Agile Mindset – What Have We Learned So Far?

Achieving innovative, sustainable growth is a key goal for all modern and responsible organizations. Agility competency supports achieving sustainability by ensuring consistent, informed, and timely adaptability to changing situations. Thinking through an agile mindset is central to building an agile culture.

To examine ways of addressing these needs, in 2023 we initiated the project Agile Mindset (Agile learning culture influence on the dynamic capabilities of knowledge-based organizations: Polish-Finnish cross-country analysis). In the project, we combine quantitative and qualitative research to deepen our understanding of how the agile mindset is central to achieving agility competencies and to building agile organizations. The first stage of research provided evidence that the leader’s agile mindset is central in establishing an agile enterprise, given its significant impact on both agile- and non-agile-minded staff. Moreover, we observed that the attitudes of agile and non-agile mindsets toward change, uncertainty, and ambiguity often collide, and their cooperation is often marred by friction. We have also found that a phenomenon that we call the Agile Mindset Leader Paradox poses a significant challenge in this process. Whether organizations and societies strive to adapt and grow, challenge the world, or maintain the status quo, people with opposing agile and non-agile mindsets must collaborate to succeed. Our project seeks ways to facilitate such collaboration. In this article, we reflect on our recent findings at the first stage of the research and shed some light on the methodology that led us to the given conclusions.

The Agile Mindset Leader Paradox

The qualitative stage of the Agile Mindset project has discovered and quantitatively confirmed that organizations experience friction between agile and non-agile mindsets (Kucharska et al., 2026; 2025d; 2024c). As managing opposing mindsets is one of the key challenges agile mindset leaders face, using bridging roles and dividing certain responsibilities can help to address these challenges. In short, the phenomenon we call the Agile Mindset Leader Paradox arises from the need for leaders to manage very different, and sometimes conflicting, organizational demands. On one hand, some employees and organizational practices focus on stability, predictability and control. This “non-agile” domain emphasizes routines, exploitation of existing knowledge, and structured processes that help maintain operational reliability and reduce uncertainty. On the other hand, organizations also require employees and practices that embrace exploration, experimentation, and flexibility. This “agile” domain is characterized by intellectual simulation, dynamic adaptability, and a focus on finding innovative solutions. Managing these two domains simultaneously creates tension for leaders, because supporting stability and control can sometimes conflict with fostering creativity and adaptability, although both are essential for long-term organizational growth and performance.

Agile mindset leaders (AMLs) are key drivers of organizational agility that secure prompt and wise long-term organizational adaptability. On the other hand, this positive effect is often marred by the way agile mindset leaders can also cause significant stress for employees with non-agile mindsets. This, in turn, is detrimental because the well-being of all employees is essential to smooth organizational cooperation and overall performance.

The human tendency toward frameworks and stability often conflicts with the need for agility, creating a paradox that agile leaders must manage. On one hand, leaders are responsible for organizational growth, so prompt and wise adaptability is a priority today, and agility along with an agile mindset serves this purpose well. Therefore, agile leaders should primarily rely on agile employees to build agile organizations. Agile mindset employees support growth, but non-agile staff play a role in maintaining stability, organizational memory, and operational reliability. On the other hand, agile leaders must depend on both groups and create favourable working conditions for each. From the perspective of an agile leader, both agile and non-agile mindsets matter. Organizations include both types of employees, representing two fundamentally different approaches to navigating work – especially in how they handle uncertainty and change. These mindsets differ significantly, often leading to workplace conflicts. To put it simply, staff with a non-agile mindset need stability and self-control to perform; they prefer predictable, stable working conditions to control their own performance, and they dislike change. As a result, they favour safe work environments over constant challenges, and they rely on proven solutions rather than trying out new ones. However, motivating also these employees toward change and adaptability is essential because without it, organizations today cannot grow and stay competitive. At the same time, the agility required for growth involves constant uncertainty, which can be very stressful for staff who are not agile-minded. Under stress, these employees struggle to perform, and they may find it difficult to perform well in ambiguous and chaotic situations that they see as disorderly. Conversely, agile staff accept uncertainty; they are eager to explore, see change as an opportunity, seek intellectual challenges, and adapt quickly to new situations. They are also keen to find and implement new solutions, and in this way their mindset is geared toward continuous improvement.

Agile-minded leaders must balance the need for organizational stability (preferred by non-agile staff) with the demands of adaptability and growth (crucial for organizational success). However, differing working styles can create tension and affect performance, highlighting the need for differentiated management practices which appreciate the value of both agile and non-agile employees. All our studies advocate for managerial ambidexterity – balancing stability and agility – and suggest further study into strategies that foster collective intelligence, adaptability, and inclusive organizational growth, as well as responsible workplace design to secure conditions that enable agile and non-agile mindsets to use their full potential for their own satisfaction and for the company’s growth. Since these two mindsets have opposing needs, this is challenging.

