1.1 Adaptive performance:

To put in the words of Charles Darwin “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”. In recent times, adaptive performance has gained special attention due to its importance in the organizations.

Johnson (2001) defined adaptive performance as the capability of individuals to adjust their behaviors with the requirements of new environments. Similarly, Krischer and Witt (2010) argued the importance of adaptive performance stating that it enables to identify the needs or opportunities to dynamically boost the proficiency and modesty with regard to current or future changes, hence paving way for individuals to learn of adaption in work environment. Naami et al. (2014) quoted that one of the most prominent challenges, faced by most of the firms these days are ‘changes’. How capable and audacious an employee handles the differing situations in workplace is very imperative. Reacting accurately to the emergencies, cautious approach to threats, high concentration on emotion control, are key features of adaptability. Also, it trains employees on how to pact with stressful situations and how to confidently overcome difficulties and resolve them efficiently. Griffin and Hesketh (2003) stated that adaptability or flexibility is the most significant competency that employees must possess. Having power over technical and personal skills is just not enough, but to prepare them to the changes that might occur in the present or future scenario is essential. Pulakos et al. (2000) who played a key role in the emergence of adaptive performance had mentioned that “workers need to be increasingly, adaptable, and tolerant of uncertainty to operate effectively in these changing and varied environments”. He had further emphasized to “modify individuals” for longer existence in their field of job. Jing and Yingqian (2012) added that in addition to task and contextual performance, adaptive performance should also be taken into account with upmost consideration, because any organization or any employee, who has got meaningful exposure of learning from changing situations, can withstand a strong and prolonged stay in the global competition. Staying ideal to traditional policies can knock down good productivity or progress. Burke et al. (2006) asserted that changing oneself also means that getting updated in their proficiency of skills and expertise (for example, developing the knowledge of computer skills). If the nature of job requires oneself to possess certain knowledge and skills, it is also a change, to which he/she should get rendered to. Kozlowski et al. (1999) stated that adaptive performance skill can be enhanced through active learning, which leads to increased level of meta-cognitive and self-regulatory skills. Also, development of coherent knowledge and self-efficacy is said to enhance the intensity of adaptive performance. It can be clearly known that certain personality traits and characteristics can pave way for the development of adaptive performance among employees. Basadur (2004) claimed that adaptability enables an organization to expertise in the progression of changes, which occurs certainly or uncertainly during the course of time. It may include challenges or obstacles like., detecting new complications to resolve, discovering unique things to do, inventing innovative processes or technologies before others proceed it out in the market. To put it in other ways, adaptability is the state of thinking out of the box. That is, it requires farsighted thinking. Looking forward for new opportunities and hurdles, developments in technologies, opinions, and systems are some of the key requirements of adaptability. When these necessities are met or satisfied, organizations are certain to enlarge their power. Leaders of organizations at current trend not only induce efficiency but also persuade adaptability to sustain competitive advantage. Charlene (2008) pointed out the necessity for adaptive structure stating that it is essential to work optimally. Avey et al. (2008) specified that psychological capital of an optimistic employee would certainly be a valuable contribution to the organizational change. The frame of mind an employee possesses towards the environment would influence his/her adaptability.

