Leading in Uncertain Times: Clarity, Confidence, and Control Without Losing Yourself:

How to lead intentionally when everything around you is changing

The world feels chaotic right now.

I suspect that most of us would agree that it feels like we've never really settled since the COVID pandemic. The world has just had one thing after another. It's almost like the uncertainty of the VUCA world is the norm now.

This is it! It's just going to be slightly chaotic from here on in.

I'm hoping that's not the case. I think we're all hoping that's not the case.

However, here's the challenge: how do we lead ourselves, our business, our areas of the business, when there is this level of uncertainty?

As humans, we like certainty. We like to be able to predict what's happening, we like to be able to know what's happening. When we're in a phase where there is lots of uncertainty, and we're not able to predict what's going on, that's psychologically very unsettling for us, unless you are very used to being in this environment, and it becomes your comfort zone.

I can speak from my experience in the police. So much of it is uncertain versus certain. Even in terms of predictability, you could deal with the same type of job, the same type of incident, but because it's always different people involved, you can't always predict how people are going to react and respond. Even when you've got a level of certainty, you've then got lots of other factors that can change that.

The real issue isn't the uncertainty itself. The issue is that when we're in a reactive mode, it's incredibly draining. It really takes it out of us because it's constantly reacting.

We are so busy trying to react logically and to do what we feel needs to be done, it's very easy to then be influenced into working in a way that doesn't align with what's most important to us. We end up losing ourselves in the process.

We find that we can make quick decisions, and we're able to try and resolve things very quickly. However, when we take a step back from it afterwards, we reflect on it, actually, that's not really how we want to lead.

Here's how to lead in uncertain times, with intention, when everything around you is changing and without losing yourself in the process.

Understanding the VUCA World

VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. It was originally used by leaders in the forces post-Cold War, but it's used a lot more now, especially in the business and working world, because it applies so much to how businesses are run (public sector, private sector, and for those of you who are sole traders as well).

The VUCA model helps us understand what we're dealing with:

Volatility - Rapid and unexpected changes. Fast-paced with lots going on.

Multiple decisions need to be made because information is coming through thick and fast. High level of information, high predictability, but it is fast-paced.

Uncertainty - Frequently disruptive changes, unpredictability and unknown outcomes. Lots of pending change and lots of known unknowns. This is an even higher awareness of what we don't know.

Complexity - Multiple key decision factors. Multifaceted effects and lots of interdependent causes.

We've got high predictability in the results of our actions, but we don't know too much. What tends to happen with complexity is that we tend to try and gather lots of information so that we've got lots of different options. Sometimes that gives us analysis paralysis. We can't make any decisions because we've almost got too many decisions to choose from.

Ambiguity - Very little clarity about what is real and what is true.

A lot that we don't know. It's the phrase I quite often like to use: I don't know what I don't know. When we are very aware of how much we don't know, it's like conscious incompetence. We are very aware of how much we don't know, and that can feel very unsettling for a lot of people. Quite often, that's where the overthinking comes in, or the second-guessing comes in, because there's just not enough information to make that decision.

This is very reactive, and you'll probably know from things that you have worked through that when we're in that reactive mode, it's incredibly draining.

What we find is that we can make quick decisions, we find that we're able to try and resolve things very quickly. However, when we take a step back from it afterwards and reflect on it, we think, actually, that's not really how I want to lead (whether that's lead myself or lead other people).

From Reactive to Intentional: The VUCA Response

We can't control uncertainty, but we can control how we approach it.

Here's how to lead through each element of VUCA intentionally:

Vision (Response to Volatility)

When there's fast change without clear predictions or trends or patterns, the clearer we are on where we want it to go, the easier it is for us to make decisions that align with where we want to go when options become available.

The clearer you are about where you're getting to (that end result, what is it you want your business to look like, what is it you want your team to be able to do or be able to deliver), the more you'll be able to assess the information that's coming in and make a decision that aligns with where it is that you want to go.

If you are not clear on that vision, everything becomes an option.

For those of you who are in business or in organisations and lead an area of the business, you will probably have your vision shared with you in terms of the wider organisation. However, you will also have your vision as to how you want your team to shape. How do you want your team to work? What are your priorities? Where are you trying to go? What is it you're trying to deliver on?

