As a leader, one of your most important tasks is to create the conditions for employees to do their best work – to think bigger, to make better decisions and to take the braver actions required to adapt and thrive in an ever changing world

In the midst of disruption and crisis, when fear can highjack bold thinking and undermine decision-making, this grows both more challenging and critical.

As the light at the end of the Covid-19 pandemic tunnel grows brighter, leaders need to ask themselves what else they can be doing to bring out the best in those they’re charged to lead?

A good place to start is by looking backward; examining past crises for the traits people sought out, and valued most, in their leaders. Fortunately, Gallup Organization has done that. They studied the fears, concerns, and confidence of citizens from across the world through many of the biggest crises of the past 80 years — including the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, and World War II, Kennedy’s assassination, civil unrest in the 1960s, 9/11, the 2008 financial crash, and now, the COVID-19 pandemic.

As they did, one thing became clear. In the midst of a crisis, people look to leaders to allay their fears and bolster their confidence; to reassure them that they’ll be okay, even if things will be rough in the short term.  Gallup’s study distilled the leadership attributes people are seeking into four core universal needs

Trust: Be predictable in an unpredictable time

When so many factors lay outside a leader’s control, people want to trust that leaders are at least in control of themselves. Sure much is uncertain, but at least they can be certain that their leader will do the best thing for the long-term interest of the enterprise itself (and not just their self-interest).

Being able to count on behavioral predictability is a lynchpin to sustaining this trust. Leaders who are inconsistent in their decision-making or are prone to being reactive under pressure only stoke anxiety in their ranks. No one does their best work when they’re anxious about what might happen next.

 Where can you be more consistent and predictable between your values and actions?  

Compassion: Show you care about what they care about

The adage that people don’t care what you know until they know how much you care is never truer than in crisis.  When people feel apprehensive about the future, demonstrating that you genuinely care about what they care about will help them care more about what you care about also.

On the flip side, if people perceive their leader doesn’t really care much about them personally, there’s little chance they’ll be fully engaged in their work, much less be willing to go the extra mile when it might matter most. It’s why research has found that people don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses.  

When leading change, you must be deeply connected to the emotional landscape of those in your ranks. This is rarely comfortable work. At times, it can require immense vulnerability. Yet connecting with both head and heart lays at the heart of real leadership.  

Are you regularly conveying to team members – through your words and small daily actions – that you truly care about what they care about?

Stability: Ensure people know where to focus and why 

We are wired for certainty. So when people feel their future is under threat, they crave regular assurances and clear directions to avoid overwhelm and reset shifting priorities. For remote teams who aren’t benefiting from the regular touchpoints in a physical office, it’s even more vital to ensure they’re clear about what ‘success’ should look like. 

Gallup research found that only 39% of U.S. employees ‘strongly agree’ their employer communicated a clear plan of action at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic. So it is better to risk over-communicating – using multiple mediums and touchpoints – than to risk under-communicating. Unless people are clear about what leadership is thinking, doing, and why, the communication vacuum will be filled with catastrophizing worst-case scenarios and rumors running wild. 

As you communicate your vision and strategy, expand the context for those on the front line so they can see a higher purpose for their ‘daily toil’.  People want to find meaning in hardships, to know that their sacrifices and ‘hard yards’ are contributing to a noble cause.  

Link what you’re asking of them to what lays at stake, using accessible language they can adopt in their own conversations. Make it easy for them to answer for themselves ‘For the sake of what am I doing this?’ Doing activates the ‘rally effect’, getting everyone pulling together, and guarding against myopic thinking and tunnel vision.

Is every single person in your team is clear about your plans, priorities, and the larger vision you want them pulling toward? If not, how else can you communicate with them?

Hope: Fuel optimism for a future worth working toward  

Emotions drive behavior, not logic. In difficult times, hope is precious capital. Employees who feel hopeful ad optimistic are more creative, courageous, agile, and resilient. So as you share plans and progress, express your firm belief that the goals you’ve set are doable and that the vision you’re rallying people behind is achievable.

Hope doesn’t deny hard realities. It is not Pollyanna optimism. Rather it’s being able to confront the brutal reality of a situation while also keeping faith that you will ultimately prevail, and better days lay ahead.  To paraphrase Nelson Mandela, may how you lead ‘reflect your hopes, not your fears.’

Does your demeanor speak optimism? Do your conversations fuel a sense of hope for the future?  