In organizational setting, changes are become binding. In the global market, consumers demand for change irrespective of it being product or services. Changes are becoming a mandatory requirement. Sticking on to the same old process and culture are not accepted; as a result manpower of an organization is trained to think and act creatively. On the other, organizations are meant to go through various uncertainties. To effectively overcome these difficulties in the most proficient manner is a success. For an organization to bloom productively it has to experience adaptability. Firms that go unsuccessful are the ones that failed to adapt or had become dense and this may occur due to the lack of skills and confidence of employees. It is essential for individuals to hold on to high level of motivation, efficacy and self-esteem to have the audacity to accept change at any time in the organization. To quote in the words of Eric Shinseki “If you don’t like change, you are going to like irrelevance even less”. Changes enable individuals to grow much smarter and calculative and it needs to be subsumed into the minds of people that changes are challenging and are meaningful opportunities to exhibit their intelligence. On the contrary, organizations that get along easy with changes are meant to become less impenetrable and are ensured with long lasting survival. Willingness to accept change will enable an individual to become a valuable person at one’s organization. He/she is considered to be one of those people who can deal with any of situation and makes the maximum use of resources and opportunities. Not every employee will like the change, but he/she quiet knows if they stay resistant towards the change, there is no possible for one to progress in their respective careers. Willingness to accept change will enable an individual to become a valuable person at one’s organization. He/she is considered to be one of those people who can deal with any kind of situation and makes the maximum use of resources and opportunities. Not every employee will like the change, but he/she quiet knows if they stay resistant towards the change, there is no other possible way for them to progress in their respective careers. Continual changes in technology and lifestyle of people are emphasizing organizations to reevaluate firm strategy to attain the point of expectation of consumers. Changes are never to be viewed with an aspect of fear; but rather as an advantage that act as a ladder to success. Further adding, Huang et al. (2014) extensively streamlined adaptability into three parts: adaptive performance, adaptive transfer, and newcomers’ adaption. Adaptive performance explains the individuals’ work behavior with respect to, facing up uncertain or differing conditions of job situation (Pulakos et al. 2000). Secondly, adaptive transfer defines about the focus on the conceptualization of contemporarily obtained knowledge and capabilities to unexpected and forceful work environment (Blume et al. 2010). Lastly, newcomers’ adaption concentrates on newcomers’ capability to familiarize to the newly entered organization’s key roles and adapt new interpersonal associations (Bauer et al. 2007). The current study mainly focuses on adaptive performance. Also, researchers have begun to realize the need and scope of evaluating employees’ sense of adaptability at workplace, but still there is an unsolved question or consensus about what adaptableness means around work or role assessment conditions. Adaptableness has been largely debated with regard to various phenomena at various levels (i.e., organizational, team, and individual levels). It should also be noted that adaptive performance has been largely discussed with organizationally related factors namely newcomers and teams, uncertainty /emergencies, various technology and cultures. In such a way, Pulakos et al. (2000) proposed eight dimensional taxonomy that explicitly described adaptive performance namely., handling emergencies or crisis situations- reacting appropriately to threats, emergencies or crisis immediately with presence sense of mind, handling work stress- staying calm and collected when faced with tough situations exhibiting high levels of potentiality and resilience, solving problems creatively- coming up with unique and innovative ideas; developing resourceful solutions, dealing with uncertain and unpredictable work situations- being well prepared to respond in time to unforeseen circumstances; taking immediate actions when essential without have to know the complete picture of the event, learning work tasks, technologies and procedures- developing fascination for new learning; improving the level of proficiency to adapt to the current or future needs; doing what is upmost needed to keep knowledge and skills upgraded, demonstrating interpersonal adaptability- being flexible and unprejudiced; respecting others’ suggestions and ideas; maintaining effective rapport with vastly assorted personalities, demonstrating cultural adaptability- socializing well and getting along comfortable with different values, customs, cultures, therefore maintaining a positive relationship with people of different cultural values and demonstrating physically oriented adaptability- ability to cope with exhaustive circumstance such as extreme cold or heat, pollutions etc. Griffin and Hesketh (2003) precised these eight dimensions into three behaviors i.e., proactive behavior, reactive behavior and tolerant behavior. Handling emergencies or crisis situations and solving problems creatively fall under proactive behaviors; learning work tasks, interpersonal, cultural, and physical adaptability fall under reactive behaviors; handling work stress, dealing with uncertain or unpredictable situations fall under tolerant behaviors. Proactive behaviors are reactions that have constructive effect on the changing work atmosphere; reactive behaviors are changing one self willingly or getting flexible to the changing work environment; tolerant behaviors are constant functioning in spite of differing demands of work environment. Further, Ployhart and Bliese (2006) affirmed that individual adaptability has direct as well as moderating outcome on performance. He further explained that individual adaptability possibly will possess two forms: proactive effects and reactive effects. Adaptability is not a construct but it was motivated from changing demands of work environment. These constructive inputs have proved that researchers have made their valuable contribution or laid significant efforts in the field of adaptive performance.

