Why Leadership Agility is a Super Power and How to Develop It

Leadership agility is the ability to take effective action in complex, rapidly changing conditions. Agile leaders act with purpose and flexibility, collaborating with different stakeholders, developing creative solutions and continually learning and changing. Leaders require a foundation of self-awareness, an ability to reflect on opportunities, shift perspectives for the greater good, and respond in ways that enhance relationships and drive meaningful results in order to be successful in today's business environment.

Too often in times of stress, threat, complexity, and change – leaders will retreat to their comfort zones by over-relying on their habits and strengths that have served them well in the past. The challenge with this approach is two-fold. First, a leader’s greatest strengths can also be their greatest area of weakness when that strength is overdone or misused. Think about the manager who is great at organizing and project planning but when this strength is overplayed during times of stress or change, it can feel like micro-managing or controlling. Secondly, today’s unparalleled rate of change requires that leaders continually evolve their lens, frameworks, and approaches to effectively address new challenges and opportunities.

The book, Leadership Agility (Joiner and Josephs, 2006), shared the results from a five-year investigation of this topic revealing that, at its core, leadership agility is the ability to take “reflective action” – to step back from one’s current focus, gain a broader, deeper perspective, then refocus and take action that is informed by this larger perspective. Agile leadership is not just another tool in the leadership tool kit it is a leadership super power. It is a fundamental capacity that affects how leaders express all of their knowledge, skills, abilities, passions, and values. Below are 4 actions that will develop and grow your leadership agility.

#1: Defining Your Leadership Purpose

Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose - Leonardo da Vinci

Most leaders understand the value and necessity of goals. Leaders will have many different types of goals throughout their career which can include organizational goals, individual goals, and team goals. Goals are important because they create clarity and focus on how a leader should invest time, resources, and energy to achieve the greatest success.

Unfortunately, too few leaders take time to define their unique leadership purpose. A leader’s purpose is more permanent and personalized than their goals. A leader’s purpose explains a persons' “why” of leadership and should represent their North Star that provides clarity and direction when navigating the complex situations that come with leadership. This purpose statement will help a leader solidify their leadership values that are the guard rails for how they aspire to act when engaging in their most difficult times. Effective leadership agility requires this type of moral compass and purpose so others can feel safe to trust and be inspired by their leaders. Without an articulated and demonstrated purpose, leadership agility can often feel like leadership manipulation or coercion. It’s important for leaders to have a clear identity of who they aspire to be and what they aspire to accomplish to serve as a guide when navigating through the ongoing storms that will undoubtedly arise throughout their leadership journey.

#2: Aligning “In the Moment” Intentions

Never make permanent decisions on temporary feelings.

I am continually reminded that our behavior and actions are a direct reflection of the mindset that we bring to any situation. Our intentions are specific to a situation or context and are more immediate than goals and purpose. Being intentional about mindset allows leaders to focus on how they want to be in the moment, independent of whether they feel they are winning or losing. Being aware and deliberate about aligning our “in the moment" intentions with our longer-term purpose and goals allows us to be deliberate about choosing actions versus just reacting out of fear, anger, loss of control, frustration, etc. Leaders who are able to choose their intentions, in the heat of the moment, stay aligned to their best self, a place where they live their values and receive the satisfaction that comes from being true to their purpose while focusing on achieving their most important results.

Leaders must learn to quickly assess their mindset and reset (if needed) to an intention that will produce behaviors that serve their leadership purpose and goals. An exercise that I often use when coaching leaders about becoming more aware of the power of their mindset is to ask them to identify an important and complex scenario that requires them to interact with others to advance or improve the situation. I then will have them answer the following questions about that situation.

• What are your long-term results and relationship goals for this situation?
• Based on the response to the previous question, what are your best “in the moment” intentions for your upcoming interactions to improve or advance this situation?
• What behaviors should you demonstrate to achieve your best “in the moment” intentions?

Taking the time to deliberately choose your best intentions during your important and challenging situations has the potential to completely flip how you choose to engage others during the interaction. Naming your best intention gives you a greater purpose within a given moment in time.