By spreading ‘positive emotional contagion’ – fueling trust, compassion, stability and hope – real leaders can unlock the potential that fear so often holds dormant. Only then can you fully seize the diverse opportunities of this turbulent time, leading all around you to higher ground.

Real leaders are not immune to fear. Instead, they have the courage to act in its presence. As we move into a post-pandemic world, there is still much to overcome, not least the ability to lean toward the risks that you’re usually hardwired to avoid. Here’s how to turn tough times into a learning experience.

When you think of a great leader, who comes to mind? Lincoln, Merkel, Benioff, Malala, or Bezos? Mary Barra or a lesser-known? Chances are, the leader you thought of has these qualities:

They speak candidly. 

They have a bold vision.

They never shy away from hard conversations. 

They seek out diverse perspectives that challenge their own.  

They are decisive amid the uncertainties. 

They play to win. 

They take risks.  

And when their efforts fall short, they mine their failures for the nuggets and then press on, wiser than before. They are not immune to fear. Instead, they have the courage to act in its presence.  

That same courage resides in you. And as you look toward the future, you are being called to lead with more of it — to seize the opportunities adversity always holds. Given the disruption of recent times, opportunities abound, although many are still obscured from view. Of course, if it were easy to lead bravely, more people would, and there would be fewer organizations struggling to stay competitive. 

Leading with courage requires mastering fear, overriding your loss-aversion bias, and leaning toward the high risks you’re hardwired to avoid. Leading with courage requires emboldening others to rise above their fear — challenging old paradigms, experimenting with new ideas, and risking failure faster. Here are three ways you can dial up your courage to lead through change and look back on this time as a profoundly transformative one.

“Set a bold vision that exceeds your current capacity to achieve it.” 

Elon Musk has no shortage of critics. Perhaps this is partly because he has no lack of vision. Asked about SpaceX and rocket technology in 2018, Musk shared that his vision for the future is one in which “Anyone can move to Mars and gas cars will seem like steam engines.” Will Musk’s prediction of humans landing on Mars by 2025 come true? Time will tell. What is certain is that his visionary leadership has unlocked ingenuity, pushed the envelope of possibility, and expanded the horizons of humankind.

“In the long run, all businesses and business leaders will be judged not by their profits or products, but by their impact on humanity,” says D.J. De Pree, founder of Herman Miller. As the world emerges from the cascading crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, you are uniquely positioned to lead others toward a vision that does. Do you have one?

Neuroscientists have found that when people work toward a meaningful “invented future” – one inspired by possibilities over probabilities — it enlarges their perspective to see opportunities others miss, ignites creativity, and fuels determination to prevail against the odds, individually and collectively. As you look forward to five or ten years from now, create a vision that expands the context of what others see as possible and taps into the deep human hunger for purpose. A leader who cannot rally others behind an inspiring vision is like a river without water — dry and depressing.   

“Be decisive amid the unknowns.”

Our brains crave predictability and perceive ambiguity as a threat. When plans derail and our sense of certainties are shaken, our instincts steer us toward whatever shores up our sense of security. Yet this often results in short-sighted decision making (usually in the form of indecision), which, in turn, generally lands people and organizations in a more precarious, less secure position.  

 When the terrain ahead is awash with unknowns, it’s easy to get pulled into “paralysis by analysis” and stick with the status quo. But indecision is a decision, one which deprives you of knowledge and an improved ability to assess the risk that you could gain from advancing amid the fog.  

Great leaders don’t wait for certainty before making their next move. Take Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who makes decisions with 70% of the information he wishes he had. “If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably slow,” Bezos says. By setting a course amid the ambiguity and constantly iterating, Bezos has proven that bold action can reap extraordinary rewards. The key: Be brave enough to make a decision and courageous enough to change it as new information comes to light. Right now, this will be often. 

Is your fear of making a poor decision stopping you from making a good one? If your left analytical brain is in overdrive, close down your spreadsheets and tune into another valuable source of intelligence: your intuition. Keep in mind that gut instinct can’t be forced. It needs space. Albert Einstein’s best ideas often came to him while sailing. Steve Jobs would take a walk when he’d been going in circles with a problem. Head outdoors or do something that shifts your brain into a different gear. Then stay open to the subtle clues and have the courage to trust them.

“Nurture loyal dissent, trading cleverness for curiosity.”

Abraham Lincoln always invited his political opponents into his cabinet. He figured this would ensure that his decision-making logic would always be adequately challenged. Likewise, only when you actively seek diverse perspectives, inviting people to question your best thinking, can you identify your blind spots and arrive at smarter solutions.  

