If you aren’t agile, the future is fragile

Recently, the corporate world woke up to the news of General Electric (GE) unexpectedly ousting CEO John Flannery in little more than a year. The frustration of the board due to the slow pace of change under Flannery is being cited as one of the major reasons for this abrupt move. 

Over the years, 21st century leaders have started acknowledging the need to be agile in fast-paced, uncertain and highly competitive business environments. They have made a shift from the principles of Taylorism to something that many of us would relate to as “agile leadership.” 

Leadership agility is defined as the ability to take action in complex and constantly changing situations. It is the ability to foresee dynamic situations and to respond to them appropriately. The same goes for agile organizations and teams. However, leading teams across generations, cultures and geographies with diverse needs, wants and motivations can pose several challenges to leaders. In addition, the global economy is witnessing relentless, rapid change, whether due to political or policy decisions such as Brexit or developments in technology. 

Under such circumstances, agile is the key to navigate new waters and chart new successes. 

According to latest research on agile leadership conducted by Boston-based firm ChangeWise, “Leadership agility is not a single competency.” They found that it is a combination of interconnected capabilities that include “context-setting agility, stakeholder agility, creative agility and self-leadership agility.” 

Agile leaders understand that they must constantly adapt in a chaotic global environment and have a proactive approach to change. They are creative thinkers, who can adjust their leadership style and are open to feedback and to learning from past mistakes. They ensure positive business outcomes, streamline internal workflows without losing sight of the organizational vision, create a collaborative corporate culture and lead the whole team to the finish line on time. Given that ‘agile’ has become such a buzzword across workplaces with everyone eager to hop on the agile train without knowing how to get started, in its truest sense, it is something as modest as a daily stand-up meeting that can foster a growth mindset and culture. A daily stand-up provides a platform for crucial actions and answerabilities offering agility to address business issues there and then. As digital visionary and thought leader Pearl Zhu says, “Agile is not prescriptive and which techniques are appropriate will depend on the context.” In today’s constantly changing times agile leadership is what can ensure global conglomerates stay relevant and ahead of the curve. Here are a few leadership lessons for agile leaders.

• Lessons #1: Agile leaders prioritize ruthlessly and manage risk effectively in this age of digital overload.  It is important to have a vision and to constantly steer your team in that direction. For that, it is important to set goals, which ensure overall success, efficiency, and productivity. The strength of agile leaders is in the ability to innovate and find newer ways to communicate with a generation that gets all its information from mobile phones. 
• Lessons #2: In a rapidly evolving world, an agile leader should be able to innovate and stay agile to adapt to the changing market trends. 
• Lessons #3: Leaders must embody a growth mindset, lookout for business opportunities and partnerships and play a key role in expanding their ambitious plans.
• Lessons #4: In a rapidly evolving world, a leader should be able to recover fast from a setback, learn from the experience and apply it to lead his team to success.