1.2 Influence of Leader Initiating Structure and Leader Consideration towards Adaptive performance:

Leader initiating structure and Leader consideration are two dimensions of leader behavior proposed by Ohio State Leadership Studies in 1945. Lowin et al. (1969) described ‘initiating structure’ and ‘consideration’, as the former refers to behavior of leader who is task-oriented and latter refers to behavior of leader who is relationship-oriented. Initiating structure is where a leader is quiet supportive to employees in terms of offering help to them when the job needs to be done. Initiating structure behavior requires actions such as giving special importance to quality of work, ensuring one’s duty and deadlines, emphasizing their responsibilities, constantly planning to get the work done within the given period of time, facilitate with useful solutions to problems, never procrastinate his/her schedules, encourages workers, motivates them to encounter difficulties. Consideration is where a leader places more concern towards sustaining in good relationship with the employees. Leaders with high sense of consideration continue to keep up good rapport with his/her subordinates. He possesses qualities such as finding time to spend some quality hours with people, makes it easy for people to bond with him, attentive to listen to others, appreciates/compliments good work done by subordinates, he includes others’ opinion or ideas before making a decision, no rule is bought into action without others’ consent, ensures that employees are working under a pleasant atmosphere (Cunningham, 1966). The term initiating structure and consideration emerged out of exploration dealing with surveillance, measurement, and illustration by leaders. Finchum and Rhodes (2005) indicated that leaders play a pivotal role in shaping the organizational values and vision. Effective leaders spend their time and energy qualitatively. Subsequently, a proficient leader who is highly task-oriented would invest his time and effort into doing useful functions like scheduling and planning the objectives, coordinating tasks and their deadlines, inculcate motivation and confidence, facilitate subordinates with appropriate technical and equipment support. An effective leader would mentor subordinates to target high goals, simultaneously, keeps monitoring them closely so that, deviation from their target never takes place. On the other side, with relationship-oriented behavior there is always required an emotional bonding in leader-employee relationship. Expressing trust, acting friendly, being understand to employees’ troubles, expressing appreciation are some of the key components of relationship-oriented behavior exposed by effective managers. Jing and Yingqian (2012) with reference to adaptive performance, stressed upon the need for leadership into it, where he stated that leader initiating structure enables to enhance intellectuality of employees like constant challenge assumptions, challenge the status quo, train staff curiosity, encourage employees to give full imagination and encourage employee to find new ways to solve problems, whereas, leader consideration leads to employees’ growth such supporting his/hers’ innovative ideas. Literatures pointed out that leaders who rank top in initiating structures and consideration are the most successful individuals. It can be further specified that good leaders are the ones who initiate new changes in the organization. Yukl (2008) emphasized the significant role played by leadership in employees’ adaptability by stating that “Leaders value adaption”. This statement is justifiable because managers do care about how works gets done and they do offer helping hand to the works to get the done in a much effective and efficient way. It can also be mentioned that emotional intelligence has got an association with adaptive behavior. The ability to realize mistakes and learn from experience and adjust to changes appears to be a part of social or emotional intelligence.

