VUCA Masters! Leadership Fitness Agility with Nick Horney and Dr. Kozhi Makai — Inspirational Insights podcast

The Inspirational Insights podcast started in 2016 to share different perspectives on working with a rapidly changing world while bringing out the best, deeper creative talent held in each person. Episode 84 features leadership fitness agility master Nick Horney, author of VUCA Masters: Developing Leadership Agility Fitness for the New World of Work, and special guest Dr. Kozhi Makai who is a VUCA Master.

In this interview we talk about working with uncertainty, complexity, volatility and ambiguity conditions by leading at a level of fitness to match the conditions. As Nick describes it, “VUCA master is someone that can and does demonstrate that leadership, agility, fitness — a new term that I wanted to introduce to the world of agile, the agile community and leaders in general.”

VUCA is a term that originated with the US army and though it has been around for over a decade, recognition that the external conditions are not predictable has still not yet altered how decisions are made by leaders. Dr. Kozhi Makai was raised in a complex country so a level of uncertainty goes with immersion in that culture. When he arrived in the U.S. he took on one challenge after another eventually becoming one of Nick’s VUCA Masters.

Five major behavioural aspects serve as the drivers of leadership agility Nick explains. They spell AGILE.

A stands for anticipate change, not wait around until change lands on your doorstep. How can we do a better job of identifying trends and patterns, et cetera, and being proactive and preemptive to anticipate the change?

G is generate confidence, not just self-confidence. It could be members of your family at a personal level, but it also could be from a business perspective, those that report to you, whether you’re leading a project team or head of a department or the CEO of an organization. It is confidence generated by having a clear strategy, being very…