How Leadership Teams Are Creating Agile Cultures

Over the past few years the words agile and agility have become more used vocabulary in everyday language. They have become more visible and talked about. I can remember years ago we talked about stability, predictability, repeatability, and efficiencies; not agility or being agile!

I've noticed that I'm also increasingly asked by Leadership Teams to support them in their quest of creating an agile culture.

The first challenge when faced with this quest is to always to establish why, and then to agree what an agile culture really means for them. I've found that a clear cultural aspiration is key to success.

Once this is clear they can then create the all important 'from - to's'. Turn these into questions and implement the answers through programmes and projects.

The challenge for me is all about how leaders create a high environment where success is inevitable. A culture that is driven from a common purpose and a clear vision and set of goals. A culture that is underpinned by values, behaviours and practices which enable organisations, teams and individuals to be more adaptive, flexible, innovative and resilient when dealing with volatility, disruption, complexity, uncertainty and change.

One of the most important elements to the success of creating this shift in culture is to create a culture of agility within the Senior Leadership Team (SLT). It requires not only a new way of thinking and a strategic mindset, it also needs intentional behaviours, actions, and team dynamics.

As I'm been asked so much about how to do this recently, I wanted to share with you what I've discovered about how leaders are creating and fostering a culture of agility in their organisations.

Hopefully you'll find the discoveries useful, and actionable, with your leadership teams.

Agility: What It Means for Leadership

As mentioned previously, agility, in the context of leadership, is the ability to quickly adapt to change, pivot strategies, and empower teams to move swiftly without getting bogged down by bureaucracy or resistance. It’s about speed, adaptability, and being forward-thinking. For organisations to survive and thrive in today’s fast-paced world, cultivating agility at the top is crucial.

The challenge is that we have been educated for a world that doesn't exist anymore - that old world of predictability, stability, control, autocracy, and bureaucracy. We need to move into a new world. McKinsey & Company share a great example of the power of a 'from-to' approach.

Identifying the shifts that need to be made is a great starting point and makes it clear in the organisation what needs to be worked on and what is non-negotiable in terms of the new ways of working!

Tactics to Create a Culture of Agility

Here are a few tactics I've found help to make the transition:

1. Promote a Growth Mindset: The SLT needs to embrace a mindset where change and continuous learning are valued over the status quo. Leaders should encourage teams to take calculated risks, experiment, and learn from failures. This openness to iteration and learning fast is a hallmark of agile organisations. Leadership can do this by rewarding curiosity and experimentation, and by celebrating lessons learned from failures as much as successes. Peter Senge’s vision of a learning organisation springs to mind here.
2. Flatten Hierarchies: One of the biggest barriers to agility is hierarchical structures that slow down decision-making. Trying to get a quick decision in a hierarchy is like walking through treacle! Senior leadership should focus on empowering middle management and teams to make decisions quickly. By flattening the hierarchy, teams have the autonomy to respond to market shifts or internal challenges swiftly. This requires trust, and a shift from control to collaboration.
3. Break Silos: Cross-functional collaboration is essential for agility. Senior leadership teams need to break down functional silos, fostering cross-departmental cooperation. Initiating cross-functional teams that come together for specific projects or goals promotes shared understanding, encourages faster communication, and leads to innovative solutions.
4. Simplify Decision-Making: Agility requires speed. To ensure fast decision-making, leaders should streamline approval processes and reduce red tape. Set clear parameters for what decisions can be made at various levels, and push decision-making power closer to the front lines. Empowering teams to make tactical decisions without waiting for top-down approvals accelerates agility.
5. Encourage Open Communication and Transparency: Agility thrives in a culture where communication is open, and everyone feels empowered to contribute ideas. Senior leadership must foster a culture where information flows freely both up and down the organization. Regular check-ins, transparent sharing of successes, failures, and upcoming challenges, as well as creating feedback loops from every level, ensures the organisation can quickly adjust to changes.
6. Continuous Alignment: The SLT should continuously align on organisational priorities, being flexible to pivot when necessary. This requires frequent, high-quality conversations focused on strategy but coupled with flexibility. Encourage a mindset where changing course is not seen as a failure but as a smart response to shifting conditions. This keeps the organisation adaptive and proactive, not reactive.

I've found the key is to turn the tactics into leadership questions and challenge the organisation to tackle them. It also helps that the SLT behave in alignment to the aspirations.

Behaviours Senior Leadership Teams and Leaders Need to Exhibit

This is the make or break element of the transformation. When Senior Leaders don't visibly support in words, behaviours and actions, the transformation is doomed! Senior Leaders need to demonstrate:

1. Adaptability and Flexibility: Leaders who are rigid or stuck in traditional ways of thinking can stifle agility. Senior leaders need to model adaptability by being open to new ideas, methods, and strategies. When leaders themselves exhibit flexibility in decision-making and demonstrate a willingness to pivot, it sets a precedent for the rest of the organisation.
2. Empathy and Emotional Intelligence: Change is often uncomfortable. Leaders need to understand the human element of agility. The fact that employees may struggle with uncertainty. Empathetic leadership involves recognising and addressing the emotional challenges teams face. By showing emotional intelligence, leaders can guide their teams through transitions smoothly, maintaining morale and engagement.
3. Resilience: Agility doesn’t mean every shift will be smooth. Senior leaders need to show resilience in the face of setbacks, modelling a “we’ll figure it out” attitude. This encourages a culture where teams feel supported even when things don’t go as planned. Resilience helps leaders stay focused on long-term goals despite short-term challenges.
4. Collaborative Decision-Making: The best ideas often come from collaboration, not individual brilliance. SLT members need to encourage collaborative decision-making, both within the leadership team and across the organisation. This means actively seeking out diverse perspectives, valuing each team member’s input, and creating an environment where debate is healthy and encouraged.
5. Leading by Example: Senior leaders must walk the talk when it comes to agility. This means being visible in their actions; adapting, listening, pivoting, and staying engaged are key. They should be at the forefront of embodying the culture they want to see throughout the organisation. If leaders are not visibly agile themselves, it’s unlikely their teams will follow.

Acting as a Unified Senior Leadership Team

To promote agility across the organisation, the Senior Leadership Team must also operate as a cohesive unit. This involves three key elements:

1. Shared Vision and Values: A unified SLT means that all members are aligned on the organisation's vision, values, and priorities. While individual perspectives will differ, the team must agree on the overall direction and what agility means for the organisation. When the leadership team is aligned on purpose, they can quickly rally the organisation around change.
2. Mutual Accountability: Agility requires accountability. The SLT must hold each other accountable for delivering on their commitments and being adaptable. A culture of “collective ownership” where leaders are responsible for not only their own departments but also for the success of the entire organisation ensures that agility is sustained across teams and initiatives.
3. Trust and Psychological Safety: For any team to be agile, there must be a foundation of trust and psychological safety. This allows team members to challenge each other, take risks, and innovate without fear of judgment. The SLT must cultivate a safe environment where debate is encouraged, and leaders feel comfortable sharing candid feedback. This trust will trickle down through the organisation, creating a more agile workforce. Ego needs to be left at the door!

Leadership Sets the Pace for Agility

The speed of the organisation is determined by the speed of its leaders. Senior leaders must be the standard-bearers of agility, demonstrating through their actions, decisions, and mindset what it means to be flexible, innovative, and responsive. With the right tactics, behaviours, and a united leadership team, they can transform their organisation into a nimble, future-ready entity that’s built to adapt and thrive.

The pace of change in business today demands agility, and it begins with leadership.

I would love to hear your thoughts and reflections. Let me know anything I've missed, I'm sure there is plenty!

Every success,

Graham