The clearer we are on that vision, the easier it is to be able to take action when the right option gets on the table.

Understanding (Response to Uncertainty)

With frequently disruptive changes (and I know that's probably been one of my biggest frustrations), a decision is made, you think you know what's happening, you brief your team, you're good to go. Then somebody says, oh, by the way, there's been another meeting, and now this decision has been made.

If that happens over a period of time, you've been given the brief, you've been told the decision. you question whether it is really happening, or whether to just hold off until the next board meeting before you do anything?

To help to lead through this, taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture can often help. When we have lots of small changes, it can be so easy to get really caught up in the granular detail, and it feels a lot bigger than it is.

When we take that step back and we look at that wider, bigger picture perspective, we can see that actually some of the changes are quite small and actually quite insignificant, and not something to put too much energy into.

The more we understand and we line up the vision and the understanding, that's really going to help. It also helps us to be more intentional, because we know what we're working towards. Even if there are changes that come in, we know where we want the changes to take us.

Clarity (Response to Complexity)

When you've got lots of different factors, lots of different effects and things that will create that cause and effect, we want to be able to focus, we want to be able to be flexible, and this is the opportunity to be creative.

Where there's chaos, there's opportunity.

If you start to bring in a really clear vision of where it is you're trying to go, you've got a good understanding of the big picture.

When change starts to happen, or there are different interdependencies that influence that change, that's where you might see an opportunity to be a little bit more creative, flex things a little bit, try something different.

For those of you with teams, this is where you can play to the strengths of your teams. You can be a little bit more creative about how you make it happen. Sometimes with the complex changes, and where there are lots of pieces of the jigsaw puzzle being moved around, you might see an opportunity to either introduce something that you haven't been able to introduce before or maybe even remove something that you've been trying to streamline or change to be able to be more effective and more efficient.

Agility (Response to Ambiguity)

When there's very little clarity about what is real and what is true, this is where agility comes in. You want faster decision-making because you're probably going to be gathering information, making a decision, gathering more information, making a different decision, gathering more information, making a different decision.

We can't sit and wait for all of the information to come in. In a VUCA world, the people who are able to flex and respond and adapt, and make those faster decisions, and be able to reassess, gather more information in, and reassess, make different decisions, that is a great skill to have that helps you to lead through uncertainty.

If you are sitting and waiting for more information to come in because it's not quite clear, and you're waiting for more information to help you to be able to make a decision, quite often you'll lose out on opportunities.

If you think about how quickly some information comes in, you could have made 10 different decisions, 10 different actions, and moved things forward.

At what point do you know that all the information has come in? What is that piece of information that you need to be able to make a decision, or do you make a decision with what you know and then make a different decision?

It's very rare that we know specifically what information we're waiting for. Quite often, we think we're waiting for something, but then that comes in, and we can still identify information gaps.

Sometimes there is an excuse as to why we're not making a decision. Keep an eye out for procrastination creeping in.

When we do that, we are at risk of making decisions that are based on other people's information rather than leading from where we are trying to get to.

The quicker we can make decisions, the quicker we can move. We are more likely to see opportunities within that chaos. We are more likely to be able to innovate and make different decisions. We are more likely to be able to be creative within that bigger picture.

A lot of it is around fast movement. It's not about right or wrong decisions; it's about the best decision that you can make, knowing what you know right now. When you know more, you can make a different decision.

Why Reactive Leadership Creates More Chaos

What tends to happen (and this is a very common human response; this isn't necessarily about you or your character or your attributes) is we slip into reactive leadership because it's a survival mechanism. We go into fight, flight, or freeze modes.

Self-preservation, self-protection kicks in, and we are making decisions either based on what everybody else is shaping and telling us to do, or we make decisions based on the situation rather than really grounding in with what's most important and bringing us into the picture.

It is a survival mechanism. It is about that feeling of wanting to be in control, because we don't like not being in control. Quite often, this is us trying to get control of the situation.

Sometimes that's slowing it all down.

Sometimes it's by speeding it up because we just want to get out the other side of this.

We rush those reactions, we rush that decision-making process, because we're trying to move forward and through this as quickly as possible.

