Leading Through Uncertainty
THE LEADERSHIP EDGE NEWSLETTER | Your Guide to Exceptional Leadership
November 2025 | 1250 words = 5-minute read
1. Want to become a better leader? You must practice, reflect, and repeat. Leadership is like any skill—it needs repetition. The best leaders win through effort, focus, and persistence.
2. Three aspects of Leadership: intellect (IQ), emotions (EQ), and curiosity (CQ). People don't care how smart you are until they know how much you care about them!
3. Curiosity Is Your Secret Weapon! It's a mindset and a choice. You have to genuinely want to understand someone else and their ideas. Ask curious questions over and over!
THIS MONTH’S FOCUS
Hello Leaders! This month, I share insights about leading through uncertainty. It seems like every business analyst is reporting on the level of uncertainty in our economy and society in general. What is it all about? The federal government shutdown? Tariffs? The slowing real estate market? Interest rates? All uncontrollable, but great leaders lead through the uncertainty.
The question isn't whether uncertainty will persist. The question is: What separates leaders who lose their best people during uncertain times from those who emerge with stronger, more resilient teams?
If this sparks an interest and you'd like to schedule a discussion, you can do so here: Select a Date & Time - Calendly.
POINT #1: SHARE WHAT YOU KNOW AND WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW
VUCA is a term that describes the dynamic and challenging environment we live in. It stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, and it affects how we lead. Many leaders fall into the same trap: they wait for perfect information before communicating with their teams.
Here's what that looks like in practice: You sit in an executive meeting where half the information is speculation. You understand customer demand is shifting, but the data is contradictory. So, you tell yourself, "I'll wait until next week when we have the Q3 numbers. Then I'll have something concrete to share."
Next week comes. The numbers raise more questions than they answer. So, you wait another week.
Meanwhile, your silence creates a story of its own. Your newest team member interprets your closed-door meetings as proof of impending layoffs. Your best project manager assumes the lack of communication means leadership doesn't know what to do. Someone starts a rumor that turns out to be worse than the truth – 10% of the workforce will be cut by the end of the year.
Waiting too long for better information may create a dangerous vacuum that generates anxiety and speculation, the opposite of what leaders want.
Extraordinary leaders take a different approach. They communicate early and often, even when the picture is incomplete. They are explicit about three things:
What we know for sure (market data, customer feedback, financial realities)
What we're still figuring out (strategy options, resource allocation, timing)
How we'll decide as we learn more (decision frameworks, milestones, review processes)
This transparency doesn't undermine confidence—it builds it. Think about it: Would you rather follow someone who pretends to have all the answers and gets blindsided, or someone who says, "Here's what we know, here's what we don't, and here's how we're approaching the unknowns"?
The key shift: Stop viewing partial information as weakness. Your team doesn't need you to have all the answers; they need you to be honest about what you're working with.
REFLECTION: What have I been putting off sharing with my team because I don't know enough?
POINT #2: EXPLAIN THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS AROUND UNCERTAINTY
When the destination is unclear, people desperately need clarity about the journey. This is where many leaders miss the opportunity.
Do you hear your team complain about a lack of clarity? Our goals keep shifting. Our vision is vague. Our strategy is unclear. Our executive team won't put a stake in the ground.
No doubt, there are times when the executive team needs to get on the same page and stop debating one another. But there are also times when you may not be able to clarify outcomes, revised goals, and strategies. This is the time to focus on your decision-making process and help people understand how you are driving the organization to create clarity.
When you can't provide clarity on the "what," provide clarity on the "how." Here's the difference: A team without process clarity sounds like this in meetings:
"Are we still doing that initiative, or...?"
"Should I keep working on this, or wait?"
"Is anyone actually making decisions?"
A team with process clarity sounds like this:
"We're in the experimentation phase, so we'll test this for 30 days and evaluate."
"Leadership reviews this every Tuesday, so we'll have an update then."
"Even if the strategy pivots, we won't compromise on customer service—that's our anchor."
Consider sharing information about:
Communication timeframes: "We'll update the team every Tuesday, even if it's just to say we're still evaluating options."
Decision-making frameworks: "Here are the three criteria guiding every choice we make."
Non-negotiables: "Regardless of which path we take, we will not compromise on quality or values."
Experimentation parameters: "We're committing to this approach for 90 days to test these specific hypotheses."
This structure gives people a sense of predictability even when outcomes remain uncertain. It transforms "we're lost" into "we're exploring with intention."
The key shift: Channel your leadership energy into process design, not premature answers.
REFLECTION: Have I shared our decision-making process for the uncertainty affecting us?
POINT #3: NAME THE EMOTIONAL REALITY
Perhaps the most powerful thing you can do is acknowledge what everyone is feeling but no one is saying.
How many times have you seen this play out? A leader announces a major change, delivers the information efficiently, asks "Any questions?"—and is met with polite silence. Everyone nods. The meeting ends. But in the hallway afterward, the real conversation begins: the worry, the speculation, the doubt.
The gap between what people are feeling and what leadership is acknowledging creates a disconnect that erodes trust.
Uncertainty is inherently uncomfortable. Change creates grief, even when it's necessary. People worry about their jobs, their relevance, their ability to adapt. When leaders pretend everything is fine or push relentless positivity ("This is such an exciting opportunity!"), it creates a disconnect between lived experience and official messaging. This breeds cynicism and distrust.
Instead, try naming it directly:
"I know this creates questions about job security. Here's what I can tell you about that."
"Some of you are probably frustrated that we're changing direction again. I get it. Here's why we're making this call."
"We're figuring this out together, and I expect some bumps along the way."
This doesn't mean dwelling in negativity or hosting therapy sessions. It means permitting people to be human while still expecting them to show up and do their best work. Psychological safety and high standards aren't opposites—they're complements.
The key shift: Normalize the difficulty rather than bypass it. Resilience comes from processing emotions, not suppressing them.
REFLECTION: Have I acknowledged how people are feeling? How can I demonstrate empathy while maintaining forward momentum?
THE BOTTOM LINE
Leading through uncertainty requires a different skill set than leading in stable times. It's less about having the right answers and more about creating the conditions where your team can navigate ambiguity together. It's about replacing the illusion of certainty with something more valuable: trust, process, and emotional honesty.
The leaders who master this don't eliminate uncertainty—they make their organizations better at operating within it. And when clarity finally does emerge, they still have their best people around to execute on it.
That's the leadership edge!
DIVE DEEPER
Books
The Fearless Organization by Amy Edmondson – Essential reading on creating psychological safety during change
Think Again by Adam Grant – How to lead with intellectual humility and adapt your thinking
Leading Change by John Kotter – Classic framework for understanding organizational transformation
Articles
"What Makes a Leader?" by Daniel Goleman (Harvard Business Review) – Foundational piece on emotional intelligence in leadership
"The Work of Leadership" by Ronald Heifetz and Donald Laurie (HBR) – Distinguishing technical problems from adaptive challenges