Leading through Chaos and Uncertainty

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Article Summary: 

Leaders these days face daunting challenges in navigating chaos and uncertainty while keeping their teams focused and aligned. Practical strategies to help leaders adapt effectively and lead through turbulent times with clarity and confidence.

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Leading through chaos and uncertainty is challenging for any leader. Rapid change, unexpected disruptions, and pervasive anxiety can shake even the most seasoned leaders. Beyond their normal challenges, leaders today must also contend with tariff turmoil, trade tangles, supply chain scrambles, stock and bond market gyrations, inflation and interest rate instability, and rapid technological, political, and regulatory changes.

How are you managing all this? Remember: How you respond sets the tone for your entire team’s ability to adapt and thrive. How to lead with conviction and confidence amid turbulence?

 

How to Lead through Chaos and Uncertainty

Here’s a punch list of ways to guide your team through chaos:

Lead yourself well. How? Start by taking care of yourself, regularly checking your mindset, and guarding your heart. Also, find your sanctuary. Maintain healthy habits and a proactive renewal practice (e.g., time in nature, exercise, good sleep and nutrition, prayer, meditation, yoga, etc.). Keep a regular routine. Prioritize your own wellbeing so you have the strength, endurance, and peace of mind to navigate the turbulence.

Stay calm and project confidence.* In turbulent times, your team looks to you for cues. Will you remain grounded and composed or frazzled and concerned? Whatever you show in terms of your disposition and outlook, whether consciously or not, gets magnified by your team.

“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.”
-Charles Bukowski, German-American poet

Care for people as humans first. Uncertainty strains emotions. Concern can become contagious. Demonstrate empathy. Ask people how they’re doing and take the time to listen deeply. Prioritize your team’s wellbeing by offering them flexibility and showing genuine understanding.

Leadership Derailers Assessment

Take this assessment to identify what’s inhibiting your leadership effectiveness. It will help you develop self-awareness and identify ways to improve your leadership.

 

Create and maintain psychological stability. Help people move from a place of concern or paralysis to one of acceptance and then determination and resolve.

“In a crisis, empathy has to come before productivity. People who are scared are not going to be productive. They’re just not.”
-Laszlo Bock, entrepreneur, executive, and author

Focus on shared purpose and values. When things are chaotic, the organization’s purpose becomes your compass. Point to the purpose and reinforce your shared values. Use the purpose and values to help guide decisions and behaviors—and to determine priorities.

“In moments of darkness you need to remember why you’re here and why you’re fighting that fight.”
-Jacqueline Ros, entrepreneur

Prioritize ruthlessly. Identify the few essential things that must happen now. Defer or drop the rest. By doing so, you can reduce feelings of overwhelm while also restoring clarity and focus.

“People always ask me, ‘What’s the secret to being a successful CEO?’ Sadly, there is no secret, but if there is one skill that stands out, it’s the ability to focus and make the best move when there are no good moves. It’s the moments where you feel most like hiding or dying that you can make the biggest difference as a CEO.”
-Ben Horowitz, entrepreneur, inventor, co-founder, Andreessen-Horowitz

Communicate more, not less. In the absence of information, people fill in the blanks, often with fear or misinformation. Increase the frequency of your individual check-ins and team updates. Short, authentic, and frequent messages are much better than long, polished, and sporadic ones.

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

Be transparent, even when it’s uncomfortable. Most people cope with tough news and setbacks better than they can with silence (or platitudes and vague reassurances). Let people team know where things stand and what you do and don’t know. Be open about what you’re doing to address challenges and find solutions—and where and how you need help. Transparency builds trust, which is a key factor in how well your team will respond to the difficulties.

Empower your team to respond and adapt. Invite people to be part of the solution by taking initiative and exercising leadership in their domains of influence. Give people the freedom to experiment, respond on the spot, and course-correct as needed. Create a culture in which it’s safe to try, fail, and learn. As Harvard leadership scholar Ronald Heifetz reminds leaders, “The work is through the people.”

“Get the world off your shoulders.”
-Bill George, business executive and author

Make quick decisions and have a bias toward action. Over-analysis and indecision stall progress. Resolve to make decisions when you have enough information. Be willing to adjust as new data comes in, but don’t let a quest for perfection delay momentum. Recognize when time is of the essence.

Highlight progress and celebrate small wins. Keep the focus on what’s possible. Highlight the team’s capacities. Note progress that’s made and recognize and thank people for their efforts, showing them how they matter to you personally and the organization.

Alignment Scorecard

When organizations aren’t aligned, it can reduce performance dramatically and cause frustration and dysfunction. With this Alignment Scorecard, you can assess your organization’s level of alignment and make plans for improving it.

