When agility is treated as a toolkit, it can be delegated. When it is a mindset, it cannot. 

“I don’t know what to do anymore. I cannot ask people to work faster and maintain the same level of quality. Our clients will not tolerate mistakes. And yet, I’m being asked to be more agile…. How can I be more agile when I cannot work faster and ensure quality?!” 

I often hear this from my clients: senior leaders, under enormous pressure to deliver quality at great speed. These demands are not easy to combine, and the answer they are given is simple: “be more agile”. But in reality, it is not that simple. 

Agility has become one of the most overused and least understood concepts in modern leadership. Reduced to frameworks, rituals, or speed of delivery, it often generates the opposite of what it promises: confusion, frustration, and anxiety. 

Kate Anderson Foley, Andrea Leven-Marcon and I explore what it is and what it means for executive coaching. 

We start by drawing a distinction that is widely misunderstood: agile is not only a methodology. It is a mindset, a radically different way of thinking, deciding, and leading in environments defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA). Agile methodologies (like Scrum or Kanban) are a technical operating system. Agile leadership is a state of mind. 

This distinction is important for leaders and for executive coaches. When agility is treated as a toolkit, it can be delegated. When it is a mindset, it cannot. It needs to be cultivated and embodied.  

Since this paper [1] was written, this challenge has increased. AI (artificial intelligence) is not just adding complexity. It is accelerating it. Timeframes are shrinking. Expectations are rising. Pressure is constant. Leaders are expected to navigate even more uncertainty at an even higher speed.  

The context has changed. Leadership has changed. Are we coaching yesterday’s reality while our clients are already living tomorrow’s pressure? 

The paper explains that agile coaching is not the same as coaching agile leaders. The former is about frameworks, and the latter is about supporting leaders who can think, adapt and act differently. Executive coaches need to understand what agility is and what it demands of clients. We need to be aware of the process and understand what it means for the person. Our role now is not only to help leaders find better answers. It is also to support them operating in systems where answers and the context itself continuously evolve.  

This requires a different coaching approach. It is not an adjustment but a shift, captured in the NIMBLE model: 

• More focus on adaptation as a capability 

• More emphasis on navigation under uncertainty 

• More iterative experimentation 

• More divergent thinking without collapsing it prematurely 

In practical terms, this means executive coaches should become agile themselves: 

• Work in shorter coaching cycles, with rapid feedback loops 

• Challenge leaders to test assumptions in real time, not just reflect on them 

• Coach for decision-making under incomplete information 

• Help leaders design environments where teams can learn faster and not just perform better 

In summary, to effectively coach leaders in our Agile and AI world, executive coaches need to internalize and embody what is required of leaders: the agile mindset. 

Are we, as executive coaches, developing our own agile mindset? 

Read their paper ‘Agile Leadership and Coaching’ here →

[1] Ramos, T., Foley, K. A., Leven-Marcon, A. (2024). Agile Leadership and Coaching; PM World Journal, Vol. XIII, Issue XI, December. Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/pmwj147-Dec2024-Ramos-Foley-Marcon-Agile-Leadership-and-Coaching.pdf

ABOUT TERESA RAMOS-MARTIN

Teresa Ramos-Martin is an executive coach, leadership advisor, and former technology executive working at the intersection of leadership, agility, and AI.

She supports senior leaders and organisations navigating complexity, transformation, and the human challenges emerging in an AI-accelerated world. Teresa is an alumnus of Meyler Campbell Mastered.