As opposing mindsets create tension and reveal friction, the Agile Mindset Leader Paradox stems not only from the expected ambidexterity in response to modern business environment reality, but also from the friction between agile-minded and non-agile-minded employees, which hinders the smooth cooperation needed to build an agile organization. In order for organizations to adapt and grow, they must respond to this challenge collectively. The real power of an agile organization lies in its functioning as a comprehensive, adaptive system characterized by the perfect coordination of people with different mindsets, but also coordination of processes, technology, culture, and other resources so that all of these elements are synergistically oriented toward sustaining a long-term competitive strategy.

Because of this, it can be said that the Agile Mindset Leader Paradox describes the unique challenge faced by leaders who are expected to embody and promote a shared agile mindset wisely, which requires designing workplaces to prevent friction between agile and non-agile minds. After all, a company is its people.

In our research, we identify agile mindset leaders as those who can manage these tensions and who themselves possess a “hybrid mindset” that enables them to master organisational ambidexterity, that is, the ability to seamlessly juggle between opposing exploration and exploitation strategies, depending on the changing business context. To better understand the leader’s agile mindset, we investigated perceptions of agile leadership qualities from technology (IT sector) and non-technology (non-IT mix of sectors) perspectives.

Agile leadership: tech and non-tech perspectives on agility

Knowledge workers in technological and non-technological fields see agile mindset leaders differently (Kucharska et al., 2024a). However, they all agree that agile leaders should be open-minded, adaptable, reflective, positive toward challenges, and effective at implementing change. At the same time, individuals with a technological mindset consider analytical skills, risk management, technology use, efficiency, multitasking, and knowledge-sharing habits as critical. In contrast, individuals with a non-technological mindset emphasize social skills, such as employee development support, creativity, inclusion, empathy, and dynamism. Our research (Kucharska et al., 2024a) suggests that a full understanding of agile leadership requires integrating both perspectives. As a result of our research, we have also proposed definitions and measurement scales for agile mindset leaders, their agile and non-agile mindset followers, the agile organization as a comprehensive adaptive system, and organizational agility competency, drawing on an integrative approach that combines tech and non-tech perspectives (Kucharska, et al. 2026). The reported results of our project integrate knowledge from the respondents’ diverse perspectives in IT and other sectors – and from the fields represented by project members and beyond, in fields such as IT, management, sociology, and psychology. Therefore, the results highlighted in this article are unique through their integrative nature.

Learning and sharing knowledge drive agility

In the project, we also found that developing learning cultures that accept mistakes, promote tacit knowledge sharing, and build risk-management skills enhances organizational agility competency (Kucharska et al., 2024b; 2025a). Sharing tacit knowledge is essential for organizational agility, as responding quickly and creatively to change requires ongoing shifts in mindset through informal, contextual learning. Therefore, it appears that effective risk management – not just a positive attitude toward risk-taking – supports agility. Because of this, continuous learning, critical thinking, and self-development are key traits of agile minds.

Leaders with an agile mindset excel at absorbing and utilizing tacit knowledge through learning that is continuous, informal, and experiential. This makes it clear that organizations should cultivate environments that encourage informal learning and knowledge sharing among workmates, as these are vital for agility and innovation.

Agile mindset, agile culture, technology, and organizational agility

Our research reveals that leaders who embody an agile mindset are the foremost catalysts for fostering organizational agility. This essential quality not only predicts success but also inspires adaptability and innovation throughout the organization (Kucharska et al., 2026; Kucharska et al., 2025b; Kucharska et al., 2025c; Kucharska et al., 2024a). In this context, cultivating an agile mindset can significantly enhance organizational agility, while a non-agile mindset might create some challenges. This means that embracing flexibility and openness can have a major impact on the working conditions for everyone. Based on our research, the negative effect of a non-agile mindset on organizational agility also seems gender-related and particularly strong among men with both technical and non-technical orientations, with the impact more pronounced among non-technical individuals (Kucharska & Kucharski, 2025). This suggests that technology which supports management (such as BI business intelligence solutions, or AI artificial intelligence solutions) acts as a cognitive stimulus, and while it encourages agility, it does not create an agile mindset. Overall, organizations can benefit greatly from hiring and training staff to embrace an agile mindset, using technology as a helpful partner along the way. By supporting a culture of continuous learning, open knowledge sharing, and thoughtful risk management, organizations can create a welcoming environment where both technological and social leadership can thrive, making teams more adaptable and resilient (Kucharska et al., 2024b).

To obtain these results, we applied qualitative (Kucharska et al., 2026; Kucharska et al., 2024a; Kucharska et al., 2024c) and quantitative research methods (Kucharska et al., 2026; Kucharska et al., 2025a; Kucharska et al., 2025b; Kucharska et al., 2025c, Kucharska et al., 2024b; Kucharska & Kucharski, 2025).