You may have accrued a wealth of knowledge throughout your career, but real leaders are life-long learners who value curiosity over cleverness and never assume a monopoly on wisdom. Only leaders who are open to unlearning what they think they know can relearn what they need to know. So have the guts to say, “I don’t know,” and to encourage loyal dissent in your ranks. Doing so will foster a culture of courage that unlocks ingenuity, fuels initiative, and harnesses diversity’s full value.

Will the path ahead be smooth? Never was. Never will be. There will always be a tension between the desire to lead and serve and the desire to protect and play it safe. This is what it is to be human. Yet when you zoom up high enough, you can see how avoiding risk is a precarious strategy. Peripheral risk-taking protects the core. So, embrace the discomfort that real leadership requires. Practice the courage you admire in the leader who came to mind at the start of this article. In today’s culture of fear, leading with courage has never been more important.

Growing up on a small farm in rural Australia, my dad – who left school at 16 and milked dairy cows for 50 years – would tell me that he saw great things for me… like one day becoming a nun, ‘Sister Margaret Mary’ in charge of a convent. By the time I was in my teens, he’d raised his expectations.

As the big sister of seven, perhaps it was due to how well I ‘managed’ my younger siblings. Whatever the reason, I still recall the day he said, “Actually I think you could do even bigger things. You might even be Mother Margaret Mary, in charge of a whole order of convents.”

Alas, I never felt the calling.

I share this story, amusing as it is, because my parent’s vision for me was confined by the horizons of their own lives. Similarly, the vision we hold for ourselves is often also confined by what we think possible. We simply don’t know what we don’t know.  

We are all shaped by our environments, unconsciously taking on the expectations, norms, beliefs, and biases of those around us. When it comes to gender, there are many. For instance, women are more likely to be labeled bossy for acting with equal assertiveness as the men around them, yet showing compassion and sensitivity to the feelings of others makes them perceived as “less leaderlike.”

Even well-meaning parents can unconsciously hem in their daughters. For instance, parents of boys are more likely to see their sons being successful tech entrepreneurs than their daughters. They’re also more likely to praise their sons for being strong and daughters for being sweet. Gender bias starts early and runs deep, permeating into our psyche in profound yet invisible ways.

And so on this International Women’s Day, I want to share a few thoughts about how we can embrace the ‘Choose To Challenge’ theme. So if you are a female leader (or aspire to be one), here are three ways you can embrace the #ChooseToChallenge theme of this year’s International Women’s Day. And if you’re a male champion for women, consider how you can encourage the women in your orbit to back themselves more, and doubt themselves less. After all, this is not a zero-sum game. As research by McKinsey has found, when more women are seated at decision-making tables, better decisions are made for the benefit of all stakeholders. When women rise, we all rise!

1. Challenge the doubts that fuel a sense of inadequacy

While not all women lack confidence, many do. Women’s tendency to underestimate their abilities and not internalize their strengths has led to what’s been coined the ‘gender confidence gap.’ 

Hewlett-Packard found that where their male employees were comfortable applying for a job with only six or the 10 ‘ideal candidate’ attributes, their female employees wanted to put a big tick in all ten boxes. This contrast shows just how more harshly women can judge their abilities which, in turn, makes them more reticent to put themselves out there.’ 

Many factors contribute to why women tend to doubt themselves more and back themselves less. Fewer strong female role models and sponsors are but two. Yet, as I wrote in You’ve Got This!, we cannot wait for confidence before putting our hat in the ring or putting ourselves out there toward our boldest ambitions. Only by daring to challenge the negative noises in our head, those critical voices urging us to think small and play safe, can we ever discover how little reason we had to believe them.

2. Challenge other people’s limiting labels and beliefs 

Students at Columbia Business School were presented with a case study of a successful Silicon Valley venture capitalist. The students were given the same data except for one difference – gender. Half of the class was told the ambitious entrepreneur’s name was Howard, and the other half was told it was Heidi. They then asked the students of their opinions on either Heidi or Howard. 

While there was consensus that both were equally competent, Heidi was seen as selfish and not “the type of person you would want to hire or work for.” The study found that “the more assertive a student found the female venture capitalist to be, the more they rejected her.” Women must content with a negative correlation between power and success that men do not. This isn’t an impossible obstacle. But it makes the going harder and the climb steeper for women and the going harder as women have to deal with more complexity in juggling pressures, expectations, and perceptions. 

Over the years, I’ve been asked countless times, “How do you manage a career and four kids?’ Yet my husband Andrew has never been asked. Not once. 

