“Agile” was first used in the 1990s to describe manufacturing organizations that could adapt quickly to changing customer needs. Recently, several thinkers have used agility to refer to a leadership competency defined as “the ability to anticipate and respond rapidly to changing conditions.” Compared with terms like flexibility and adaptability, agility has a more proactive connotation.

In our new book, Leadership Agility, we define this term in a way that includes this basic meaning but is also more robust and far-reaching. Our understanding of leadership agility is based on dozens of in-depth interviews with exceptional leaders and decades of experience working with leaders at all levels.

What is leadership agility?

Agile leaders realize that we live in an era of permanent change, a turbulent global environment that is complex, uncertain, and fiercely competitive. They know that these realities require them and their organizations to adapt again and again to constantly changing conditions. They have an intentional, proactive approach to change. They anticipate emerging threats and opportunities by continually scanning their organization’s environment for new developments. They view the challenges they face with fresh eyes and a willingness to rethink past assumptions.

Agile leaders are creative thinkers with a deep sense of purpose. They actively engage diverse stakeholders, influencing and learning from them at the same time. Their ability to examine situations from multiple perspectives and to “connect the dots” between seemingly disparate issues allows them to generate novel strategic insights. As a result, their visions for the future are innovative, purposeful, and compelling.

Agile leaders have a broad repertoire of behaviors that allows them to rapidly adjust their leadership style to the demands of any given situation. They give appropriately balanced attention to short-term and long-term priorities, to top-down direction-setting and meaningful participation, and to fostering individual initiative and strong teamwork.

Agile leaders are resilient in responding to the difficulty and discomfort that change and uncertainty can bring. They seek feedback from multiple sources and use both mistakes and successes as fodder for continual learning and development. Finally, they are committed to creating agile teams and organizations and to helping those around them become more effective leaders.

Mastering the five levels of leadership agility