Rikkink (2014) described adaptive performance as ‘change behavior’ which emphasizes upon encouraging innovative thinking and external monitoring. It can be possibly stated that until unless an employee is given the openness to think and act on his way or effort, he cannot excel in creativity. When creativity (or openness to think) lags, it would eventually affect the employees’ sense of adaptability to new changes occurring around. To fit with the changing circumstances, it is mandatory for the workers to be highly ground-breaking, which only can be achieved with offering them a supportive hand, both, at task and relationship wise. When support is lent at task-wise, he/she acquires adequate knowledge at their field work, which would increase their confidence to perform the job devoid of errors at any changing work situation. On the other hand, when support is lent at relationship-wise, where every employee is treated in a much fair manner, rather than being controlled, he/she would feel psychologically empowered, that can possibly make them feel open to take up risks and challenges, which they face during their course of work. It can be clearly made out that leader behavior can certainly have an effect on employees’ outcome. Therefore, the main objective of the paper is to identify how leader initiating structure (task-oriented behavior) and leader consideration (relationship-oriented behavior) affect employees’ adaptability.

2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

2.1 Studies on Adaptive performance:

Voirin et al. (2010) empirically found that there is a positive relationship between transformational leadership and adaptive performance, but no relationship existing between transformational leadership and climate for innovativeness. Barrick and Mount (1991) found that openness to experience can lead to higher level of increased individuals’ coping to organizational change. Spector (2006) recommended that employees who undergo neuroticism considerably have low level of adaptability in work. Such individuals should have a strong mental ability to cope with stress. Lepine et al. (2000) explored that cognitive ability, openness to experience, conscientious influence adaptive performance. Bono and Judge (2003) found that self-concordance leads to stronger individuals’ adaptability. Eisenbeiss et al. (2008) identified that transformational leadership progressively increase subordinates’ creative thinking, subsequently supporting individuals to be adaptable to changes at workplace. Bell et al. (2014) found in his results that participative leadership styles had negative correlation with adaptability; whereas directive leadership style was positively correlated with adaptability. Huang et al. (2014) indicated that personality traits such as ambition and emotional stability are the strong predictors of adaptive performance for managers when compared with employees. Griffin and Hesketh (2003) revealed that self-efficacy, organizational support, complexity of work considerably influence adaptive performance. This finding could possibly come in support of Gist and Mitchell (1992) where they would have quoted that self-efficacy enables to nurture the level of adaptability among individuals. Shoss et al. (2012) found that individuals are more likely to invest more time and energy in getting adaptable to change when they merely perceive their hard work be appreciated or valued. Petrou et al. (2015) explored that individuals’ adaptableness to organizational changes are strongly correlated to an employees’ regulatory orientation. Motowidlo and Van Scotter (1994) revealed that job demands are negatively correlated with in-role performance. It can be due to the fact that exhaustion can cause physical and emotional weariness and therefore, as Bakker et al., (2004) quoted exhaustion may weaken adaptive performance. Chen (2005) stated that initial newcomer empowerment, team expectation, initial team performance are predicts of initial newcomer of performance. Sequentially, newcomer initial performance and performance improvement correlated to subsequent team performance. Newcomer initial performance associated to subsequent newcomer empowerment and intentions to quit. Sweet et al. (2015) found that leader-member exchange (LMX) positively correlated with adaptive performance, whereas perceived organizational support (POS) did not. It was also tested whether POS moderates the association between leader-member and adaptive performance; the study signified that LMX was positively correlated to adaptive performance among workers reporting average, high but not with low levels of POS. Allworth and Hesketh (1999) had found that change-related biodata (experience, coping, and self-efficacy) are better predictors of adaptive performance. Also, the obtained results indicated that openness to experience and emotional stability did predict adaptive performance.

2.2 Studies on Initiating structure and Consideration:

Tabernero et al. (2009) affirmed task oriented leaders (i.e., leaders who exhibit initiating structure behavior) presented efficacy among group members, on the other side, relationship oriented leaders (i.e., leaders who exhibit consideration behavior) presented cohesion among group members. (Derue et al. (2011) further proved that leader initiating structure and leader consideration have positive relationship with leader effectiveness, where the results of the study pointed out that initiating structure and consideration are two factors that have positive relationship with leader effectiveness. The results obtained from this study relates to the findings derived by Judge et al. (2004) where he stated that initiating structure and consideration have non-zero relationship with leader effectiveness. (Naami et al. (2014) explored in the results of his study that self-efficacy and openness to experience have a strong relationship with adaptive performance. Wofford and Liska (1993) revealed that leader consideration is positively correlated with employee satisfaction. Packard and Kauppi (1999) affirmed that employees experienced high degree of job satisfaction with leaders who possessed higher degree of consideration; it was also found that when leader express higher levels of supportive behavior, it also lead to employees’ job satisfaction. Mulla Feroze and Krishnan (2000) found that initiating structure and consideration had a positive relationship with initiating structure and consideration. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out this research because very few studies had been conducted with testing the influence of initiating structure, consideration towards adaptive performance.

