Many of you have resonated with last week’s article about Sandra and her need to make her business viable for the future. If you haven’t read it, yet, read here.

Some have asked me how to develop the leadership “flex” or agility that is necessary to meet the future successfully. But how to do this – to develop your leadership to reflect purpose and flexibility, exercising highest creativity for best decision-making, continually learning and changing…well, entire books have been written about this!

My private clients and I work over a period of time to help them develop this agility.

But to give you a quick start in this direction, let me share some foundational principles with which we begin our work. Incorporating these into your approach for the upcoming year will make a profound difference in the way you are able to meet the future successfully.

Where in your work or life do you need more of the following?

1. Acknowledge that change requires responding rather than reacting.

It is first necessary to acknowledge that the world tomorrow will not be the same as it is today, and that the unknown holds exciting possibilities far beyond anything we can imagine. This is more challenging than you think. You may admit that things are changing, but if you introspect carefully, you will note that in certain areas of your life or the way you lead, you expect some things to remain the same. When they don’t, rather than to respond thoughtfully, you find yourself reacting with surprise and defensiveness. When this happens, you eclipse using the creative part of your brain to think through how to handle the situation. Identify the areas that tend to place you in a reactive mode so that you can make the mental shifts necessary to overcome this.

2. Dare to explore new and uncharted territories.

This means becoming comfortable with operating with the unfamiliar, stopping to widen your lens to understand the landscape as you go. Pushing the edge means nothing unless you are willing to look at it and to step out onto it in order to move forward with this new reality. How long has it been since you have met with other leaders to discuss what is happening in the world and how it affects the business landscape – and the way you must lead? Exploring new territories means having an executive team that forges ahead together. As you adopt the mindset of exploration, invite others to come with you, so that you can climb with support, camaraderie, accountability, and best collective thinking.

3. Be willing to flex and adjust your approach as you make meaning of the unfolding terrain.

You must develop leadership agility. This is the one thing that will keep you current in your leadership:  the ability to “take effective action in complex, rapidly changing conditions. Only 10% have mastered the level of agility needed for consistent effectiveness in our turbulent era of global competition” (Joiner and Josephs, Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastery for Anticipating and Initiating Change). When faced with new and foreign terrain, mountain climbers must weigh carefully the equipment and approach they will use in order to avoid disaster. Don’t fall into the mindset that what you have used in the past will work in future. Weigh and test carefully as you move forward.

4. Get excited about making mistakes.

You should always be making new mistakes – these indicate that you are forging ahead in the unknown, discovering points of learning that can become part of your roadmap to help you to navigate more successfully. If, however, you find yourself making the same mistakes over and over again, this is a clear signal that you have a particular point of learning that has not been addressed successfully. Many persist in approaching something in the same way repeatedly, hoping that after a while, there will be a breakthrough. There won’t. Confront the fact that you need to make a shift – and ask yourself what you have learned from this so that you can up-level your thinking and your leadership.

5. Understand the power and necessity of 360° leadership.

Leadership must be actively engaged in all areas of your life. I often tell my clients that, “You take yourself to work and back again,” meaning that whatever you carry in one area of your life will affect how you show up everywhere and in all situations. Further, leadership must be present at all levels and at all degrees of the team and the enterprise in order to meet and make change effectively. It is generally what people consider “the little things” that count for much. For example, are you an individual, team, or company that promises much and delivers late? You may be saying that this doesn’t matter – that your clients love your product and they will wait for it. However, these are the differences that will make or break you in future vis-à-vis the competition. Do a quick assessment of what improvements need to be made, and tackle the biggest win, first.

As you look at the quick principles above, which one is most pertinent to making a big shift in your own leadership?

Patti Cotton

Patti Cotton reenergizes talented leaders and their teams to achieve fulfillment and extraordinary results. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.