So many things have happened this year, and the pandemic is all to blame. Most businesses have experienced a harsh financial climate. Due to the pandemic, agility in business was one of the most crucial things in a bid to survive and bounce back. Being tasked with running a business in such challenging financial environments is not easy. As a leader, you have to be nimble and always on the lookout to find new paths that can help the business stay afloat in a world filled with accelerating change.

Agility in business is crucial as it can help a company enjoy benefits, like faster turnaround times, increased revenue, and higher-quality offerings. This is according to Business Agility Institute’s 2019 Business Agility Report. To ensure your business partakes the agile transformation journey swiftly, you need to embrace agility first as a business manager. Because, as the 2019 Business Agility Report reveals, leadership style is the top challenge in all business agility transformation journeys. Here are three ways in which you can be an agile leader in the ever-changing business environment.

1. Have the Right Mindset

An open mindset is one of the crucial leadership qualities of successful business leaders. With the ever-changing business environments, you must always pay attention and learn how every change means to the future of your company. Be aware of your leadership style and if it’s in line with the long-term goal of attaining business agility. Your leadership style should reflect the new business agility journey because the entire organisation will emulate the same. The right mindset will also ensure you tackle issues in a way that aligns with your business’s long-term agility goal. As an agile leader, be open to feedback from your workforce and encourage collaboration.

2. Make the Necessary Adjustments to Business Systems

Every business has a set of core values and principles it highly upholds. And as a business leader, you also have your values and principles you believe in. These core values and principles don’t have to necessarily change to set your business on a path of agility. However, you need to evaluate the impact of various business systems, like leadership models, on agility. Most legacy leadership styles don’t favour agility. For instance, in legacy business leadership styles, leaders are the primary decision-makers. Every success and failure is attributed to them. Such leadership styles don’t highly favour agility. In other words, evaluate the entire business systems and processes and understand if they favour agility. If they don’t, things have to change. The best way to handle this is by considering the entire organisation in the goal-setting process to set a tone for both management and workforce.

3. Embrace Failure

Failure is inevitable, however as a business manager, learning to embrace it when it happens is vital. Amid new challenging business situations where critical decisions have to be made, think it through with an open mind. When failure knocks on the door don’t fret, embrace it. Embracing failure opens the door for learning opportunities, so you’re able to know what works and what won’t in your business situations. Embracing failure also ensures that you’re able to bounce back faster by finding new ways that could help tackle the same problem.

Conclusion

Business agility journey must be spearheaded by leadership. As a leader, you have to be ready to learn new ways of doing things that a line with the business agility goals. Most importantly, the right mindset will help you achieve even more by being open to new ideas and grow your team towards the agility path. Additionally, embrace failure when it happens, and it will, so you’re able to fail fast, and iterate. These three ways will ensure your business stays afloat during these unsettling times.