How to lead through uncertainty when you don't have the answers.

The part of uncertainty nobody puts on the slide

When you have a senior title, you're expected to be the calm in the storm, the steady hand guiding everyone else. So what happens when you're the one feeling the ground move?

Change is hard. For leaders it's also lonely. You can be in a room full of people and nobody really knows what's going on in your head. You have doubts and fears, and you're under pressure to have the answers when you're just as uncertain as everyone else.

When the war in Ukraine started I was at a big tech company (I tell the full story here), and the leaders around me were scrambling. Head office was in Canada and wasn't sure whether to react or how. Those of us based in Europe, with a couple of thousand people in Ukraine and Russia, had to respond straight away. Leader after leader said the same thing to me: "I don't know what to say. I don't have the answers." I kept telling them this wasn't about having the answers. It was about showing up for their people. So I created spaces where those leaders could talk to each other, so they could then show up for their teams.

The feelings that come with that kind of moment are predictable, and most leaders bury them.

• Imposter syndrome: am I even qualified to lead through this?
• Fear of failure: what if I make the wrong call and everything falls apart?
• Guilt: I'm so focused on targets and deliveries, and my family needs me too.
• Isolation: who can I talk to about this, and who would actually care?

Naming them is the first step. Most leaders don't. They avoid the feelings or brush past them, and the feelings come out sideways in how they lead.

Pretending you're fine is what breaks you

In 2025 I had to ask myself a hard question, and I talked about it openly. I run MindsetShift. I work with leaders on exactly this. I'm supposed to have it figured out. But that year didn't care about my credentials. It tested me like it tested everyone else.

So I stepped back and asked what was actually within my control. Mind, body and soul. That was it. For me that meant getting closer to God, which is the source of everything for me. It doesn't have to be your answer. But I needed to reconnect with something bigger than the chaos, and to remember that the pressure and the responsibility aren't the whole story of who I am.

Real strength is being able to say things suck right now. Being able to name the reality without falling apart in it.

Most leadership advice tells you to be resilient and lead with confidence. Hardly anyone tells you that one of the most useful things you can do is admit you're struggling. Not necessarily to your whole team, and not in a way that spreads anxiety. To yourself, to people you trust. When you stop performing, you stop bleeding energy keeping the performance up.

Steer the next step, not the whole route

You can't control the storm. You can control how you move through it.

Start by acknowledging it. Pretending it isn't there won't make it go away. Saying to your team, "This is tough, and we'll get through it together," does more than a polished update that avoids the obvious.

You don't need the whole plan. You can't predict what's coming. You need the next step. What are we doing now? What can we control?

I learned this during the financial crisis, working in finance, when people came to me for answers I didn't have. When I had something to tell them, I told them. When I didn't, I said, "I'm sorry, I don't have the answer. I wish I did." I didn't lie to them, and that period built more trust than any of the good years.

Peter Drucker put it well in Managing in Turbulent Times: the greatest danger in turbulence isn't the turbulence, it's acting with yesterday's logic. I don't agree with everything Drucker wrote, but I agree with that.

Stop trying to be the hero

No single person can hold all of today's complexity. The pace is too fast and the problems have too many parts. Yet a lot of leaders still believe that if they work harder, think smarter and push longer, they'll crack it alone.

Your team doesn't need a hero. They need a human.

Lean on your crew. Your peers are probably feeling the same thing, so get together and talk. Delegate. Trust your team and ask them for help, even when a voice in your head says a leader should already know this. Asking for help in a hard season builds trust that lasts well beyond it.

That takes a different kind of strength. Being willing to say "I don't know." Trusting other people with the complexity. Leading with questions instead of declarations.

Bend instead of gripping harder

You spent your career learning to control outcomes, manage variables and reduce risk. That served you well. Complexity doesn't respond to control. The harder you grip, the more it slips away.

A rigid building cracks in an earthquake. A building designed to sway survives. The leaders who cope best with uncertainty are rarely the smartest in the room. They are the most psychologically flexible. They can be confident and uncertain at the same time, hold a strong view and stay open to being wrong, plan and adapt. I'd call that a polarity rather than a contradiction, and good leaders get practised at holding both ends.

You build that through practice, not more thinking: sitting with discomfort, challenging your own assumptions, taking feedback that stings and using it anyway.

A framework for change you can actually use

I've run transformation programmes that delivered more than $1bn for clients, and the thing that cost the most was rarely the change itself. It was how the change was communicated and rolled out. Inconsistency and a lack of transparency cost money, and worse, they cost trust. The approach I use with clients is called ALIGN.

• Assess the landscape. Understand what is changing, and also what isn't. In a storm it's easy to look only at what's moving and miss the anchors you can hold on to.
• Leverage diverse perspectives. Talk to people beyond your usual circle, including other teams, partners and other countries. You'll be surprised what they see.
• Implement incremental change. Big-bang overhauls make people pay for them. Smaller steps give you real feedback and less resistance.
• Generate momentum with quick wins. People like progress they can see. Celebrate it, because it builds the confidence for the harder changes still to come.
• Nurture continuous learning. Value adaptability, reward experiments, and treat setbacks as information.

The question to ask yourself now

Am I leading by design or by default? By design means you've chosen your priorities and how you show up, even when it's hard. By default means you're reacting, repeating what worked before and running on autopilot. If you're honest, most of us spend most of our time on default.

Then ask: what kind of leader do I want to be on the other side of this, and what kind of team do I want to have built? The answers might surprise you. Change is hard, but it's also where leaders get made.