3. METHODOLOGY:

3.1 Sample:

The data was collected through questionnaire method. Sample size comprises of 50 employees working at small scale industries in Coimbatore district, India.

3.2 Measurement:

The scales for Leader Initiating structure and Leader Consideration were adopted from Halpin (1957) which consists of 30 items. The scales for adaptive performance were adopted from Voirin et al. 2010 which totally recorded to 34 items. Overall, it was measured on four point Likert scale (1- Always; 2- Sometimes; 3- Rarely; 4-Never). Cronbach alpha method was employed to test the reliability of the scales. Initiating Structure scales recorded to 0.7, Consideration scales recorded to 0.8. Adaptive performance scales scored 0.8. Since the reliability values were above 0.7, the scales were further preceded for analysis.

3.3 Hypotheses of the study:

The main purpose of the study is to identify to what extent, behaviors of Leader Initiating Structure and Leader Consideration influence Adaptive Performance among employees. We argue that Leader Initiating Structure, which ultimately means the task-oriented support lend by the leaders, can be expected to bring rise to the sense of adaptability among employees. On the other hand, leader consideration which means leader bonding a strong rapport with employees can also cause empowerment leading to increased adaptive performance. (Piccolo et al. (2012) claimed that leadership studies have always got substantial attention for decades and equally initiating structure and consideration engendered extensive empirical work in leadership literatures. Kotter (1998) specified that leadership has the power of shaping an organization effectively and enables to sustain a cultural value that is adaptable to changes. Sarros et al. (2008) analyzed that leadership has a strong association with change and development. O’Connell et al. (2008) stated that good communication; managerial supports are some of the prominent factors which are needed to foster adaptability. Likewise, Karasek and Theorell (1990) mentioned that employees’ level of coping actively or personally adjust or change to the work environment relies on the extent of support laid by supervisors or co-workers. Additionally, Kotter and Schlesinger (2008) cited that supportive behavior is mandatory to promote change in the organization. Expressing adequate empathy and understanding by leaders towards employees can certainly flourish fruitful organizational change, thereby, leading to higher adaptable performance (Schweiger et al. 1987). Therefore, it can be inferred that leadership can be a vital component in influencing adaptive performance. Moreover, very few studies had been conducted where leader initiating structure and leader consideration test their influence towards adaptive performance. The following null hypotheses for the study are fixed upon to test the results.

H₀1: Leader Initiating Structure does not influence Employees’ Adaptive Performance

H₀2: Leader Consideration does not influence Employees’ Adaptive Performance

Interpretation:

From Table 1 it can be understood that Leader Initiating Structure influences Employees’ Adaptive Performance for 78.5% (Adjusted R Square) which is quiet a high impact. Furthermore, from the Table 2 it can be identified that the significance value ranges to 0.000 (where p value <0.05), the null hypotheses (H₀1) gets rejected, therefore evidentially proving Leader Initiating Structure influences Employees’ Adaptive Performance.

The following tables represent Simple Regression Analysis for Leadership Consideration and Employees’ Adaptive Performance.