Studied samples and methods applied

Our qualitative sample (Kucharska et al, 2024c) is based on 85 interviews (41 from Poland and 44 from Finland). Qualitative data analysis on the sample was first carried out using MaxQDA software, and these study results were corroborated by quantitative analysis (Kucharska et al., 2026). The quantitative stage, on the other hand, employed structural equation modelling to analyse data from 400 cases from questionnaire responses collected among 200 Polish and 200 Finnish knowledge workers. The quantitative data sample (set I, CAWI) was collected from May 2024 to June 2024 in organizations where our qualitative study interlocutors were employed (Kucharska et al., 2025d). Thus, it is a purposive sample where we controlled the quota per country but not per company, sector, or gender. As a result, the sample primarily represents the IT industry (78% in Poland, and 42% in Finland), and other than IT organizations are represented by 23% of respondents in Poland and 58% in Finland. Next, we collected a much larger dataset to confirm our findings (set II), comprising of 1,871 knowledge workers.  The sample was purposive, balancing sector, gender, country and mindset (IT vs. other than IT sample; female vs. male; Poland vs. Finland; agile vs. non-agile mindset), to study agile mindsets more profoundly from these perspectives. This dataset was collected in March 2025 using the CAWI method. We have not published this dataset yet because several research projects based on this dataset are still under review, and we want to maintain publication priority rights. In addition, the sample used in the part of the study that examines the relationship between gender and agile mindset (Kucharska & Kucharski, 2025) is drawn from a pre-project pilot study. Generally, in all of our quantitative studies, the collected data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM), as well as SPSS PROCESS MACRO.

The main limitation of the quantitative studies carried out during this project so far is that they rely on a purposive sample. Specifically, we deliberately balanced country, gender, and sectoral issues. Even more importantly, we also balanced self-assessments of agile and non-agile mindsets to compare these opposing perspectives. Such a methodological approach enabled comparison between mindsets. Comparing these opposing mindsets offers deeper insights into understanding the value of the agile mindset than if its impact alone was analysed. The exposed difference highlights the agile mindset’s significant contribution to innovative, sustainable, consistent, informed, and timely adaptability. At the same time, this also leads to masking how frequently agile and their non-agile counterparts occur in Polish or Finnish populations, and this warrants future assessment. Moreover, when measuring agile and non-agile mindsets, we used the same statements for both. As all participants responded to the statements where agile mindset was indicated by agreeing with a statement, non-agile mindset respondents typically responded negatively or in opposition to these statements. Because of this, when measuring employees’ or leaders’ non-agile mindsets, we used reverse coding, following Dweck et al. (1995), who measured growth and fixed mindsets this way. Finally, our structural models face the same challenge as all models, in that they greatly simplify reality. Because of this, results from structural equation models should always be interpreted only in relation to the specific mechanisms or phenomena they purposefully simplify. It should also be noted that although the CAWI data collection method is often seen as a limitation, in practice it is the most effective way to reach IT-sector representatives who not only work remotely but also spend substantial time in virtual interactions. Therefore, other methods would not be as effective. Furthermore, as communication increasingly shifts to remote formats, we consider CAWI the most promising data collection method, as it is efficient for all participants, particularly younger generations.

Key conclusions and practical takeaways

The first phase of the project revealed that an agile mindset, especially in leadership, is essential to building agile organizations, but it also brought to attention the fact that the agile leadership paradox poses a significant challenge to this process. Whether organizations and societies strive to adapt and grow, challenge the world, or maintain the status quo, agile and non-agile mindsets must learn to coexist, collaborate, and succeed together. Therefore, the next phase of our research will focus on building mutual understanding and on examining if and how an agile mindset can be trained.

Moreover, whole all findings from our country-sector comparisons to date indicate no significant differences between Poland and Finland in the IT sector, our findings do point to some differences in industries other than IT. This issue will be the subject of our further investigations. We observed that in terms of mindset, the IT sector constitutes a single international tribe that transcends national boundaries. In comparing our two countries, we will focus on sectors other than IT to deepen our understanding of the agile mindset as perceived through different national and cultural lenses.

The results discussed above lead to three practical implications. Firstly, the key difference between agile and non-agile minds lies in their attitudes towards uncertainty and change. In practice, a viable solution to this tension is that leaders can assign non-agile-mindset employees to tasks that do not directly address uncertainty and change. Conversely, the agile-minded employees can then be assigned to address these tasks, which entail, for example, considering new strategies, tactics, and research and development. Secondly, since the current reality is dynamic and uncertain, it requires all of us to adapt. In the long run, repetitive and well-known tasks with predictable outcomes may be assigned to AI, and this makes adaptable thinking and agile mindsets important to all employees. Thirdly, no matter how well predisposed a particular mindset is to “being agile” – not only to “doing agile” by following the procedures of agile methods – there is always room for improvement. We believe that agile mindset training can be efficient in shifting minds, which is why the next stage of our project is devoted to this.

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