The only way to reconstruct the gendered mental maps that constrict what we see as possible for ourselves – or other women – is by challenging them and defying the doubts they fuel. As Vice President Harris after being elected the first-ever Madam Vice President’ of the United States:

“Dream with ambition. Lead with conviction. And see yourself in a way that others might not see you, simply because they’ve never seen it before.”

3. Challenge more women to back themselves, more often

It’s easy to underestimate the power of a few words of encouragement. They take little to give yet can make all the difference in critical moments. It’s why it is so important to proactively go out of your way to lift other women – to challenge how they see themselves, how they speak about themselves, and what they see as possible for themselves. 

After negatively comparing my own media platform with Oprah’s after following a podcast interview I did with Presidential Candidate Marianne Williamson, she looked me square in the eye and said something that’s stuck: 

 There is nothing holy in diminishing yourself.

It’s true. There is nothing helpful in talking ourselves down. As I wrote in, You’ve Got This! “Words hold power. What we say about ourselves and others is generative as well as descriptive.”

So next time you hear a woman talking herself down, focusing on what she hasn’t done, minimizing all that she has, or merely deflecting a compliment, even sarcastically, draw her attention to it. (This probably won’t take long since most women I know struggle to accept a compliment.) 

Power has no gender, yet our mental template for power is intrinsically masculine. So challenge other women when they disempower themselves. 

As I stated above, helping women advance is not a zero-sum game whereby the rise of one is a fall of another. Instead, it’s about creating an equal partnership that harnesses the full value of diversity in all its forms, embracing feminine leadership strengths – empathy, compassion, and the affiliative use of power – as every bit as valuable as traditional male strengths.  

After all, our greatest strength doesn’t flow from everyone thinking and acting alike but from what sets us apart.  

How will you choose to challenge?

Be brave! 

The last year has forced all of us to adapt swiftly to a world turned upside down. Almost overnight, we had little choice but to adopt new ways of working, connecting, collaborating, and leading.

It’s why the concept of unlearning and relearning has never been more relevant. As the futurist Alvin Toffler wrote: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

So if you’re wondering what you might need to unlearn right now, consider these approaches.  

Challenge your mental maps

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, a book title by Marshall Goldsmith, speaks to the deep need to continually upgrade the assumptions underpinning the mental maps in our heads. Sure, highly scripted memos from the CEO’s office may once have been effective ways of communicating, but that doesn’t mean they still are. Nowadays, leaders who hide behind over-curated, over-sanitized communications edited and re-edited by risk-averse handlers are considered inauthentic. In contrast, those willing to do a Facebook livestream are lauded.

Only by continually challenging your own best thinking — inviting others to play devil’s advocate on your assumptions and interrogate your thinking — can you do the requisite unlearning and relearning to make smarter decisions as you navigate unchartered ground ahead. Assumptions kill possibilities. So ask yourself, do you need to:

• Unlearn how you manage, motivate and lead people remotely?
• Unlearn how you make decisions and executive projects?
• Unlearn how you communicate to customers about your brand? 
• Unlearn your target market and what they value?
• Unlearn the skills you previously thought were sufficient to advance?

Trade cleverness for curiosity

We came into the world brimming with curiosity and open to learning. Yet, rigid educational systems that rewarded test scores over creativity sucked the joy out of learning for many. More’s the pity, because in today’s world, learning isn’t an exercise we finish in school. It’s imperative for flourishing in life. It’s how we improve ourselves, expand future possibilities and improve the status quo.

Our learning is capped to the extent of our questions. Most of us live with answers to questions we’ve never thought or bothered to ask. So as you consider the problems around, start asking more questions. How do we know this is the best approach? Since we’re all wired with confirmation bias, we must proactively seek out information to contradict our assumptions. 

Be humble

Ever met someone who was too full of their own brilliance? Of course, you have. They abound. Yet IQ is not the strongest predictor of success. Likewise, the best solutions can only be found when we are brave enough to admit we don’t have a monopoly on knowledge and humble enough to listen to others whose perspectives could broaden our own.  

In recounting a conversation he had with President Eisenhower as a boy and later with President G.W. Bush, Bill Marriott, Chairman of Marriott Hotels, shared with me that leadership requires humility. “If you think you’re the smartest person in the room, pretty soon you’ll be the only guy in the room.”

So if you like to think you’d qualify for Mensa, be extra vigilant. Those who believe they are the smartest in the room risk walking through life with blinkers, unaware of their own blind spots and closed off to ideas that would improve their own. 

