Leading with Agility
See also: Leader as Storyteller | Leaders who Influence | Leading with Authenticity | Leader as Coach |
“You can never step in the same river twice.”
— Heraclitus
The quote is from circa 500 BC, but today’s climate of constant change is faster than any river this philosopher was wetting his sandals in. The central question for leaders now is how to adapt to dramatically shifting challenges every day. Luckily, there’s an art form that’s uniquely suited to helping leaders and teams handle, navigate and lead through and with change.
It’s called improvisation.
What do improvisers do on stage? Actively listen, take risks, adapt to (as well as impart and create) new information and circumstances, and create environments where all voices can be heard and built with … Which are exactly the capabilities needed for leading with agility in today’s rapidly evolving business environment.
Leading with Agility
In this program, leaders take a deep dive into play, improvisation, and creative experimentation:
- Being comfortable with being uncomfortable. Agility requires the emotional capacity to work (and play) through nervousness, fear, new information, risk-taking, and making mistakes.
- Confidence and curiosity when stepping into the unknown. Our daily lives have evolved dramatically and the degree of “new” has never been higher.
- Doing things before you know how. Leaders have to keep learning, learning, and growing, growing.
- Divergent and convergent thinking and activity. There are many different ways to use our brains and bodies, but we get stuck in patterns that hold us back.
- Seeing and creating possibilities. You can’t be agile if you can’t imagine that things can be different.
- Becoming explorers and builders. Imagine putting the often insatiable need to know the answers on hold, and instead moving forward by co-creating with others.
This is an intensive immersion in personal and professional creativity and flexibility, where the connections to your business context emerge organically as leaders experience what it takes to see, act, feel, think, and engage in very different ways.