Agile

Posted on June 21, 2010 by Ronald T. Brown, Ph.D.

Leadership agility…

Like agile organizations, “Leadership Agility” is the ability to take wise and effective action amid complex, rapidly changing conditions.

In their book, “Leadership Agility,” Bill Joiner and Stephen Josephs writes that research “reveals a significant set of findings about the relationship between personal development and leadership effectiveness: As adults grow toward realizing their potential, they develop a constellation of mental and emotional capacities that are the very capacities needed for agile leadership.”

Personal development leads to more purposeful and visionary thinking - and more resilience in responding to change and uncertainty. It enables diverse perspectives and a greater capacity for resolving differences with other people. Leaders on self development plans are also more self-aware, more attuned to their experience, more interested in feedback from others, and better at working through inner conflicts.

The question is, “How can we begin to move through these stages of development?” Simply put, leaders get there by

practice

—by putting new capacities and understanding to work - and learning to apply them in various leadership contexts. The following diagram details the various dimensions that a maturing, agile, leader needs to be competent to maneuver within.

The outer circle on this graphic represents the

tasks

carried out using four leadership agility competencies. The middle circle represents the four pairs of capacities that support these competencies.

The four mutually reinforcing competencies are

:

1) Context-setting agility improves your ability to scan your environment, frame the initiatives you need to take, and clarify the outcomes you need to achieve. It entails stepping back and determining the best initiatives to take - given the changes taking place in your larger environment.

2) Stakeholder agility increases your ability to engage with key stakeholders in ways that build support for your various initiatives. It requires you to step back from your own views and objectives to consider the needs and perspectives of those who have a stake in your initiatives.

3) Creative agility enables you to transform the problems you encounter into the results you need. It involves stepping back from your habitual assumptions and developing optimal solutions to the complex issues you face.

4) Self-leadership agility is the ability to use your initiatives as opportunities to develop into the kind of leader you want to be. It entails stepping back; becoming more aware of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; and experimenting with new and more effective approaches.