Table 3 Model Summary

Model	R	R Square	Adjusted R Square	Std. Error of the Estimate
1	.654^a	.427	.416	7.55571

a. Predictors: (Constant), Consideration

Table 4 ANOVA^a

Model		Sum of Squares	Df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
1	Regression	2046.219	1	2046.219	35.843	.000^b
	Residual	2740.261	48	57.089
	Total	4786.480	49

a. Dependent Variable: Adaptive Performance

b. Predictors: (Constant), Consideration

Interpretation:

From Table 3 it can be found that Leader Consideration influences Employees’ Adaptive Performance for 41.6% (Adjusted R Square). Subsequently, from the Table 4 it can be identified that the significance value records to 0.000, (where p value<0.05) the null hypotheses (H₀2) gets rejected, therefore strongly proving Leader Initiating Structure influences Employees’ Adaptive Performance.

5. DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSION:

From the results generated above, it can be observed that Leader Initiating Structure scored high influences over Adaptive Performance than Leader Consideration. As mentioned by Voirin and Roussel (2012), the concept of adaptive performance is about the ability to adapt to varying work circumstances. Work being the first preference for employees, when task-oriented support is received from leaders’ side; the employees attain stability and gain the capability to handle the challenges in the change. With regard to Leader Consideration, Bass (1985) had stated that leaders’ individualized consideration can cause employees’ to face change and perform better. Ford and Sorra (1992) found that task oriented support from supervisors or peers enabled airmen to perform even the more complicated or difficult tasks. Zaccaro and Banks (2004) argued that leaders should engage in continuous supportive behaviors and motivation, to flourish the concept of adaptability at work environment. Hence, previous literatures come in favor of the results obtained in our study. Unlike task and contextual performance, adaptive performance is different from the other types. The capacity of someone being pliable to varying situation is seen as a mandatory requirement in organization. Further, Yukl (2008) asserted that it is essential that workers develop high level of confidence so that they would have the mindset for acceptance of change. Individuals who are confident view challenge as a thrill rather than a hurdle. It is necessary to inculcate in the minds of people that obstacles are temporary, therefore, encouraging flexibility and malleability. Every action got to be monitored here and then to examine how work can be improved or purged.

Butterfield and Nelson (1989) emphasized that adaptability is individuals’ reaction to changes in the nature of their job. As Smith et al. (1997) claimed that advances in technology have made it in demand for organizations, to develop soft skills such as interpersonal and problem solving skills among their employees to enable them to solve cognitive complex situations that exist in their day-to-day job routine. To leverage such inner skills, it is essential to identify what could be the possible factors or predictors that will pave way for adaptableness. To receive task oriented support and relationship oriented support from leaders/supervisors/peers is yet another reminder that, an employee cannot develop the sense of adaptableness all alone by himself/herself, whereby team work is a fundamental module. The study further emphasizes the need of leadership studies in adaptive performance, because as rightly quoted by Yukl (2008), had stated that how leaders behave, is how the employees would also behave in the organization. Behavior of the leaders is directly equivalent to the behavior of the employees. When difficult situations prevail in the firm, the level of confidence, knowledge and courage possessed by leader to sort it out, will inspire subordinates. Consequently, when the inspiration is sowed in the minds of employees, they would certainly develop the enthusiasm to overcome hard situations. The true success of a superior relies in the reputation, he/she had earned with their way of administration. Further, thoughts of Yukl (2008) put more strong evidence to the results of our study. The ability of leader to listen patiently, interact effectually, inculcate positive vibes will help the leader to provoke dynamism in employees to propose activity or change. To progress in adaptive performance cannot happen in an easy way, but it certainly involves a lot of tolerance, presence of mind and proactivity. When a leader brings out changes in strategy, he’s bound to be appreciated if the strategy ends up in success; but he’s also more prone to be blamed if it goes a failure. Every coin has two sides, as a result, to retain his place it is fundamental for a leader be the ‘people’s man’, so that even at times of downfall, his decisions would not be criticized. Therefore, from the previous literatures it can be concluded that leadership is a pivotal instrument that influences employees’ performance in all aspects. Adaptive performance is an emerging concept and it is likely to be different from task and contextual performance. Leader initiating structure and leader consideration are increasingly logical and methodical which provokes empowerment to employees. The experience of empowerment possibly increases the sense of respect for the organization among individuals, which would eventually lead them to take risks and challenges for the benefit of the organization (Yukl, 2008). Any leader who is found to be obstructive cannot bring the best out of his/her subordinates; which can possibly direct to employees’ grief and disinterest to work in the organization. Sense of adaptability can be considered as an ‘intangible asset’ which is highly advantageous and indispensable for the growth of an organization. And, this sense can inculcated only by educating the employees.

6. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE:

The findings of the study indicate that employees’ value both leader initiating structure (i.e., task oriented behavior) and leader consideration (i.e., relationship oriented behavior). Empirically, it can be determined that more significance is place towards leader initiating structure. As a result, leader initiating structure leads to higher level of adaptive performance. Consequently, managers should place more attention at supporting subordinates in their successful completion of tasks. Fleishman and Harris (1962) quoted that giving elaborate instructions and periodical checking are considered to be leader supportive behavior; but when such favors or facilitations are not done, the leader is considered to be punitive. Therefore, a healthy leader behavior would certainly influence the sense of adaptability of employees. Finchum and Rhodes (2005) specified that the capacity of a firm to adjust to the changes keenly depends on the kind of leadership that is administered. Schweiger et al. (1987) observed that the way superiors carry out themselves during the period of when crucial changes takes place in the organization leads to subordinates perception towards their superiors. Yukl (2008) rightly stated that as there is boom in globalization and technology, there will also be increase in facility to learn from experience and adaptability to change. It can be alleged that, the sagacity of employees to change is strongly related to leader behavior. When leaders modify their very approach or behavior, it will certainly reflect on employees. To quote in the words of Peter Drucker “Entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It is a practice”. Likewise, if leader choose the path of positivity i.e., adopting any of the positive leader behaviors, it is certain to replicate on the employees. Therefore, it can be implicated that when the right leadership style is chosen; it is certain to lead employees in a fair manner. Similarly, this implication was suggested by Blake and Mouton (1982) where they emphasized particular forms of behavior should be adopted for particular time or circumstance. Yet another issue that need to be focused is, adaptive problem solving. It is one the healthiest forms of leadership where, leader engages employees into activities such as facing problems, overcoming difficulties, changing perspective. Leaders can certainly help employees to get them out of difficulties but to let themselves deal with the problem and conclude to a solution is another way of effective leadership. One of the most imperative leadership purposes is to empower subordinates to deal an important problem, more willingly than refuting it. Also, another pivotal function of leadership is to enable the subordinates to identify the key issues in the problems, encourage them speak out intrepidly if they want to express their disagreements, and lastly motivating them to acquire accurate compositional solution to the problem. Leaders should necessarily educate subordinates that during their course of work they would encounter various barriers and obstructions and self-sacrifices are essential to achieve their goals. Therefore, adaptive problem solving is one of those vital tools that need to be practiced by mangers to upgrade their followers to adaptability.