A lot of how we face challenges is learned and repetitive behaviours. If you think about how you naturally react versus how you would like to intentionally respond, there's probably a way that you find is like a snap reaction.

That will be based on the beliefs that you hold and how you've learned to respond in these situations.

What we want to do is slow it down. We're not slowing the situation down; we're slowing how we are in that situation down so that we can think about, rather than an automatic reaction, an intentional response.

When we slip into reactive leadership, it feels very productive because we can tell ourselves that we're doing something. However, often we create a lot more chaos in the process.

When I first started working for the call centre with the police, it was a brand new department. At one point in the very early days, there were more leaders than there were staff because we were in the process of recruiting the new teams.

It was chaos, but it was chaos because all of the new leaders were all trying to make their mark, and everybody was trying to make decisions. You couldn't go to the bathroom without coming back and another decision had been made, and you were going off in another direction!

None of it was useful at all. It was all small decisions where people had too much time on their hands and wanted to make a difference. It caused absolute chaos. Most definitely noise and confusion.

This, over time, especially if you are communicating these decisions out, takes away that clarity. People will question the decisions that you're making, and that can impact your confidence, but also other people's confidence in you as well.

The frequency in which we make different decisions and how we communicate that can either bring confidence or it can erode confidence because it just confuses people.

We want very intentional responses. Still fast, still quick decision-making, still quick action, but intentional action, not reactive action.

Leading in Uncertain Times: Values-Based Leadership

To lead intentionally, we need to anchor stronger than uncertainty.

I always picture myself sitting in the airport, when you've checked in and are sipping coffee with your headphones on, so you can't hear the chaos.

You can see it, but you can't hear it, and you can't feel it, and you're just sitting there with your cup of coffee, just waiting to board.

Everything around you is absolute chaos, but you're all good.

You cannot control everything around you, but you can control how you move through it.

Leading from your core, not from the chaos.

Your core values come into play here. Your values create direction when everything else is shifting. When the circumstances shift, when the situation changes, when you lead from your values, you are always going to be consistent, and you're going to be confident in what you're doing.

If you are purely reacting, that is not going to help.

We want to make sure that you are clear on your values because that's going to help you to align how you move things forward in a way that works for you.

Values-based leadership, values-based business ownership (it's calm, it's clear, it's in control). You know what is most important to you. When opportunities come in, it's very easy for you to say that aligns or that it doesn't align. Or, to be able to ask questions that help to change things or influence things so that it does align with what's important to you.

Think about what three values guide how you want to lead. These aren't your organisational values; they're not your company values. They are your individual values.

I share mine quite a lot. Mine are positivity, making a difference, and continuous improvement. For me, leading through chaos and change:

Positivity - Having a positive attitude about things, a positive mindset, looking for the positives in everything that's going on.

Making a difference - One of my biggest frustrations in change is if I can't see why we're doing this. I need to know the benefits of why we're going through this change. What's the outcome going to be? Why is it going to be different?

Continuous improvement - As we're moving through change, you would probably find that in my communication, I'm talking about how we're making progress. I would be talking about how we're gaining momentum, because those are my core values.

Think about yours. What's yours? Is it honesty? Is it transparency? Is it openness? How do you want to lead? How do you want to show up?

That's going to be what's most important, and that is the thing that you can control.

Think about which of your core values you find hardest to honour when things get busy or there's chaos. What do you find slips that makes things really difficult? What do you find is the one thing that is hardest for you to stay aligned with when it all gets busy and chaotic?

The Aligned Choices Triangle: Values-Based Decision Making

A way to help you to check that your decisions are aligned with your core values is to use my Aligned Choices Triangle.

You put your three core values into the corners of the triangle. I would put in positivity, making a difference, and continuous improvement.

When most of us make decisions, we tend to look at the pros and the cons. We'll list out the pros, we'll list out the cons, or we might look at the benefits and the risks. They're very logical ways to make a decision. It's a very black and white way of making a decision.

When we look at how it aligns with our values, we are looking at the emotional side of making a decision.

Ultimately, as humans, we make emotional decisions and then we validate it with logic. Even when we're looking at logic, we've already made the emotional decision; we're now just applying the reasoning behind it to explain it.