Reflect often and learn quickly. Take time to pause and review what’s working, what isn’t working, and what you can address and improve. Your ability to keep learning even when things are in disarray will be a critical success factor.

Adapt your mindset and strategies. Avoid the temptation to cling to outdated assumptions and stodgy plans. Question past practices. Experiment with new approaches.

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic.”
-Peter Drucker, expert on management and innovation

Look for opportunities concealed in the chaos—and exploit them. Uncertainty and disruption, while uncomfortable, can be powerful catalysts for growth. Look for new ideas. Identify outdated systems. Note the people who rise to the occasion and act with grace under pressure. See how your organization’s culture can strengthen as the team focuses on collective objectives and overcomes adversity together. Watch how chaos can become fertile ground for progress and renewal.

“Turbulence is the beginning of a fruitful process of transformation.”
-Indra Nooyi, former Chair and CEO, PepsiCo

Watch out for avoidance mechanisms and behaviors (both in yourself and your team). When tensions are high, it’s tempting to sidestep difficult conversations or uncomfortable truths. But avoiding key issues only delays adaptation. Confront avoidance and resistance head-on, dancing with discomfort to uncover underlying issues and root causes.

Maintain openness and flexibility. Be curious about what’s emerging and why and how. Build your team’s adaptive capacity and agility by giving them more responsibility and autonomy. Give them your trust as well as new tools. Flexibility is essential. According to George Mason University Professor Stephen J. Zaccaro, there are three kinds of flexibility:

  • cognitive flexibility: “the ability to use different thinking strategies and mental frameworks”
  • emotional flexibility: “the ability to vary one’s approach to dealing with emotions and those of others”
  • dispositional flexibility: “the ability to remain optimistic and, at the same time, realistic”**
“…the one competence that I now realize is absolutely essential for leaders—the key competence—is adaptive capacity. Adaptive capacity is what allows leaders to respond quickly and intelligently to relentless change.”
-Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader

Leadership Derailers Assessment

Take this assessment to identify what’s inhibiting your leadership effectiveness. It will help you develop self-awareness and identify ways to improve your leadership.

 

Conclusion: Leading through Chaos

Leading through chaos and uncertainty demands conviction and clarity. By staying calm, projecting confidence, and fostering psychological stability, you can help your team to move from doubt to determination. Frequent communication, shared purpose, and ruthless prioritization help maintain solidarity and focus.

With these approaches, you can not only navigate the chaos but come out of it stronger and more unified.

 

Reflection & Action Questions

  1. What are you doing to address all the chaos and uncertainty you’re facing?
  2. How is it going?
  3. What more will you do, starting today?

 

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Postscript: Quotations on Leading through Chaos and Uncertainty

  • “The first qualification of a general is a cool head.” -Napoleon Bonaparte, French military commander and political leader
  • “The single greatest danger for most leaders is self-derailment.” -David Gergen, Hearts Touched with Fire
  • “It is not in the still calm of life or the repose of a pacific station that great characters are formed.” -Abigail Adams, former First Lady and visionary advocate for women’s rights and education
  • “In difficult storms, I believe, your first resource as a leader is always to values and principles.” -David Gergen, Hearts Touched with Fire: How Great Leaders Are Made
  • “You need internal guidance to navigate the turmoil in today’s highly uncertain environment.” -James Kouzes and Barry Posner, The Leadership Challenge
  • “One of the most reliable indicators and predictors of true leadership is an individual’s ability to find meaning in negative events and to learn from even the most trying circumstances. Put another way, the skills required to conquer adversity and emerge stronger and more committed than ever are the same ones that make for extraordinary leader.” -Warren Bennis and Robert J. Thomas, Harvard Business Review

* The Stockdale Paradox, named after Admiral James Stockdale, who survived years of torture during the Vietnam War, describes the ability to face the brutal facts of a situation while maintaining unwavering faith that you’ll ultimately prevail. Be brutally honest about the current difficulties while resolutely believing in a better future.

** Source: Stephen J. Zaccaro, “Social Complexity and the Competencies Required for Effective Military Leadership,” in Out-of-the-Box Leadership: Transforming the 21st Century Army and Other Top-Performing Organizations, Hunt et al., eds., (Bingley, U.K.: Emerald Publishing, 1999), 131-151.

Crafting Your Life and Work Course

Regain clarity, direction, and motivation for your next chapter, starting with a powerful foundation of self-awareness and commitment to your values and aspirations.

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards written with his father, Bob Vanourek) and LIFE Entrepreneurs (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion). Check out his Leadership Derailers Assessment or his Crafting Your Life and Work course. If you found value in this, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

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