Consult your future self

Think of a challenge or opportunity you’re currently facing and imagine you are looking at it for the very first time. Or step into the shoes of Doc from Back to the Future to imagine it’s 2050, and you’re looking back thirty years at the situation you are in today. How do you see it differently?

In 1899, Charles Duel, Director of the US patents office, said, “Everything that can be invented already has been invented.”  Yes, it’s easy to laugh at the ridiculousness of that comment now but ten, much less thirty years from now, we will look back on this time and see with greater clarity how we were stuck in obsolete paradigms that constricted our own approaches. 

Embrace discomfort

Given the choice to press cut+paste or moving clumsily through the learning curve, copy+paste holds appeal. It’s less mentally and emotionally taxing. At least in the short term.

We are creatures of comfort, and venturing into new unexplored territory, trying out new ideas, innovating new products, and re-engineering old systems will always meet with resistance. Conscious or unconscious.

Yet while sticking to ‘how things are done around here’ can spare psychological discomfort, it puts you at risk of losing your place in a world marching, charging, rapidly forward. All of this will ultimately put you in a lot less comfortable position down the track.

What do you need to unlearn and relearn? 

The leaders and companies seizing the opportunities that the cascading crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic holds will not be using yesterday’s rules, rubrics, or reasoning. They’ll be deeply engaged in ongoing learning, unlearning, and relearning.

Remember, unlearning and relearning is not a means to an end. It’s an end in itself. As such, the key to unlearning doesn’t lie in the teacher. It lies in the student. In you. In your openness to being challenged — to letting go of what you think you know, so you can relearn what you need to know.

The last nine months have taken a toll on most of us. In your organization, chances are many employees are feeling more anxious than this time a year ago. Uncertainty and disruption do that. 

It’s why now more than ever, as people are forced to meet from behind screens without access to the regular tough points with colleagues, a chief role of leaders is to allay people’s fears and fuel their courage. This requires being extra intentional about the psychological barriers that keep people from collaborating across remote teams and bringing their boldest thinking to the challenges at hand. After all, it’s not where people are working that matters most. It’s how they’re working. 

Fostering a ‘culture of courage’ is mission-critical. Here are seven ways to do just that.

1. Lead by example… try to get it right, not be right 

When asked what courageous leadership looks like, Kate Johnson, (pictured above) President of $45 billion business Microsoft US, says, “When you see a person trying to get it right, instead of trying to be right.” As a leader, you are like an emotional barometer in your organization, providing ‘cues’ to everyone on how to respond and behave. If you show up as anxious, you’ll only stoke anxiety in others. So before you focus on strategies and processes, get your head and heart in the right space, and ground yourself in the values you want to define yourself as a leader. Employees understand that there’s a lot outside your control. Still, if they can see that you’re at least in control of yourself, it provides a form of psychological safety net that encourages them to be that bit braver than they might otherwise. 

Remember, your way of being speaks more loudly than your words. You lead by virtue of who you are, not what you do or say. Work to try to get it right, not be right. 

2. Reward non-conformity… make it safe for loyal dissent 

Research shows that high-performing teams are those where people feel safe to speak up – to challenge ‘how we do it around it and raise sensitive issues. Yet when weighing the pros and cons of dissenting from the consensus, people are wired for caution. If they fear the risk of social humiliation, much less being professionally penalized, they’ll almost certainly play it safe.  

Leaders who reward ‘loyal dissenters’ – those with the courage to ‘stick their neck out’ for the greater good – reduce collective fear and build the psychological safety needed for others to report, share and discuss what’s not working. After all, it’s the conversations that are not happening that often incur the steepest hidden tax on every measure that matters. 

3. Show you care… connect from the heart to the heart 

People do their best work when they feel appreciated for who they are, not just what they do. Not feeling that their boss doesn’t care about them is the number one reason good employees leave. 

Amid this challenging time, practicing empathy for what employees are dealing with is even more crucial. Prioritize regular one-on-one check-ins. Send them a personal message to acknowledge how hard people are working. Take the time to enquire how things are at home. Then listen. No agenda.  

Emotions drive behavior, not logic. Leaders need to be highly attuned to their organization’s emotional landscape if they’re to harness the ‘positive emotional contagion’ within their ranks. 

4. Destigmatize failure… and harness the value of ‘miss-steps’ 

No one starts out to fail. Yet unless people feel safe enough to risk making a mistake, they’ll only make small incremental changes, cautiously iterating on what’s already in place. This stifles innovation and deprives everyone of the learning required to build and retain an edge. 