You would put your three values into the Aligned Choices triangle. Ideally, if it is a decision that aligns with all three of your values, it's going to sit really nicely in the middle. It's equally aligned.

If it sits to one side, it means it aligns with these two and not this one. This is where I would look to see whether or not I can change or amend it so that it does align, or I then ask the question: am I okay with it only aligning with two? How much out of alignment is it with this one?

It might just sit slightly off-centre, so it's not completely out of alignment, and I need to be okay with that.

You can do the same with your priorities.

In a VUCA world, when things are very fast-paced, and we're looking at making decisions, it can be very easy to make a decision based on the urgency of what is going on rather than what our actual priorities are.

The very simple example of this is when we get caught up in our emails, and before we know it, it's mid-morning, and we've spent all day answering everybody else's questions, and we haven't done anything that was on our list of things to do.

Or we get caught up in what everybody else is saying is important, and we're not doing what is important for us.

In the same way, if you've got three business priorities (for business, it's often profit, passion, and purpose):

We either want to make money (profit), or work on something that we're very passionate about, so the money becomes less important (passion). Or there's a purpose, so if we do work where we perhaps do it voluntarily, it would be purpose and passion, but it wouldn't be profit, and we're okay with that because it clearly aligns with the other two priorities.

This is just another way to look at making those decisions, but it's a good way to bring it back to you and what's important to you, rather than looking at how it fits in with the bigger picture.

You're probably still going to use pros and cons, and you're probably still going to use benefits and risks. However, this is another way just to check in that you're not losing yourself in the process.

That's what's most important in terms of this. It's not a wider workshop on decision-making; this is more about how you can make decisions that stay aligned with who you are and who you want to be, and not getting lost in the process.

When you are making decisions that align with your values and your priorities, it centres with what's most important to you.

You're going to communicate that much more clearly, and you're going to be much more confident in the decisions that you're making because you know it sits comfortably with you.

That's probably one of the biggest drains: when we have made a decision that doesn't sit comfortably, and hindsight is a wonderful thing, and we think, I should have just done that, and if I'd just done that, then I wouldn't be going through all of this pain afterwards.

We're going to make wrong decisions because sometimes we don't have all of the information available to us. Sometimes that information comes in very quickly afterwards, and sometimes that information comes in a little bit further down the line.

Remember: you are making the best possible decision, knowing what you know at that time. When more information comes in, you make a different decision.

If you're making a decision that aligns with what's most important to you, you're going to ride that out a lot longer. When more information comes in, you might adjust it slightly, but you know that grounding is there, and it's really important.

Confidence Is Not About Control

Confidence is not about taking control, or having control, or being in control. It's about being clear and being consistent.

A lot of these things in a VUCA world, there isn't any certainty. The more we're clear and the more we're consistent, the more we can move through that uncertainty. We're still moving forward, there's still momentum, we're still making progress.

Although there's a lot of uncertainty, we are not stationary; we're not waiting. We're still moving forward.

Over-control tends to come from fear of failure, fear of judgment. It's that self-preservation, self-protection.

This crosses over with resilience. The more confident we are in our own levels of competence, the more we're able to move forward, because we know that we've got what it takes to keep that momentum going. We'll adapt, we'll adjust, we'll flex, we'll respond, and we'll be okay. We'll move through it.

If you think about that ship that is sturdy in a very heavy storm, we know that that ship can get through a storm; It's a well-built, sturdy ship that can get through most things.

That's our resilience. That's our resilience in knowing that we have confidence in our competence to be able to move through it.

Quite often, that's what people are looking at. Either our clients are looking at that from us, or our team are looking to us for that.

We need to let go of fear of failure.

Making a decision and then more information coming in that then means you make a different decision is not failure. That doesn't mean that you made the wrong decision. It means you made a decision, then you learned more, then you made a different decision. That's not failure.

You can be confident that you went through a process (especially if you're following what we've been talking about, and you've been intentional in the decisions that you've made).

You know you went through a clear process to make that decision. You might choose to be very transparent about that. That might help with the fear of judgment.

You know you were very intentional in the decision that you made.

