That the world is VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguity) is not new. What is perhaps new is the extent to which we are constantly challenged and sometimes surprised by the impact the VUCA world has on our organizations and our ability to lead in them.
The coronavirus pandemic, energy crises and war in Europe are in many ways the epitome of the VUCA world, and we are constantly reminded of how volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous the world is. This is reflected, among other things, in the expectations this brings to leaders' actions and competencies to create effective leadership in increasingly difficult conditions.
Leadership researcher Robert B. Kaiser and we at LEAD have been working for many years to strengthen leaders' ability to lead effectively in a VUCA world by leading with versatility. In light of recent challenges, Robert B. Kaiser unfolds this perspective in an article in the Harvard Business Review.
For more than 25 years, Kaiser has been working with the leadership tool called the Leadership Versatility Index (LVI for short), which we at LEAD are developing in the Nordic region together with Kaiser. LVI measures and develops leaders' versatility. That is, their ability to read and respond to changing circumstances with a sufficiently broad and contradictory set of behaviors that include strategic and operational as well as supportive and directive leadership. Versatile leadership is about being able to lead with a mindset and ability to balance opposing and complementary leadership styles - in combination with a sensitivity and ability to read the environment and adapt your leadership to the needs of the environment.
We use LVI to examine how the leader's manager, peers and employees evaluate the behaviors the leader exhibits. Research suggests that leaders who stick to a bounded leadership style (e.g., directive rather than supportive or operational rather than strategic) have more difficulty leading their people and organization through the sudden and unfamiliar changes that constantly occur. Conversely, versatile leaders are better able to reorganize, shift focus and ensure continued productivity - despite a lot of upheaval.
The growing importance of versatility
The data that LVI contains suggests that there is an increasing correlation between leader versatility and employee engagement, employee effectiveness and organizational productivity. Over the 25+ years of LVI's existence, the importance of leader versatility has grown considerably. In the mid-1990s, versatility accounted for about one-third of the covariance in the correlation to leadership effectiveness. By 2008, that figure had grown to 50%, and in recent measurements, the figure varies between 55% and 63%.
The reason for this is likely that the fluidity of the VUCA world requires more versatile leaders who don't settle on a particular leadership style, but are able to change behavior and analyze situations by moving between extremes on multiple continua at the same time. While some situations call for the leader to take control, push decisions through and make difficult choices, other situations are more likely to be supportive, inclusive and freeing. Similarly, in some contexts, the organization needs the leader to concentrate on the strategic direction of the future, while other contexts require a focus on day-to-day tasks.
When versatility is framed in this way, it becomes clear that there is a connection between versatile leadership behavior and Yin and Yang; they are opposite, yet complementary. They are different but interdependent. And one approach without its apparent opposite is insufficient.
A rare skill set
However, the number of versatile leaders is limited. Since 2013, 24,000 leaders worldwide have been surveyed using LVI. Only just under 10% of these leaders are versatile and able to balance strategic and operational, supportive and directive leadership.
The vast majority of leaders lead with a set of unambiguous leadership approaches - often based on their own beliefs about what good leadership is and values that act as guideposts that shape the leader's behavior. Our mindset about who we are and what we perceive as good leadership shapes our behavior - often in a singular direction and makes us effective in a particular domain.
For example, I often see leaders who describe their most important value as empathy, which shapes their behavior in a direction where supporting, listening and giving freedom dominate. These are all good and effective leadership qualities, but in clear leadership, it often comes at the expense of the leader's ability to follow up, give direct feedback and hold people accountable. As a result, decisions are made too late and employees become demotivated because they are not managed for results or potential is not realized.
This tendency towards one-size-fits-all leadership approaches leads to the leader developing particular strengths in a leadership domain at the expense of complementary leadership styles, making these strengths the leader's pitfall. Instead, versatile leaders are able to balance their strengths and work on their leadership mindset to allow for multiple perspectives and opposing skills and approaches at the same time.
Rob Kaiser's latest data also shows that the most versatile leaders have in common that their careers have been characterized by change and many different types of challenges. They've worked in a variety of roles that required them to learn skills that didn't come easily or naturally to them. Versatile leaders moved between different functions, industries and organizations, taking on difficult tasks with heterogeneous groups of employees.
With this in mind, we can conclude that versatility is more than just another leadership competency. It is a meta-competency that reflects both the ability to balance conflicting demands for behavior and the ability to cultivate knowledge about which behaviors are most appropriate in which situations - and to what extent - combined with the courage to put oneself in a learning context.
Three paths to more versatile leadership
If you want to achieve a higher degree of versatility in your leadership, there are three common principles we recommend:
Self-reflection and the ability to become visible to yourself: To become more versatile as a leader, you need to understand your preferences and inclinations. Which behaviors come naturally to you and which don't? Recognizing your own beliefs and the options they open and close in your leadership is the first place to start when you want to strengthen your leadership skills
Courage to learn: The leader must also move outside their comfort zone. It sounds like a cliché, but research emphasizes that versatile leaders have in common that they seek out challenging learning situations. In these situations, leaders can more easily learn how to work with skills that don't come naturally and develop a sensitivity to environments outside of their own preferences.
Constantly evolving leadership identity: Many leaders like to draw clear lines, even when it comes to themselves. They tend to understand and portray themselves in polarized terms. They are one or the other and may idealize the way they lead. But versatility rests on the ability to be nuanced and do both.
