Ambidextrous leadership is the capacity of a leader to recognize the fundamental differences between exploratory and core businesses and to compartmentalize their leadership accordingly — applying discovery-oriented, uncertainty-tolerant judgment to new ventures while running the core for execution and efficiency. It is the human precondition for an ambidextrous organization: the structures only work if leadership can hold both modes at once.
Ambidextrous leadership is what holds an ambidextrous organization together at the senior level, where separate exploratory and core units must stay linked. It pairs with the structural mechanisms — Custom Governance and the Functional Interface (FIT) Team — that operationalize the separation. For the full treatment, see the RPP pillar at /supporting/rpp. Related Terminology Index entries: Ambidextrous Organization; Custom Governance; Exploratory Business; Core Business; RPP.
