Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
Case 11.1: Silence, Stigma, and Mental
Illness
Case Synopsis and Analysis
Madeline Halpert and Eva Rosenfeld wanted to write and publish an article in the high
school newspaper that detailed students’ battles with depression. They hoped that publication
of the article would diminish the stigma of mental illness and planned to use the full names
of students in the article. All students, and their parents, consented to the article.
Unfortunately, the high school principal felt that publication of the article could lead to
bullying of the students named in the article. Madeline and Eva protested, claiming that
printing an article with students’ real names was crucial to diminish the stigma of depression.
The principal and district, however, refused to publish the article. In response, Madeline and
Eva wrote an op-ed piece, “Depressed, but not Ashamed” which was published in The New
York Times. The article discussed their dismay with having the article halted by school
administrators—an act that they believe further stigmatized those with mental illnesses.
The case study highlights the difficulties of implementing change. Students are asked to
consider the complexity of a difficult, touchy issue from several angles and decide how
leadership failed in this case.
Learning objectives:
• Students should be able to recognize the need for adaptive leadership in a given case
study.
• Students should be able to analyze whether a leader’s behavior comports with
effective adaptive leadership.
• Students should be able to understand what a holding environment is and see how the
wrong holding environment diminishes potential for adaptive change.
Answers to questions in the text:
1. How do you define the problem the editors were trying to address? Was this a
technical or an adaptive challenge?
Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
2. What is your reaction to what the principal did in this situation? How do you think
what she did fits in with providing direction, protection, orientation, conflict
management, and productive norms?
Students will likely be unsatisfied with the principal’s behavior. Some may recognize
the need to protect the students in the article, and others may feel that the students
should be allowed to share their stories. Either way, it seems as though the principal
could have handled the issue with greater compassion and collaboration. She was also
not effective at providing direction, conflict management, and productive norms.
Providing direction involves identifying the adaptive challenges that others face and
3. Describe the holding environment in this case. Was the holding environment
sufficient to meet the adaptive challenges in this situation? How would you improve
it?
Creating a holding environment refers to establishing an atmosphere in which people
can feel safe tackling difficult problems but not so much so that they can avoid the
4. Based on Figure 11.1, discuss who were the adaptive leaders in this case. Which of
the leader behaviors (get on the balcony, identify adaptive challenges, regulate
distress, etc.) did these leaders exhibit?
The student editors were adaptive leaders who fought to change people’s perceptions
about mental illness. Unfortunately, they were not effective at adaptive leadership.
The student editors did not effectively get on the balcony and consider the problem
with a bird’s-eye view. They fought to write the article but seemingly did not
Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
Potential teaching approaches:
Below is a way to structure a class based on Adaptive Leadership and Case Study 11.1:
• Ask students to read Case 11.1.
• Debate Exercise 1 below.
• Hold a lecture on adaptive leadership.
• Discuss Questions 1–4 in the case study as a class.
• Finally, the professor may choose to conduct in-class exercises listed below.
Exercises for this case study:
1) Debate: Students should read the case study and debate the publication of the article.
2) In small groups, students should turn back the clock and . . .
A) Pretend that they are the editors poised to meet with the principal for the first time
about the article. The students know the principal does not want to publish and
3) Students again turn back the clock and role-play the first discussion with the principal
4) Based on the details in the case, students should write a “letter to the editor” (200–