Consulting Psychology Journal, Vol 74(3), Sep 2022, 215-236; doi:10.1037/cpb0000216
Although the conceptual roots of learning agility go back more than a half century, our understanding of the construct remains limited. The business world has embraced it as an important criterion for selecting leaders and identifying high-potential talent for many years, while the academic world has largely ignored or rejected learning agility as a viable psychological construct. For this article, I investigated why this is the case. I examined the extant leadership literature to understand more fully how learning agility emerged in the business setting, why different definitions and various measures of it developed over time, and generally how learning agility evolved as a concept of leadership. I also explored its empirical linkage to (a) current leader performance and (b) forecasting leader success in the future. Overall, I conclude that the construct has great potential for enhancing the accuracy and objectivity in leadership evaluation and discuss whether the construct eventually could be viewed as the “g-factor” of leadership. Finally, I describe several steps that should be taken to incorporate science into the underpinnings of the construct to advance its acceptance in the academic community, as well as provide a firmer foundation to support its importance to leadership. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)