#3: Asking Questions to Understand Varied Perspectives

Leadership is a way of thinking, a way of acting and, most importantly, a way of communicating. - Simon Sinek

For a leader to achieve sustained success in a constantly changing environment, they need to develop their ability to leverage others’ perspectives, understanding, and expertise to solve complex problems. Too often, I witness leaders falling into the seductive trap of needing to be the smartest person in the room, the primary subject matter expert, or problem-solver. This antiquated view of leadership does not work in today’s environment where multiple types of expertise, perspectives, experience, and insights are necessary to solve the challenges teams and organizations need to address. A team or organization that is too dependent on their leader for the answers will never exhibit the speed and scalability that is needed for ongoing success. An organization’s success is directly tied to their leaders’ abilities to effectively engage others in helping solve the challenges - this can only be accomplished by building a strong skill-set in asking quality questions.

The are many benefits for leading with questions to include:

• Shifting the conversation from a “me” perspective to a “we” perspective
• Staying in learning mode rather than judgment mode
• Creating a setting where others feel included, valued, respected, and safe 
• Acknowledging the feelings of others prevents defensiveness.
• Uncovering insights, perspectives, and challenges prior to sharing your perspectives

The best leaders understand and value that people have different experiences, access to information, values, goals, and perceptions that often will lead to the formation of different insights, innovations, and conclusions. Taking time to ask questions prior to providing perspectives doesn’t stop leaders from sharing their perspectives; it just means that they choose to ask questions and understand other views before sharing their own.

#4: Leveraging Reflection to Learn through Experience

We do not learn from experience….We learn from reflection on experience.

- John Dewey, Educational Reformer

Think back to a time when you learned a very important lesson that has positively impacted you in becoming more successful. Now consider where and how you learned this valuable lesson. Most people’s important learnings happen through practical experience - not within a structured learning context. This confirms what we already know, which is that our most important lessons as adults usually come to us through our experiences. Therefore, the willingness to take action is critically important for leaders to learn and develop their agility.

A leader’s willingness to develop a reflective practice is an essential part of developing their abilities to achieve results, build strong relationships, and continuously learning. All of these components are essential to evolve and grow one’s leadership agility. Research shows the outcomes of developing a regular habit of reflection provides the following benefits:

• An increase in self-awareness, emotional intelligence, the capacity for emotional regulation and as a consequence the ability to inspire, influence and motivate others
• An enhanced ability to make decisions through good judgement
• A growth in the capacity to generate innovation through asking open questions and attending to the answers with an open mind

When engaging in reflection, leaders often will focus primarily on the results of their actions, which many times proves to be short sighted. The combination of being able to be effective at driving results and building relationships is critical for leadership agility. This is why leaders need to take the time to reflect on both their results and relationships. Below are some results and relationship topics that leaders should consider when asking themselves reflection questions.

The “What? So What? Now What?” Reflection Model

Rolfe et al.’s (2001) reflective model is probably one of the simplest reflective models because it centers around asking three simple questions: What? So what? Now what? This practical approach provides a framework to assess past experience, make meaning of the experience, and decide what the experience means for future action. When reflecting it is always a useful practice to record responses in a private leader’s journal. Writing helps us organize and process our thinking as well as providing a documentation of previous reflections to build upon and assess progress. Below are some example questions for you to use to customize your personal reflection process:

What?

Establishing context. The “what” represents the nuts and bolts of what happened. This shouldn’t be a play-by-play but rather just enough information ground yourself in the details. 

So What?

Seeks to identify and expand on insightful information from the “what.” Things that resonated with who you are and what you believe or those things which challenged or opposed your beliefs in a constructive way. Bring in relevant past experiences to help you explore this current experience.

Now What?

This is the time to synthesize what you have learned and to assess how those learnings can be put into action for future growth and success.

Research clearly shows that the two primary reasons leaders don’t succeed are because they fail at relationships, or because they fail to continually learn. Developing one’s leadership agility through defining leadership purpose, aligning “in the moment" intentions, asking questions to understand perspectives, and a practice of reflection will guard leaders against these pitfalls and equip them to successfully drive meaningful results while building strong relationships. What are your thoughts on the importance of leadership agility in today's workplace?

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Tony Gambill is a principal consultant for CREO Inc., an innovative management consulting and advisory firm based in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. Tony brings more than 20 years of executive experience in leadership and talent development within global for-profit, non-profit, technical, research, healthcare, government and higher educational industries. www.CreoInc.net

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