Another aspect for implication is to train the employees to possess the sense of emotional maturity. An individual who is mature can adjust better to the work atmosphere and does not have to worry about any psychological disorder. Emotionally matured individuals have self knowledge of their own strength and weakness. They always seek to learn from mistakes and experiences; subsequently, self-improvising themselves to attain success (Bennis and Nanus, 1985). Emotionally matured individuals are meant to less egotistical and possess high level of self-control. Another significant aspect is, leaders with emotional maturity sustain good relationship with their colleagues, employees, and superiors in the organization. It can also be perceived that leadership style which has got no emotional maturity is meant to be destructive or unethical. Therefore, it can be understood that emotional maturity promotes relationship-oriented behavior (i.e., leader consideration); also, it upgrades task oriented behavior (i.e., leader initiating structure) because a leader who is highly matured emotionally is said to be supportive or constructive. Individuals of such nature are certain to be adaptable. To understand ones work environment, people’s nature, job role is very fundamental; and at an organizational settings, changes may pertain in any of these areas, and to be pliant towards these changes does relatively depend on ones emotional maturity. Every employee in the organization possesses different knowledge, skills, abilities, preferences, beliefs and culture. Every person is different in nature. So consequently, every individual’s reaction to ‘change’ will be varied. To put it in other ways, the very perception about ‘change’ will be different from one person to the other. Some could be very adjustable or excited about trying new things but, some could be timid or rigid. For a long lasting survival, strictly there need to be a workforce that is adaptable to changes. As a result, it is in the hands of leaders to bring the best out of their manpower in the organization. It is through the mechanism of leadership it can possibly happen. Previous literatures make it clear that leadership influences employees’ sense of adaptability. Albeit, an employee staying rigid to changes, it depends upon the attitude or behavior of the managers to transform his/her subordinates to the current changes, therefore, motivating and emphasizing them the need for adaptableness in the organization. Haeckel (1999) rightly stated that unlike traditional work environment, where most of the work schedule would be planned well in advance, in the current scenario, changes occur profusely and employees need to be prepared to respond quickly to instantaneous demands and conditions that occur certain or uncertain situations. Even if, information technology is playing a crucial role, human abilities in structuring patterns and thinking innovatively is pivotal for an organization’s success. Unanticipated challenges takes place very frequent in organizations of nowadays, how well-equipped a firm does not matter, but how adaptable or efficient is the human resource in the firm does judges its future. Chao et al. (1994) stated that giant corporate stress upon the need for opportunities and growth in all aspects of functioning in an organization such as expansion in partnership, adaptableness to different cultures such that individuals got to work efficiently in different nations or cultural contexts.

When a new change is introduced in the organization, it might require new skills which may not be familiar or known thoroughly to the employees; but its requirements would become mandatory. Therefore, it is fundamental for individuals to get prepared for future needs, in such a way, leveraging their knowledge and skills periodically. Leaders should always involve in motivating their followers to frequently indulge in educating themselves. When leader support is strong, it would positively provoke individuals to focus on strengthening their capabilities which would ensure them to emerge as a promising employee in the organization (Kozlowski et al. 1999). Another crucial aspect for implication is ‘anticipating changes’. To be aware of what possibly be the next change is always got to predicted well in advance. Organizations of new trend, they create the change, rather than waiting for the changes to occur. Employees are emphasized to think and work ‘smarter’ as their cell phones. The period of withstand of an organization keenly depends on, how far their manpower contributes to the society through innovation. Until unless, the manpower has itself experienced the change, it cannot create it knowledgably. And, to experience the change, the sense of adaptability should be possessed by the individual. Moss et al. (2009) rightly stated that leaders’ behavior influences followers’ self-esteem. Such positive leaders facilitate subordinates with a clear picture of the future, consider employees’ wants and encourage followers to try their best to be creative therefore provoking independent thinking. When leaders behavior are empowering, it certainly guides subordinates to act confidently in every aspect of their work with high creative potential. Voirin et al. (2010) mentioned that good usage of one’s self-esteem is an important component to build adaptive performance. Self-esteem helps to hike individuals’ positivity and optimism; hence allowing them to bravely face changes, stress, difficulties, complexities- that are core components of adaptability.

7. FURTHER DIRECTIONS:

The study has taken into account only ‘initiating structure’ and ‘consideration’ as the predictors of adaptive performance, future research could be carried out with other predictors that could possibly influence employees’ adaptability. Other leadership styles can be learned to see if they predict adaptive performance. The sample size is considerably small, so with a larger sample size, further studies can be conducted. Another limitation is that the participants of the study are employees’ working at small scale industries, thus participants from other sectors should be taken into study for future research to test whether the results obtained in this research, generalize to other employees from different job backgrounds.

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Received on 02.05.2017 Modified on 18.06.2017

Asian J. Management; 2017; 8(3):695-704.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5763.2017.00110.X