Leadership agility - look inwards first

I have been thinking a lot about leadership agility lately.

Long before COVID-19, researchers were finding that leadership agility, the ability to learn, adapt, and grow in response to changing circumstances, was becoming more and more important in today’s world of work. Some even said it was the most important trait for success in leadership roles. Not to mention now, with the COVID-19 pandemic still raging across the world and causing huge disruption to how we work, manage and interact.

You can see why leadership agility is so important - the rate of change and development in the world is only getting faster, and leaders need to adjust to this in order to successfully lead teams and organisations that can keep up with this pace of change. Leaders who try the same approach again and again when faced with different challenges will find that their approach works less and less often. Why? Because their solutions and responses aren’t tailored to the situation or person in front of them. On the other hand, leaders who try different techniques and adapt their style to suit the range of people and challenges they’re working with are more likely to find effective and fit-for-purpose solutions.

So, how do we build leaders who are agile and can lead effectively in changing environments?

The answer is in some ways very simple and in other ways extremely complex.

Leadership agility begins with self awareness. In order to adapt, you need to pause and reflect first about your style and approach and what you need to do to get the most out of a situation. For this to be effective, leaders really need to understand their own strengths and weaknesses first. And this takes time and courage. In order to know yourself well, you need to be open to feedback from others, including on what you don’t do so well.

This can be scary - but ultimately, leadership is a privilege that requires courage. And leaders who understand themselves and their own preferences, seek feedback and adjust their style and approach as and when needed, will be rewarded through higher performance and more motivated staff.

And of course, this doesn’t just benefit individual leaders. A recent report by DDI International (find out more here) found that organisations with a practice of giving and receiving leadership feedback were 4.6 times likely to have higher leader quality and bench strength.

So, if leaders can overcome the fear of self reflection and ask for feedback, developing agility can be remarkably straight forward. What does it look like?

  1. Invest the time in a good diagnostic to understand what you are doing well and what you could improve;

  2. Ask for feedback from those you work with, ideally using a structured approach;

  3. Develop a tailored development plan; and

  4. Be open to acting on the feedback and insights you receive, and tell people how you will do that.

Too often I hear leaders say they are unhappy with the leadership development offered by their employer. So, if you are a leader, I challenge you to start directing your own development. Take the time for self-reflection and feedback, and open your mind to what you find out. The results will be worth it.

HEATHER BECKETT