There are many factors to consider when making hiring and talent development decisions. However, there is one factor that is almost always a guaranteed predictor of leadership success: leadership agility.
Agility is a person’s ability and willingness to learn, adapt and thrive within new situations and circumstances, and it is one of the greatest leadership assets. An agile leader or executive is one who can:
Leadership and talent agility, especially at executive levels, is what keeps organizations competitive and thriving through even the most challenging of times.
This is where tools like the TALENTx7 agility assessment come in. TALENTx7 is an industry leader in individual and team agility assessments, providing deep-dive measurements of agility to empower you to make more informed, data-driven decisions.
As a certified assessment facilitator, Melissa can conduct assessments for your organization on a group or individual basis, for those already within the organization, or potential new hires.
Assessing leadership and executive potential is no easy feat. You can see how someone works, look at past performance, conduct a few rounds of interviews, but ultimately, it’s hard to know exactly how someone will perform as a leader until they’re “in the mud.”
Simply put, you don’t want to wait until a crisis arises to find out if you have the right people in place. External assessments that rely on data and science-backed methods can give you the foresight you need.
Of the many benefits to an external assessment like TALENTx7, you may experience:
Factors like intuition and gut feelings are important. As a coach, Melissa strives to help leaders and executives develop their intuition and understand how to use it in partnership with data and hard facts. TalentX7 assessments are one way to obtain that data.
Of all internal promotions involving ‘high potential’ talent, almost 40% ultimately fail (Martin & Schmidt, 2010)
About 50% of all managers fail (Hogan, Hogan & Kaiser, 2011)
½ of all senior hires don’t make it past 18 months (Bauer, 2011)
The TALENTx7 individual and team effectiveness assessment evaluates seven key areas of agility:
As a certified TALENTx7 agility assessment facilitator, Melissa will work with you and your team to bring this insight to the surface, and develop an action plan to incorporate it into your team success strategy moving forward.
As a holistic coach, Melissa understands that getting to where you want to be starts with having a clear picture of where you are today. Tools like TalentX7 help provide that clarity through measurable insights that can be translated into actionable steps.
In leadership and executive roles, agility is being able to calmly and confidently assess whatever comes up, work to develop actionable strategies, and continually evaluate and course correct moving forward, all without ever losing sight of the big picture. It’s about continually taking steps toward achieving corporate objectives, and maintaining/cultivating an overall culture and team dynamic that is supportive, engaging, and motivating.
Leadership agility is important because the one thing that is inevitable is change. Change will happen and strong leaders embrace that.
Agility is a learnable skill. Developing it demands a willingness to dig deep into what’s holding you back today, and to get raw and honest about what you may need to shift.
Because everyone’s life experience is unique, everyone’s pathway to greater agility will be unique. That said, there are universal tools and practices that anyone can use to uncover and implement their unique pathway.
Having your own TALENTx7 assessment done is one of the tools that can help you develop the clarity you need to move forward.
What are some other ways you can develop your decision making and problem solving skills? It all starts within. The following tools and practices can work in tandem with a TalentX7 assessment:
The ability to make confident decisions and to approach problem solving with courage and clarity, demands an agile mind that can truly respond to circumstances rather than react. Coaching tools, programs and workshops that truly feel right to you can help you get there.
At the surface, agility can look like the ability to make quick decisions. That’s part of it, but the heart of true agility is being able to make quick decisions that align with the big picture.
Simply making quick decisions will inevitably lead you off course. We’ve all seen it happen. It’s common, and understandable in a world where chaos and uncertainty seem to be around every corner. But that’s reactivity, not agility.
A key element of developing agility is understanding the importance of holding a big picture vision and having the skills to translate that vision into strategy, overall execution, and day-to-day activities. In essence, it isn’t about balancing those qualities with agility, but developing a holistic approach that incorporates all of these key qualities to continually move toward successful outcomes.
It doesn’t because agility isn’t a set style or approach to leadership. Rather, it’s a key tool of leadership that will serve you, your team and your organization in tandem with the style or approach that works best for you.
It’s worth repeating: agility demands alignment with the big picture. Aligning with a big picture vision means always having clarity on that vision, adjusting that vision when circumstances demand, or adjusting to a vision that has been shifted by the organization.
This clarity and alignment is built into the skill of leadership agility, which empowers leaders and executives to make decisions, design strategies and implement plans efficiently, confidently and with the knowledge that they have the skills to adapt to anything that may come up along the way.
Leaders and executives set the tone for their teams. In all things – in all shifts you want to create – it starts with you.
Commit to developing your agility first, and be open about your efforts with those around you. Talk about steps you’re taking, insights you’ve had, and challenges you’re facing. Invite your team or colleagues onto this journey with you. You can absolutely invest in coaching programs for your team, and that can be hugely impactful in helping team members design pathways that work for them, but even external coaching programs will be most effective if you – as a person of influence – are committed to making this shift as well.
CEO of Your Life has been trusted by several top organizations.
Melissa Dawn guides executives and high-level leaders to step into their full power and become the leaders they know they are meant to be. She is a renowned executive & leadership coach, keynote speaker, workshop leader, bestselling author, master practitioner of energy medicine and the founder of CEO of Your Life. Having transitioned from two decades of corporate experience to building her own business, Melissa has a strong understanding of what it means to truly thrive in our professional lives in a way that not only complements our personal lives, but lifts up our full life experience and that of the people around us. As a Master Certified Coach, Melissa takes a holistic, values-led approach to guiding executives and high-level leaders to become agents of positive change by connecting with their inner leaders. Through innovative workshops & coaching programs, Melissa works with individuals, teams and organizations and has helped thousands become the CEOs of their personal and professional lives with confidence, success and joy.
