A significant consequence of today’s dynamic, complex, and uncertain business environments is that leadership skills are subject to continual obsolescence and displacement.

To be effective, leaders must demonstrate the flexibility and agility to adapt theirbehaviors as situations change. The willingness and capability to learn from experienceand subsequently to apply that learning to perform successfully under new or first-timeconditions becomes one of the most critical success factors for managers and executives.

This article introduces and defines the concept of learning agility, reviews and discussesits theoretical and empirical background, and presents selected research findings relatedto the assessment of learning agility. Several areas for future research are also identified.

Keywords: learning agility, leadership effectiveness, leadership potential, succession management When the winds of change rage,  Some build shelters while others build windmills.
—A Chinese Proverb


The necessity for individuals to alter their leadership style has been recognized for a long time. This concept has been called various names by different researchers. For example, Fred Fiedler (1967) pioneered the idea that managers either could be task-oriented or relationship-oriented. Which leadership style was most effective depended on the “situational favorableness” of the environment.

Victor Vroom and Philip Yetton (1973) contended that leaders need to be attuned to the situation
and vary their decision making styles to meet the needs of the environment and their direct reports.

More recently, Robert Kaplan and Rob Kaiser (2006) have argued for leadership versatility. They
asserted that managers need a well-rounded repertoire to adapt to a wide variety of changing
environmental conditions.

In the world of leadership, management transitions play a major role. Transitions are challenging and developmental, because individuals are in such circumstances faced with novel situations that render existing routines and leadership behaviors inadequate. Transitions require the flexibilityto learn new ways of coping with unforeseen problems and opportunities. Individuals who cannot let go of old patterns of behavior or who do not recognize the nuances in different situations tend to fail. Successful leaders develop on the job (McCall, Lombardo, & Morrison, 1988; Tannenbaum,1997). They learn leadership from day-in and day-out experiences. Unfortunately, many leadersderail. Such leaders may depend too much on what had gotten them into management in the first place and tend to stop learning what is needed to perform effectively in new circumstances. A relatively new construct, entitled learning agility, has increasingly being recognized as essential for long-term leadership success (Lombardo & Eichinger, 2000; Spreitzer, McCall, & Mahoney, 1997).

The assessment of learning agility, we believe, will likely become a critical component of talent
management practices in most organizations during this decade. Consequently, a conceptual
understanding of learning agility, as well as the development of psychometrically sound measures
of it, we believe is vital for applied consulting work. In this article, we define learning agility as a
key indicator of future leadership success and review its theoretical background. Subsequently, we examine various transitions managers make during their careers and discuss the saliency of learning agility for those transitions. We then present a measure of learning agility and review some empirical findings. The article closes with a discussion of some key theoretical and conceptual issues.

Learning Agility: What is It? The concept of learning agility was developed in the practitioner world. It can be defined as the willingness and ability to learn from experience, and subsequently apply that learning to perform successfully under new or first-time conditions (Lombardo & Eichinger, 2000). According to this view, high learning agile individuals learn the “right lessons” from experience and apply those lessons to novel situations. People who are highly learning agile continuously seek out new challenges, actively seek feedback from others to grow and develop, tend to self-reflect, and evaluate their experiences and draw practical conclusions.Clarifying the Meaning of “Leadership Potential”

In 2000, Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger published an article entitled, “High Potentials
as High Learners.” It highlighted the concept of learning agility, and presented their findings on the relationship between learning agility and leadership potential. The authors theorized that potential cannot be fully detected from what an individual already demonstrates on the job. Rather, it requires the individual do something new or different. In their view, potential involves learning new skills to perform in novel, and, very often, first-time situations. They speculated that people differ in their aptitude to learn from their experiences. It is this capability and motivation to learn from experience that differentiates high potentials that go on to succeed from others (see also McCall et al., 1988).
A recent review article reinforced the importance of a learning component to high potential
identification (Silzer & Church, 2009). These authors stated that “whenever there is an effort to
identify individuals with potential, it inherently suggests that the person does not currently have the end-state skills and needs to further develop to obtain them. The learning dimensions are the
gatekeepers to learning those end-state skills. Without them little development or growth will occur, for any career path” (pp. 401– 402).

The practical implication is that organizations should assess learning agility to identify indi?viduals who have the potential required for future positions. This approach differs from most traditional practices. Previously, most companies developed and promoted their high performers, without realizing that current performance in one situation does not guarantee high performance in a different one. The Corporate Leadership Council’s (2005) research on potential reported that fewer than 30% of an organization’s current high performers have the potential to rise to and succeed in broader senior-level, critical positions. Thus, organizations could improve their high potential identification efforts by adding an assessment of an individual’s learning agility.

120 DE MEUSE, DAI, AND HALLENBECK
The Historical Roots and Theoretical Foundation of Learning Agility Many different researchers have contributed to the evolution of learning agility as an important predictor of high potential identification. The longitudinal studies conducted at AT&T observed that managers who had been assessed low for potential frequently were more successful than expected when they had developmental opportunities (see Bray, Campbell, & Grant, 1974). 

Sternberg and his colleagues emphasized practical intelligence as a critical component of overall intelligence (Stern?berg, Wagner, Williams, & Horvath, 1995). Such characteristics as being street smart, interpersonal savvy, and possessing common sense are important in “practical intelligence.” These authors found that practical intelligence was much more predictive of organizational success than basic IQ.