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Leading Through Uncertainty
Leaders need to make decisions and we rarely get to choose the context. Most often, we need to take action without all the facts, in a rapidly changing environment and a compressed time frame. We need to do so with the knowledge that if we get it wrong, we will bear the blame and no one else. It will be our mess to clean up.
That’s a hard bridge to cross and many, if not most, are never quite able to get there. I think that’s why we admire great leaders so much, because they have the courage to take responsibility on their backs and be accountable, to inspire confidence even in an atmosphere of confusion and to point the way forward, even if they aren’t sure it’s the right direction.
The truth is that you can never really be certain until you take that step forward. The simple and inescapable truth is that to accomplish anything significant you need to travel on an uncertain journey. It is tautologically true that the well-trod path will take us nowhere new. We can never fully control uncertainty, but we can learn to lead through it.
How Things Get So Complicated And Uncertain
Generally, we prefer to operate with some degree of predictability, which is why we build structure into daily life. On a personal level, we create habits and routines to give us a sense of grounding. On a societal…
