To ensure the need for agility doesn’t remain a slogan, it helps to anchor it in the concrete characteristics of the environment described by the VUCA framework: volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. One important detail: VUCA is not one “big problem.” It is four different management problems. And when leaders try to solve one of them with the tools meant for another, we get the familiar situation where “we do a lot, but we don’t move forward.”

Volatility: the problem isn’t knowledge—it’s cadence

In volatility, the world changes fast and with high amplitude. Long plans and infrequent reviews don’t help, because decisions expire before their impact even arrives.

The management logic shifts: the key is response speed and readiness. In practice, that means shortening planning cycles, reviewing and reprioritizing faster, and managing sensible reserves (resources, skills, time). Not “more control,” but a tighter leadership cadence.

Leader’s takeaway: if you don’t change the cadence, you’re not leading change—you’re merely documenting consequences.

Uncertainty: the problem isn’t deciding—it’s sensing signals and learning

Under uncertainty, information is insufficient or uneven. Many leaders respond with: “Let’s wait until it becomes clearer.” But the world often doesn’t become “clearer”—it becomes “later.”

The management logic: the core is signal collection and fast learning. That means being willing to experiment, building short feedback loops, “early listening” to customers and operations, and making decisions that can be reversed if needed.

Leader’s takeaway: in uncertainty, the winner is not the one who knows the most, but the one who learns the fastest—and stays open to change.

Complexity: the problem isn’t effort—it’s dependencies

Complexity means there are many factors, interacting with each other. This is where the classic “everyone does their part” model breaks down, because outcomes depend more on cross-effects and dependencies than on the quality of individual contributions.

The management logic: the need for coordination grows, and dependency management becomes critical. The weak point is often the “grey zone”: whose decision, whose queue, whose priority? Complexity punishes organizations where decisions are fragmented and accountability is diluted.

Leader’s takeaway: in complexity, companies don’t die from lack of ideas—they die from inability to coordinate.

Ambiguity: the problem isn’t speed—it’s meaning

Ambiguity is the most underrated part of a changing environment. The issue is not that information is scarce. Often, there is plenty of information—but it is contradictory and open to multiple interpretations. Ambiguity is where most “fast wrong decisions” are born: everyone moves, but in different directions. The challenge is to filter what is truly relevant and decisive.

The management logic: what becomes critical is sensemaking—creating a shared understanding of what is really happening before the organization hits the gas. If even a minimally shared understanding doesn’t form, the result is fragmented responses and burned resources.

Leader’s takeaway: in ambiguity, the bigger danger is not slowness, but moving quickly in the wrong direction.

VUCA and agility: the information-processing lens reveals the real problem

If VUCA feels “too philosophical,” the information processing view makes it practical.

As uncertainty and ambiguity increase, an organization’s need to process information increases: to collect, share, interpret, and use information for decisions that can no longer rely on stable rules. The problem isn’t that leaders don’t want to decide. The problem is that information becomes outdated faster than decisions can move.

From this perspective, organizations have two options:

1. Reduce the need for information processing: standardize information flows, design modularity, create rules and clear interfaces.

2. Increase information-processing capacity: tighter coordination, faster feedback loops, richer communication, and greater visibility.

In a VUCA context, one approach alone is rarely enough. Complexity requires modular design so you don’t have to untangle everything from scratch each time. Ambiguity requires fast sensemaking so people don’t interpret the same signal in ten different ways. In essence, agility is an organization’s response to rising information load: the ability to keep decision-making and execution functioning when information is incomplete, contradictory, or quickly aging.

That is why agile practices often share familiar patterns: making work visible, working in short stages, running regular reviews and feedback. These are not “rituals.” They are mechanisms that reduce decision staleness and increase the ability to respond.

Why agility is ultimately a social capability (and why leaders are the key)

Especially under ambiguity, agility is not only about process and pace. It is a social capability of coordination and learning. Organizations continuously assign meaning to events; in turbulent situations, this intensifies because signals are contradictory and deviate from norms. If an organization cannot quickly reach at least a minimally shared understanding, fragmentation follows: teams pull in different directions, priorities quietly turn into “negotiation,” and strategy becomes a presentation instead of purposeful action.

This is where agile leadership becomes decisive. Leaders determine whether the organization has forums and rhythms that support sensemaking: situational reviews, priority clarification, decision-locking, and normalizing feedback. Leaders also shape the psychological climate: whether problems and risks are surfaced early—or hidden “until we’re sure.”

In other words: in a changing environment, agility is not built by “doing more.” Agility is built when information moves, understanding forms, decisions happen, and execution changes.

Mini-synthesis: why today’s environment is the “final signal”

VUCA is not just background noise. It is an analytical reason why agility becomes valuable—and why it makes practical sense to measure agility prerequisites in leadership. VUCA connects the need for agility to information processing and sensemaking: decisions become outdated faster, signals become more contradictory, and dependencies become tighter. Agility therefore requires both fast feedback loops and social mechanisms that create shared understanding and coordinated action.

If that sounds harsh, that is the point: this environment is not “returning to normal.” This is the new reality. And it is the last moment to change the organization’s leadership logic so that sense → decide → reconfigure → learn becomes systematic—not accidental.