Uncertainty Won’t Go Away. But How You Work with It Can Change
/“I don’t know” is an answer most high-tech leaders don’t feel they can give. So how can you work with uncertainty when it shows up anyway?
Sources
Uncertainty shows up in multiple ways for high-tech leaders: incomplete information, unpredictable outcomes, shifting technologies, and the unexpected variations in the behavior of people and systems.
It can show up as a system outage that has no clear cause, a security threat of an unknown type, or a team member suddenly unavailable or leaving the organization. It can be a new technology emerging that changes your roadmap, or a directive from leadership that suddenly shifts priorities.
Or it can sit in the background as a question: is another reorganization going to happen?
It’s not one kind of uncertainty. It’s constant variation.
Responses
Faced with this, your natural response is to try to reduce or eliminate the uncertainty: gather more information, analyze further, and push toward a decision.
Or you try to make sense of it by telling a story about what’s happening, assuming it will play out as it has before, or predicting (imagining) what might happen next.
Sometimes you avoid or ignore uncertainty, or delay action while waiting for more clarity. Sometimes you amplify it into worst-case scenarios. Sometimes you give up your agency, placing the responsibility elsewhere: “this is coming from leadership,” or “this is just the situation we’re in.” Sometimes you try to overcontrol it, engaging more deeply to try to create certainty.
The underlying driver is the discomfort of not knowing.
Consequences
These reactions don’t remove the uncertainty. They shape your experience of it, create consequences, and slant your choices.
Stress and anxiety increase. Urgency builds. Decisions may be made too quickly, or delayed too long. Your attention narrows. Your options feel more limited.
The situation doesn’t change, but your experience of it does.
In the Present
Uncertainty pulls your attention into the past: does what happened before have influence? and into the future: what could happen?
The only place you can actually respond to uncertainty is in the present. It will feel uncomfortable; the present moment includes not knowing.
It is also where awareness is available and where choices can be made.
There are many ways to “get present” or create the break that quiets a chattering or ruminating mind and creates the space to just be. Find and use those that work for you. The one I favor is shifting my attention to physical sensations, such as touch, hearing, or breathing.
Acceptance
A shift happens when you no longer treat uncertainty as something that must be eliminated.
You recognize it as part of the situation.
Acceptance does not remove uncertainty. It removes your struggle against it.
With that shift, you have more space to see what is actually happening and to consider how to respond.
Practice
Uncertainty won’t go away, but how you work with it can change.
When you recognize it rather than resist it, and meet it in the present, it becomes something you can respond to, not something that controls your experience.
Anxiety may still be present, but it is no longer a sign that something is wrong; it is an appropriate response to not knowing. Uncertainty is not an error to be corrected. It is a condition to be navigated.
Here are some choices you can consider in navigating uncertainty:
explicitly naming what is known and what is not known before deciding
noticing the impulse to rush or delay, and pausing briefly before acting
choosing a direction, and then a step in that direction, rather than
trying to resolve everything at once
expanding your perspective of the situation (seeing more of the whole, not just one part), asking “What are we missing here? What are our blind spots?”
asking a question to get clarity, rather than assuming an answer
finding a way to acknowledge or even celebrate when uncertainty shows up, recognizing it as part of progress rather than a failure or a problem to eliminate
The situation may still be uncertain, but how you engage with it can be different.
Mental Fitness
This has everything to do with your mental fitness. The same words can reflect different mindsets: “this is just the situation we’re in” can be a way of giving up your agency, or a clear acknowledgment of reality that creates space to choose how to respond.
Where in your leadership might shifting how you work with uncertainty change your experience of it?