Picture yourself on the freeway with wall-to-wall traffic. You can’t move forward, can’t move back, and if the GPS says it’s recalculating your route one more time, it might be thrown out the window.

Leadership can feel just like this when complexity hits or markets shift, with stalled projects, resistance from teams, and a lack of progress. The difference between leaders who move forward and those who headbutt the steering wheel? Leadership agility and resilience planning.

This article will explore how lovely leaders like you can plan alternative routes when you hit a roadblock in your organization. We’ll also help you think further ahead and plan all-important escape hatches so you and your team can be ready for anything.

Let’s get started, shall we?

What is Agile Leadership and Why Does it Matter?

Some of you will already know the answer to this one, but “What is agile leadership?” is a common question we get at My Daily Leadership. So, let’s answer it.

Leadership agility is essentially a combination of foresight and flexibility. It’s a fundamental leadership mindset that gives you the ability to course-correct quickly if needed. This makes it a crucial skill as a leader, not just a “nice to have”.

But what about resilience planning, and what’s this talk of escape hatches?

Resilience Planning and Escape Hatches

Think of leadership agility as your steering wheel, helping you navigate traffic jams before you’re stuck in the middle of them. If this is the case, then resilience planning is your seatbelt, i.e., the preparation in place to absorb shocks and carry on.

As a leader, both help you plan ahead, so instead of reacting to the “weather” of the day, you’ll be planning for the long-term “climate”.

Enough of the metaphors, let’s see what a strong business resilience plan might include:

1. A way to identify disruption potential from markets, tech, or people.
2. A map of exits and alternative routes for when a path becomes a dead-end.
3. Pivots to adapt quickly without upending progress.

In short, it’s a system of escape hatches, but this doesn’t mean abandoning ship and waving goodbye from the stratosphere. It means the plan you have to move everyone in a new direction, together.

Strategic Planning in Leadership: Playing the Long Game

Leadership agility is all about how you adapt, and resilience planning is about how able you are to do so. Strategic planning in leadership is a combination of both, focusing on different timescales.

It means considering the microscopic view of the short-term, the glasses view of the medium-term, and the telescopic view of the long-term. Doing this helps you balance your daily operations with plans for the future. It ensures you’re ready for both, and that you’re as resilient and agile as you need to be when the proverbial hits the fan.

Why Escape Hatches Work

Complex systems demand multiple pathways, so if you only have one, you’re going to hit a dead end at some point. This is where escape hatches come into play, because in complex systems, leaders must anticipate exits and alternative routes.

As tools of resilience instead of ways to retreat, escape hatches help you:

• Course-correct before you lose momentum.
• Pivot and refresh your strategy in the face of complexity.
• Keep teams motivated and forward-focused in times of uncertainty.

Without escape hatches and long-term strategic planning, you’re more likely to see progress come to a halt. With them, you’re the leader projecting confidence when others would lose their heads.

A Simple Tool to Plan for Escape Hatches and Be More Agile as a Leader

Leadership journaling helps you rehearse escape hatches before you need them and map out alternatives should things go pear-shaped. They also help you track your agility as a leader day-to-day.

Over time, these reflections can create a muscle memory of agility. As a result, you’ll start to see alternatives more quickly and anticipate exits before others do. Most of all, you’ll be able to lead with greater calm in the face of complexity.

If you’d like to explore how journaling can strengthen your leadership and provide a daily practice for reflection, check out our blog: Great Leaders Reflect – Start a Leadership Journal.

Final Thoughts: Don’t Wait for Crises to Force Agility

Baking in resilience is much better than waiting for things to go wrong. So, start planning exits, mapping alternatives, and preparing for pivots before they become a code red situation.

This is achieved with escape hatches in place and by looking to the future, with strategic and resilience planning, which can help you move forward instead of stalling.

Find Out More

Take the My Daily Leadership Assessment to discover just how agile a leader you are, and check out our complimentary leadership journaling prompts to get you started on your journey of self-reflection.

You can also check out our Stop Managing, Start Leading podcast on YouTube, where we give you the tools to thrive as a leader and a person.