that’s what they will get. And then we spend the last part of the book trying to help people. How do I turn that knowledge, how do I turn that skill into a habit of actually applying those ideas? Yep, that’s exactly right.

So if I’m a leader or entrepreneur and I try to figure out what flexors to use, what is the most important question I should ask myself?

Well, I think it starts with that word I said earlier, which is, it depends. Like, when you think about a situation, say, well, it depends, but what does it depend on? Look at the possibilities in front of you. When you think about that, and then you say, well maybe I need to ask more. Maybe I need to listen more. Maybe I need to move in a direction. Maybe I need to focus more on my team and less on the outcome. Maybe the vice versa of that. Maybe I need to give more positive feedback. Maybe I need to give more corrective feedback. Maybe we need to change faster. Maybe we need to change slower. Just like hitting on a few of those flexors here. The point is, if I stop enough to have the mental conversation about where we are on the map, then I can make some more informed choices about how to flex rather than simply reacting based on how I would normally have reacted.

So if the question is where are we on the map, then what helps me decide where I’m on the map?

Well, obviously read the book and get a whole lot more insight about the Cynefin Framework, which is the map we’ve talked about. And obviously, Steve, you’ve been very gracious to let me describe some of that and yet we couldn’t go very deep. So, quite honestly, I will say that the map will help you understand your context better, which will help you think about how to flex. But even if you don’t do that, simply saying, okay, what am I seeing here and what might I do given what I see? If what I see, I know is incomplete, meaning that it’s probably complicated or complex, who do I need to get into conversation with me so we can have a better, clearer picture?

Love it. Love it. Well definitely read Kevin Eikenberry’s book, Flexible Leadership. It’s coming out March 25th, right?

That is correct. As we’re having this conversation, that’s tomorrow.

Yeah, tomorrow. It’s coming out tomorrow. So we’ll try to publish this very quickly so that it’s going to be fresh. So if you hear this, then go on Amazon and buy the book or where else can the book be purchased?

Yeah. You should be able to get anywhere you buy your books. Amazon, of course, is probably the most likely choice. But if you go to kevineikenberry.com/flexible, that’s kevineikenberry.com/flexible. There you will find a sample chapter of the book and all the links to buy the book, Amazon, other places, as well as some bonuses if you buy multiple copies. So lots of good stuff there. Kevineikenberry.com/flexible, Steve.

Well, definitely check it out. And leadership is one of the most important skills in today’s world, probably it always was, because it’s a multiplier and it requires both IQ and EQ to navigate. And you need to be flexible as well, which is much harder than being rigid as a leader. And then you read the book, then you’ll find out what the contexts are and what is your mindset that you need and what are the flexors that you can apply in order to be a great flexible leader. So thank you, Kevin, for coming and sharing your thoughts about Flexible Leadership on the show. And if you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you follow us on YouTube and give us a comment, give us a review on Apple Podcast. And stay tuned because every week we come with a very exciting thought leader or entrepreneur who shares their frameworks with us. So thanks, Kevin, for coming and thank you for listening.