How to Develop an Agile Approach to Leadership Development

Do you have tasks on your to-do-list that never quite get done? Are you stuck in a cycle of short-term thinking that never lets you see beyond the end of the week? Or even, when things really heat up, the day?

How can you possibly expect to deliver the business results you’re capable of in this situation? And how will you achieve your own vision - and reach your own goals and aspirations?

With the pressure of immediate challenges, quarterly targets and set patterns of behavior that have worked for you in the past, it can feel impossible to even think of taking a side step and reflecting on your position.

Work Smarter, Not Harder

In Eric Reis’s brilliant book, “The Lean Start Up” he talks about “putting a process, a methodology around the development of a product” and about testing a vision, “continuously.”

What process or methodology could you put around yourself, so that you had the time and the space to develop?

And what might you be capable of if you did?

It’s the successful leaders, the key players and the people with high potential that are key to driving critical change in any organisation. They’re the valuable figures that have brilliant minds and big ideas.

But what happens if they get stuck? And what’s happening to you?

To be able to make changes takes time. Time to reflect and to consider.  And to carve out that time you need to break the cycle.  Taking an agile approach to leadership development means that you keep a laser-focus on the challenges that will have the greatest impact on your business performance.

Where will you be in a year?

Take a moment and think.

What are your objectives for the next year? Where do you want to be? And what do you want to be doing? Then consider this. Where do your key challenges lie? And how do you see yourself overcoming them?

Alignment

Achieving peak performance means identifying your vision and your challenges, and aligning them with the strategy of the organisation you work within.  Do they fit?  And what would success in that situation look like?

Accountability

Being accountable means being open to feedback. It also means that there’s room for external encouragement and evaluation. It means you can measure your success as you progress. And know that you – and only you - are responsible for yourself.

Value

Like anything that involves making changes, for an agile approach to leadership development to be effective, it needs to be sustainable. There needs to be a measuring post against which you can see where you’ve made an impact and where you’ve added value.

A Strategy for Success

An agile approach to leadership coaching can help you to drive critical change. It can help give you the focus to unravel the issues that are impacting on your work - and holding you back.

My experience indicates that agile leadership coaching instils:

• A drive for success
• A clear agenda for change
• An alignment of core personal values with organisational values
• A commitment to personal learning and development
• The courage to take risks
• The desire to make a difference.

Is it time you accelerated your success? Break out of the cycle of short-term thinking and see what you could achieve.

Click here to read how Leadership Coaching helped one director progress to a higher role as a result of achieving personal and business goals >>

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Antoinette Oglethorpe is a Talent Development Specialist who helps organisations develop leaders, deliver strategy and drive results. If you'd like to find out how effective your Talent Development Strategy is at delivering business results, download your free Talent Development Audit. Learn how to increase your competitive advantage. Engage, retain and develop your best people. And save serious amounts of time and money.