Developing agile leaders

Purpose With mounting complexity and interdependence and the increasing pace of change in organizational environments, leadership agility has become a much‐needed competency. This article aims to report research findings that appear in a new publication. Design/methodology/approach The study on which this article is based included a total of 604 subjects. Of these, 384 were participants in previous research studies that identified each manager's “stage of ego development” as measured by the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (SCT). The other 220 managers, who provided in‐depth case studies, were clients, interviewees, or evening MBA students, whose stage of ego development was also assessed. Findings This study identified five levels of leadership agility, each of which corresponds to a stage of adult ego development. It also resulted in the discovery of four leadership agility competencies (context‐setting, stakeholder, creative, and self‐leadership agility) and eight underlying capacities that evolve as managers develop from one level of leadership agility to another. Research limitations/implications Fruitful areas for future research include: expanding knowledge about how leaders develop from one level of agility to another, identifying the competencies and capacities associated with the level beyond synergist, and better understanding the stages or levels of organizational development that parallel the levels of leadership agility. Practical implications This research has significant implications for an “integral” approach to leadership development that places emphasis both on professional skills needed in complex, rapidly changing environments and on the mental and emotional capacities that underlie these skills. Originality/value Managers and leadership development professionals both can benefit from the fresh perspective presented in this article.