Adaptive Leadership and Social Innovation: Overcoming Critical Theory, Positivism, and Postmodernism in Planning Education

Abstract

It is an unfortunate fact that adaptive leadership and social innovation remain underdeveloped as tools for professional planners and others in public affairs. The assumption, however tacit, is that if plans are drawn up with enough rigor, if planners possesses the correct set of skills, and if they remain true to the goals of equitability, collaboration, inclusion, diversity, multiculturalism, and access, the problems of leadership and social innovation will simply resolve themselves. Highlighting three theoretical foundations—critical theory, positivism, and postmodernism—the author seeks to provide a groundwork from which adaptive leadership and social innovation might be cultivated deliberately toward creative ends by professional planners and those in public affairs, rather than be left lingering in the background as mere ancillary functions to “best practices.”