He models and maintains norms of behavior. Gorillas aren't born knowing how to be gorillas. The silverback is the shaper of group behavior. Now, make the crossing to human leadership. But there is another kind of work, which Heifetz calls adaptive work , that arises from outside the system, and that requires a dimension of leadership neither gorilla bands nor most human bands can provide.
Technical work is problem-solving.
Finding berries and breaking up fights is technical work. Once you know how to do it, you simply repeat the process. Adaptive work, by contrast, is an open-ended challenge. It creates a new environment in which you cannot survive by relying on the wisdom of the old environment. When poachers intervene in the closed gorilla universe and open fire on the band with automatic weapons, they pose a challenge that cannot be effectively addressed using traditional gorilla knowledge.