Dear Springboard:
You know that I’m ambitious and want to move up to bigger roles.  I’m feeling anxious about taking on a project that is different from anything I’ve done before.
Sign me,
Want it, But nervous.
Dear WiBn:
The pace of change today keeps accelerating.
To thrive – let alone keep up – it’s critically important to be open-minded and agile. As our jobs evolve, we all must adapt.
I want to focus on learning agility and how it positively impacts leadership.
I’m calling it the super power for effective leadership.
First, there is a distinction between being job adaptability and learning agility.
The goal of performance adaptability is to maintain proficiency in one’s current job. It’s relatively basic and requires changing to meet new requirements, situations or other outside factors.  Here, adapting is a necessary response to changes. Some people are better than others at being flexible and adopting new ways of doing things and they have an advantage over their peers.
Learning agility is being proactive vs reactive
and is an uber-competency that encompasses
a diverse set of talents that, used together, empowers more effective leadership.
While the academics who have researched this competency over the last 20 years can’t agree on an exact single definition, I like this one from Ken De Meuse, who has done extensive research in this area and also created a powerful assessment:
The ability to learn the right lessons from work experiences and then the willingness to apply those lessons to perform successfully in new and challenging leadership roles.
Learning agility looks specifically at formal leadership roles and the valued characteristics such as self-awareness, resilience, curiosity, risk taking, willingness to make mistakes and drive to take on bigger roles.
A traditional way of identifying future leaders has been to assess performance to date and choose high performers.
While that makes sense in a way, studies have shown that picking today’s high performers has not been an effective method of reliably spotting tomorrow’s leaders.
Only some of the high performers will be good leaders.  Assessing the learning agility of high performers has been an effective way of fine tuning the selection process.
We know the skill set necessary for success changes as leaders ascend to bigger roles. (What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There, wrote Marshall Goldsmith.)
Technical skills become less important while the “soft skills” of leadership, management, EQ, vision, conflict resolution, and grace under pressure all rise in importance to being differentiating factors at higher executive levels.
Success in leadership roles is more about accomplishments by a team than by an individual.
So how do we gauge learning agility? There are a few assessments that reliably measure it. The one I like best is TALENTx7 that focuses on the differences in skill sets between subject matter experts and effective leaders/managers.
To look at what this instrument covers will shine some light on the dynamics of learning agility.
The TALENTx7 Assessment reports on:
  • Interpersonal Acumen – interacting effectively with a diversity of people through insight into their unique motives, values and goals; situational leadership
  • Cognitive Perspective – critical and strategic thinking to solve complex problems from a broad high-level perspective
  • Environmental Mindfulness – fully observant of external surroundings, open to approach environmental changes in new ways with effective self-management
  • Drive to Excel – motivated by challenging goals; reliably deliver results in new and untested situations
  • Self-Insight – accurately understand themselves; their strengths, weaknesses, beliefs, values
  • Change Alacrity – curious and eager to embrace new ways of operating; continuously seek innovative ways to perform their jobs
  • Feedback Responsiveness – actively solicit and accept feedback; take subsequent corrective action
Because of its effectiveness in identifying true high potentials, learning agility is used to select managers for fast-track programs.
Without the benefit of an assessment, for a back of the envelope spot check, Ken De Meuse suggests asking these six questions:
  • Tell me about a challenge you experienced recently where you initially weren’t sure what to do?
  • How did you approach it?
  • What happened?
  • What did you learn?
  • What is its value to the team (and to the organization)?
  • How can you apply what you learned to future situations?
The key here is successfully applying the learning to fresh, novel circumstances.
While our personality impacts the degree to which we have natural learning agility, there is opportunity for growth; we can absolutely develop and strengthen these competencies.