How leaders can cultivate an agile mindset

Successful organisations who stand the test of time know that a rapid response to disruption represents a competitive advantage and a new opportunity for growth. More importantly, they recognise that leaders, prepared with the right competencies and mindset, are the catalysts for powering through chaos and disruption.

In a report titled, 7 Telltale Signs Your Leadership Plan Needs a Reboot, Skillsoft identified signs that suggest that a rethink in the way that an organisation’s leaders learn and develop is needed.

Lacking results

In this increasingly digital, fast-moving, and competitive business climate, organisations without a leadership development plan hinder their ability to grow or maintain a competitive advantage. Leadership learning plans must align with business measures and ensure that new managers are prepared to manage change.

Look for resources that empower leaders with continuous skills development around topics that support managing change like innovation, agility, resilience, and emotional intelligence.

First-time managers fail

A first-time manager is under tremendous pressure, and without the right preparation and coaching, they are likely to fall flat. Failure impacts performance goals, employee engagement, productivity, and the culture of the workgroup.

Do not wait until employees become managers to develop them as leaders. Building a strong bench is crucial to strategic succession planning—and developing employees is critical to retaining them.

Your hierarchy is command and control

Organisations in every vertical are flattening their structures with deeply collaborative and cross-functional teams to drive innovation. Recent studies have shown organisations are changing their leadership competencies and expanding leadership capabilities to more employees.

Recognise that leaders can take many forms. They can lead a functional area, a team, or even a one-time project in the organisation. Empower leaders with learning opportunities that cover agility, humility, leading teams, and customer-centric leadership.

Leadership development for a few

A hero leader making all decisions is no longer effective. Modern organisations are agile and team-based. In the past, leadership training has been too exhaustive, too costly, and not contextualised for the learner. Today, the leadership development landscape has been reinvented and democratised to support future leaders at different levels in their career journey.

Seek learning content that supports a leader throughout their journey: first-time manager, mid-level manager, and leader of leaders. Additionally, provide a blended learning model that combines a diverse mix of content with multiple learning modalities to meet each leader’s specific needs – whether it be personalised, individualised coaching, team-based formats, or a mix of both.

Opening leadership learning to all who are interested democratises learning and supports an inclusive, continuous learning culture.

Poor CSAT scores

When employees engage with customers, they create a memorable experience that impacts the organisation’s brand, reputation, and revenue. If employees are ill-prepared or unhappy in their role, interactions with customers can be unproductive or worse.

Equip front-line leaders with the mindset to listen and enable superior customer service. Solutions on emotional intelligence, coaching, developing people, and empathy can offer front-line managers insights to manage teams and drive customer satisfaction.

No succession plan

Organisations are at risk without a solid plan for who would take over should one or more leaders become incapacitated, retire, or leave unexpectedly. Successful organisations regularly evaluate their plans and cross-train employees by developing leadership competencies, company knowledge, and a holistic understanding of the organisation.

READ: Leadership development redefined in a digital world

Provide broad-based leadership development training to help those with leadership potential to evolve and meet leadership challenges whenever they arise.

In-person training on hold

Even in the best of times, instructor-led courses can be sidelined due to budget constraints, instructor availability, changing business needs, and more. Merely moving a training event from in-person to online is not usually effective. Digital delivery requires different tools for engagement to fight boredom and facilitate learning.

Find leadership training designed specifically for a digital experience to complement instructor-led activities. Digital leadership content should include opportunities for multi-modal engagement and scenario-based learning.

Click here to find out how you can help your leaders build the competencies to learn, respond quickly, overcome obstacles, and grow the organisation.