The work of this respected international humanitarian organization is so well known that the phrase “CARE package” has entered the international vocabulary. But for CARE, this isn’t enough. Several years ago, CARE reevaluated its mission and its impact and made the decision to shift from delivering emergency relief to attacking the underlying causes of global poverty. It found itself dealing with the kind of far-reaching adaptive challenge that can derail an organization. Adaptive Leadership™, however, has helped CARE stay on track and move forward.

For 60 years, CARE had delivered much needed food and relief to people and areas in crisis. But this short-term, transactional approach did not address the root of the problem or make inroads into alleviating poverty. CARE decided to become a long-term, on-the-ground partner in the war on poverty. Although CARE is a non- profit organization, the challenge of moving from a transaction-based to a sustained relationship model is one confronting many for-profit businesses as well.

While there was support for the shift internally, there was also an open acknowledgment that it would have a major impact on the very nature of CARE’s programs, how the organization operated and, in short, its whole internal culture. Instead of being the good guys who brought food and money, and then left town, CARE would now be accountable for how that money was used and how successful its programs were. That posed a huge adaptive challenge for those in the organization, from top to bottom. To provide the skills and courage to work through this transition, CARE developed a program, with the help of CLA, to give country directors and their teams the tools and support to lead the cultural and operational changes the new mission entailed.

Leading With Impact brings together CARE managers from around the world for six days of training and discussion. Three of those days involve immersion in the Adaptive Leadership framework, applying those ideas and tools to their own current individual challenges, and learning leadership practices they can take back to their staffs and communities.

Now in its third year, Leading With Impact has not only aided field managers from 25 countries, the program itself has evolved from basic discussions of leadership to working directly on the organization’s adaptive challenges. Adaptive Leadership has moved from being one of several leadership tools to becoming the scaffolding on which the entire program is built.

The success of Leading With Impacthas begun to percolate up the food chain. One senior vice president has completed CLA’s open enrollment training program. And now, with a new president on board, Adaptive Leadership is being introduced to CARE’s top management through a special executive training.

This is the way Adaptive Leadership should work, providing the tools of leadership to people at all levels of an organization, enabling them to make the meaningful—and difficult—changes that will ensure their relevance and success in the future