It's a lot harder to do that if you've been making reactive decisions because you probably didn't think it through quite as much, and you probably made those decisions in the moment and didn't just take a little bit more time to be intentional.

Your confidence will grow the more you trust your process rather than striving for perfection.

Perfection is just never going to happen. If you know that you're doing a good job and you're clear and you're consistent, then that's what you're looking for.

Trust in the process. Trust that you can make this work out, and will make the best of what happens.

That's what people are looking to you to be able to do as a leader.

That's the calm confidence.

Leadership Isn't Having All the Answers

In my experience, the best leaders are the ones who are very comfortable with saying, "I don't know that answer", and being okay with other people in the room knowing more and knowing better.

Most people do not look for their leaders to have the answers.

Potentially lazy people or people who lack confidence might look for their leaders for the answers. However, if you've got confident, empowered staff that have high levels of self-efficacy, they don't want the answers from you.

They want direction. They want decisions made. They want you to create that momentum for them to follow.

They're looking for clarity. They're looking for you to be confident in leading them forward. They want to feel that there's momentum, they want to feel that you are helping them to all move forward.

They're not looking for the answers. They're looking for clarity and decision-making.

The 4P Reset: Your Pattern Interrupt for Reactive Moments

When it all gets a little bit chaotic, use my 4P Reset.

When your automatic reaction is to react, Pause.

Take a moment, and then you can consider what your Priorities are.

Then you can Proceed with Purpose.

That will help you to stay aligned rather than reactive.

This simple tool helps you move from automatic reaction to intentional response. It's not about slowing the situation down; it's about slowing how you are in that situation down so that you can think about your response rather than just reacting.

Weekly Practices for Intentional Leadership

Here are some things you can do each week that will help you with this:

Spend an hour at the beginning of every week (or the last hour of the week before) to look at what's coming up, to look at what needs to be done, and reconnect with your values and your priorities.

Go back to those two triangles (values and priorities). When you look at what needs to be done in the week ahead, reconnect it with the values of what's most important and the priorities of what's most important.

You can use the triangles to help you to make decisions.

When it all gets a little bit chaotic, use the 4P Reset.

Pause. Prioritise. Proceed with purpose.

From Reactive to Intentional: What It Looks Like

Here's how the shift appears:

Reactive Leader:

• Over-controlling (trying to get a hand on everything, trying to be involved in everything)

• Second-guessing (overthinking before the decision, then second-guessing after because you've reacted)

• Exhausted (when we react to things and do all the work afterwards, and it's not in alignment, that is exhausting)

• Fear-driven (making decisions or taking options that are the first ones that pop up because you're trying to have that quick reaction)

Intentional Leader:

• Empowering (able to let go and hand over that control; there's trust, you empower, there's self-efficacy within your teams)

• Decisive (gathering the information in, recognising that more information is likely to come through, but recognising when you've got enough information to make a decision to keep the momentum going)

• Energised (you'll feel more in control because you are controlling how you are responding; that is more energising)

• Value-driven (much more intentional decisions based on what's most important)

Leading Without Losing Yourself

You cannot control everything around you, but you can control how you move through it.

When you lead from your core values, and you use the Aligned Choices Triangle to check your decisions, you pause before reacting, you stay grounded in who you are.

That's the calm confidence people are looking for. Not someone with all the answers. Someone who is clear, consistent, and moving forward with intention, even when everything around them is uncertain.

You are going to make wrong decisions. You are going to have more information come in that changes things.

That's not failure. That's leadership in a VUCA world.

The question is: are you making those decisions intentionally, aligned with your values and priorities?

Or

Are you reacting to the chaos and losing yourself in the process?

That's the shift from reactive to intentional leadership.

That's how you lead without losing yourself.

Want support in becoming a more intentional leader?

I help overwhelmed leaders transform from reactive to intentional leadership in 8 weeks, so you finish work on time, take The Big Week Off with zero work and zero guilt, and create success that feels as good as it looks.

You can also explore free resources to get started:

• Free Training: www.zoethompson.uk/quick-links

• YouTube Channel: Intentional Leadership with Zoë Thompson

• Podcast: The Lightbulb: Weekly Insights for Intentional Leaders