5 critical things agile leaders do

Some people are naturally agile, but if you’re not one of them, you shouldn’t think that you’re locked into one particular mode of leadership. You can develop your leadership style and grow your agility to meet the needs of your team.

Here are five critical things that agile leaders do that you can use to make yourself a more agile leader:

1. Welcome change and ambiguity

The most important thing is to teach yourself not to fear change, and to look for the opportunities that it offers. Many of us like to think that change is rare – we feel like it should be a one-off event with a beginning and an end. The reality is that change is a constant state and nothing stays the same forever. This should be exciting, not frightening – change is the catalyst for innovation and progress.

2. Be more curious

Curiosity and love of learning are the hallmarks of the most innovative and agile people. Most of us are curious in one way or another, but often the issue is that we feel we don’t have the time to dedicate to following that natural curiosity and learning new things. Make time in your day for learning – even if it’s only reading that interesting article you bookmarked but never got around to looking at.

3. Cultivate creativity and vision

Creativity isn’t inborn, we all have the capacity to innovate. The key is to create an environment where your creative vision can flourish. Our Design Your Day ebook is full of practical tips to help you make each day more creative and more productive.

4. Become more emotionally agile

Having emotional agility means that you know yourself, and have a good level of control over your feelings and reactions. At work, greater emotional agility will help you to turn negative thoughts into positive ones, and make better decisions based on based on facts and judgement that isn’t clouded by feelings that skew your perspective.

5. Be courageous

To make bold decisions, and make them fast, you need no small amount of courage and plenty of conviction in your decisions. To have courage and conviction, you need belief in yourself and the team around you.

What do you think of these five qualities? What do you think makes an agile leader? If you’d like to find out more about agility and why it’s important, take a look at our new ebook on the subject.

Image credit: a.dombrowski