In a coaching session recently one of my coachees talked about the difficulties they were facing in adapting to their new leadership role. As we explored some of the challenges we identified the narrowness of this person's background or the lack of "opportunities" they had to really learn and adapt. They were terrific in technical roles but their career had moved up with little diversity of experiences. In other words they hadn't had the opportunity to become an agile learner.
Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger (co-founders of Lominger International) explored agile learners in their book The Leadership Machine. Agile learners, their research found, thrive in new and difficult situations. They are clear thinkers who know themselves well and like to experiment. They also like to learn and can quickly apply new knowledge. Most importantly—and not surprisingly—agile learners deliver results, even in new situations.
How do we do this? There are a number of key elements. These include:
- Seek experiences that are challenging and outside your comfort zone - These experiences force you to learn new things. Your ability to learn enables you to survive and adapt to these challenging situations.
- Seek out feedback on your performance, your strengths and development areas and use this feedback to continually refine your skills and behaviours. It is is critical to develop your self awareness.
- Use a variety of learning strategies - Observe people around you, reflect on your experiences, keep a journal, use a coach, read widely, attend courses and adapt a trial and error approach.
If you want to know more about learning agility and how to develop it then contact me on
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