When it comes to leadership, what do agility, creativity and disruption have to do with one another and why does it matter?
Disruption:Â Used to describe all manner of volatility, uncertainty and complexity in the current economic climate, this the Fourth Industrial Revolution;
Creativity:Â The type of thinking necessary to foster innovation and a competitive edge in the context of disruption;
Agility:Â The pace and flexibility of our thinking, or how we need to go about delivering creativity and innovation in our disruptive economy.
If you feel your ability to navigate a way forward is being constantly tried and tested, I can assure you, you are not alone! These disruptive conditions demand a great deal of mental and emotional agility. We need to sense and seize opportunities as they present themselves and to find creative, innovative ways forward. And to do this, your stage of development needs to be equal or superior to the complexity of the environment.
Let’s assume you have the competencies, skills and experience to do what you do (what you know). The focus must be on developing your ability to think in more complicated, systemic, strategic and interdependent ways (how you think).
From a personal perspective, most leaders already know what they should be doing, what they lack is the personal development to do it.
It’s worth exploring a few key questions here:
Are you or your people trying to make sense of an environment that has become too complex for your current stage of development?
How do you rate yourself on self-knowledge, self-mastery, agility, creativity, innovation and change?
Have you considered coaching and/or mentoring to enable your development?
From an organisational perspective, we need to align our business strategy with our leadership culture, creating the conditions that lead to development.
Most leadership development programmes spend too much time adding tools, techniques and models for leadership rather than focusing on developing leaders themselves. Once your strategy and culture are aligned, development programmes need to be a process over time, rather than an event.