Book Review: Leadership Agility

Let me first say that I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book so that I could review it. I accepted writing this review since I’m interested in deeper generative organizing. The dance between leadership and followership is part of this dynamic. So, here is my summary of the book together with some impressions.

The core of Leadership Agility: Developing Your Repertoire of Leadership Styles by Ron Meyer and Ronald Meijers consists of ten opposite pairs of leadership styles.¹ These ten dimensions represent many of the balancing acts leaders are faced with.² Each dimension deals with a different leadership task, and each task differs in nature and scope.³ The focus is on understanding the qualities and pitfalls of each leadership style.⁴

The authors believe that leaders need to “have the capacity to switch between leadership styles, and adaptively master new ones, in rapid response to the specific needs of the people and situation they want to influence.”⁵ Keywords here are flexibility, adaptability, and responsiveness. Leadership agility is, in short, sensing into what is required in the situation, while attuning to people’s needs.

The authors explore the various leadership styles throughout the book. They also clarify what they believe is the essence of leadership,⁶ for example:

• Leadership is about engagement instead of enforcement.⁷
• Leadership can be exercised by anyone at any time depending on the situation.⁸
• Leadership is helping people to make sense of the situation and themselves.⁹
• Leadership is helping people to find their own meaning in what they do.¹⁰

As soon as we want to influence people to move in a certain direction, we are leading. We are, in fact, leading all the time. ¹¹ This also means that leading is relational, involving two or more willful beings. The authors point out that getting people to follow requires more than key performance indicators. You can manage things, but people have a heart and mind of their own.¹²

All this sounds like music in my ears. The authors, furthermore, emphasize that formulating a “leadership script” is useless and misleading. There are simply too many variables that need to be taken into account in order to arrive at a simple leadership formula.¹³

There are many ways of being an effective leader. You have to figure out yourself what works for you under what circumstances.¹⁴ This book may help you to expand your leadership style repertoire, but moving outside of your comfort zone is something you have to do yourself. You have to experiment and see what works for you.

The authors end the book with a few words on the “paradox of leadership and followership.”¹⁵ People are leaders and followers—at the same time. The ultimate test of leadership agility is combining leadership and followership.¹⁶

There are thousands of books on leadership — and agility has become a buzzword — so I was a bit skeptical when I first heard about the book. But it’s a great book. The focus is more on leadership styles than leadership agility. I particularly appreciate that the authors avoid formulating leadership scripts or formulas. I also share the human values expressed in the book. People are living beings and not things to be managed.

Notes:
¹ Ibid., pp. xx, 18, 21.
² Ibid., p. 17.
³ Ibid., p. 19.
⁴ Ibid., p. 227.
⁵ Ibid., pp. xvi–xvii.
⁶ Ibid., p. 3.
⁷ Ibid., p. 7.
⁸ Ibid..
⁹ Ibid., p. 11.
¹⁰ Ibid..
¹¹ Ibid., p. 13.
¹² Ibid., p. 14.
¹³ Ibid., p. 16.
¹⁴ Ibid., p. 17.
¹⁵ Ibid., p. 258.
¹⁶ Ibid., p. 259.