Dr Torben Norby | Contextual Leadership: How to Adapt Your Style Without Losing Your Authenticity

Helping Organisations Thrive with Julian Roberts

In this compelling episode, Dr. Torben Norby shares his expertise on contextual leadership, drawing from over two decades of experience spanning military service, retail management, and international business transformation. Torben breaks down contextual leadership into three core disciplines: understanding your context by identifying crucial performance factors, matching your leadership style through the balance of opening/closing and directing/sharing approaches, and actively shaping organisational structures and culture to promote performance. He reveals how military concepts like "leading through intent" have evolved into civilian applications, and shares a powerful real-world case study of helping a European organisation adapt during the Ukraine conflict by decoupling interdependencies and building contingent responses.

Throughout the conversation, Torben addresses the challenge every leader faces: how to remain authentic while adapting to different contexts, whether leading a production team versus a marketing department, or managing across cultures from Denmark to China. He emphasises that successful contextual leadership requires building common ground around shared values and principles, then leveraging diversity rather than being fragmented by it. The episode concludes with Torben's warning about the most common implementation mistake: failing to involve people in organisational alignment, reminding us that "you can't tell an organisation to align - you can only do that by mobilisation and enrollment."

Connect with Torben: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drnoerby/ Website: https://drnoerby.com/ ##########

If you are looking for a Blueprint to help you and your business manage uncertainty, deal with failure and navigate change then reach out to Julian at: [email protected]

You can buy my book "Weathering the Storm: A Guide to Building Resilient Teams" on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DFTYN2Y2