Salus Forum: January 7, 2026

Walt

Creating a culture is where individuals are equipped to think, adapt, and solve problems collectively. Again, we’ve talked about them working together. Adaptive leaders help their organizations build resilience by fostering a mindset of continuous learning and experimentation. So that’s it.

Culture: How does it differ from culture operating in organizations with traditional leadership? Adaptive leadership enlists the creativity of the entire organization, whereas traditional leadership often relies on a few top managers. So there’s one big piece. It is about having the whole organization somehow participate in meaningful, inclusive ways.

Decision making: It focuses on building the capacity for good judgment within, here it is, within individuals, rather than relying solely on imposed rules and instructions: being told what to do. How do we germinate that inner structure where people can spontaneously make the right sort of choices, because they’ve got the solution inside themselves?

Flexibility: Traditional leadership is often associated with fixed structures. Nope, we do it this way. Adaptive leadership thrives on flexibility and agility. If you look at the Salus website, you will find that the tradition of Salus resonates very well with Heifetz’s adaptive leadership.

Bill B

Ron Heifetz is one of my heroes. He is the son of Jascha Heifetz, who is one of the great musicians of 20th century classical music. Growing up with his father, Ron Heifetz got interested in orchestras. And how do orchestras perform best? Or Mark, what about the jazz ensembles that I see and hear when I’m down in New Orleans? The leadership of these ensembles is constantly flowing.

Some conductors are very demanding. They say: Here’s how we do it. Von Karajan is often noted as a great conductor who is domineering.  However, there’s Joann Falletta, who is the extraordinary conductor of the Buffalo Symphony, and now of other symphonies around the world. She has a gentle way of leading that doesn’t align with the traditional model of leadership. Ms. Falletta views a piece of music as something that she studies together with members of her organization.  Perhaps borrowing from the notion of Flow that is championed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Joann Falletta believes that the music being performed “flows from all of us,” not just Joann as conductor.

Another very interesting piece, that may have come up during one of our earlier forums, concerns a major study done about members of orchestras and conductors. Conductors lead long lives. The average age of a conductor is well into their 80s.  Members of their orchestra lead much shorter lives. In part because they’re being taught constantly what to do. In traditional orchestras, they’re just sitting there. And they’re performing someone else’s interpretation of the music, not their own. And that is wearing on people who care deeply about the interpretation of classical music.