Why is Agile Leadership Important?

One could argue that adaptiveness has always been a key trait of effective leadership.

Yet there are a few global trends which are influencing the importance of agility to organizational survival and growth in today’s global economy. The most prevalent trends are driven by the advancement of technology fueling global transparency and connectedness exposing escalating disruptions across social, political, market, economic and climate systems.

With few protective boundaries, corporations are feeling increased competitive pressures from unlikely sources. Entire markets are being shaken and toppled in every industry including retail (Amazon), hospitality (Airbnb), transportation (Uber, Lyft), media (Netflix, YouTube), music (Spotify), Finance (Paypal, Venmo), and more. If you think your industry is protected, you aren’t paying attention to the trends.

This new disruptive economy is more transparent, distributed, connected, and automated. Everything and everyone is moving faster. Instant access to information 24x7. Same day delivery. Smart connected lights, switches, pumps and filters. Organizations are under increasing pressure to respond, serve, innovate, and adapt quickly to retain existing customers and attract new ones.

Technology is not only disrupting the company to customer relationship, it’s also disrupting the leader - employee relationship. Centralized control with many levels of management not only lacks the agility to respond, they limit the effectiveness of every employee to react and respond individually. With access to more internal corporate information (Glass Door and LinkedIn), employees are more empowered and free to choose companies who provide more opportunities for them to seek work/life balance and a connective purpose to their work and life goals.

With this context agile leadership is becoming increasingly valuable in times of uncertainty, complexity and rapid change.