A study at the University of Exeter Business School found that leaders who back employees to back themselves build stronger performing teams. Removing the stigma of failure is essential to optimizing growth and adapting to change (pretty crucial right now.) So talk about failure, including your own, in ways that normalize it as necessary for meaningful progress. At weekly meetings, ask everyone to share how they’ve failed in the last week and what they learned in the process. Then celebrate the learning and talk about how you can apply it to other projects. 

5. Nurture belonging… ensure everyone feels valued

We all want to feel part of a tribe, valued and celebrated. As people have been forced to connect remotely, it’s left many feeling disconnected. So be deliberate in fostering a sense of inclusion. Invite everyone for their input. Ask open-ended questions. Nurture discussion. Then actively listen and acknowledge the value of what every-one has to share, particularly those who may feel most marginalized. Making people feel valued for who they are, not what they do, will build the psychological safety that is a key predictor of the highest performing teams. 

6. Delegate decision making… treat people as trust-worthy

People rise to the level of expectation others have of them. When you treat employees as trust-worthy – by extending decision-making authority or simply letting them get on with the job – most will go the extra mile to prove you right. On the flip side, when you micromanage or undermine decisions, you do the opposite. 

As you set priorities, manage accountability, allocate resources or communicate expectations, consider how you’d feel if your boss went about it as you are.  

Of course, when trust is broken, hold people to account. Nothing demoralizes a great employee faster than watching you tolerate a poor one. 

7. Rally your team… get behind a compelling mission 

In the midst of crisis, leaders have an opportunity to activate the ‘rally effect’ and build a shared sense of mission and solidarity. Don’t squander that opportunity. Ensure everyone is clear about what lies at stake if they don’t all pull together and what is possible if they do. Continually communicate your vision, share plans and ensure everyone knows their specific role in the larger scheme of your business and why their part matters.  

People are the number one asset in your company right now. Unlocking their full potential requires working every day to nurture the conditions for them to engage in courageous conversations, make better decisions, and do their best work. Small actions can make a bigger impact than grand gestures. Don’t underestimate them. 

If you walk into a dark room, you’ll naturally slow down and proceed very cautiously. If at all. Our brains are wired for certainty, to look for patterns and assurance that our next step will land just as we want. When certainty is removed, obscuring the path ahead, our default response is to put on the brakes and seek safety until the fog clears. 

All well and good. Except that if you’re reading this website, you likely have a passion for leading change – in your business, organization, or the world at large. In which case, succumbing to fear and hyper-caution amid uncertainty is not an option. This isn’t promoting recklessness. Instead, it recognizes that while ‘playing it safe’ provides a short-term illusion of security, it can ultimately land you in a far more precarious position than decisive, forward-leaning action.  

Shakespeare said that ‘Fortune favors the bold.’ Never is this truer than when fear runs high, rendering many frozen in overwhelm, paralyzed by their own catastrophizing. It’s why a common rule of battle is that when under mortar fire, the direction one runs holds less risk than standing still waiting for the dust to settle.    

The first task of leadership is not to set a strategy or manage the process. It’s to manage one’s mindset. When the ground underneath is continually shifting, we must learn to be grounded in ourselves – in ‘self-certainty’ – anchored to our core values, of who we want to be as a leader. This does not imply immunity to fear. Instead, it means we don’t give it the power to highjack higher-order thinking. Left unchecked, it easily does, driving clever, creative people to focus on potential losses and discount the cost of cautious inaction. 

Leading through change requires rising above instinct, adopting an offensive’ play to win’ mindset over a defensive ‘play not to lose’ mindset. The latter stymies ingenuity, directing all resources solely into protecting the status quo. The former, however, unleashes the creative and bold thinking that fear closes down. Neuro-research has shown that working toward a compelling ‘invented future’ elevates our perspective to see opportunities others miss and expands our capacity – individually and collectively – to seize them. 

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is known for making commercial decisions based on 70% of available information. This near guarantees that his decisions will not be 100% right and will require ongoing iteration and sometimes 180-degree pivots. Yet by not waiting until he’s sure to land the ideal outcome, Amazon has disrupted old paradigms and forged new ground at a pace that leaves most in their wake. 

Summoning the courage to act decisively despite the ambiguity lies at the heart of real leadership. One way to tap this courage is to consult your’ future self’; to step into the shoes of you five years from now, looking back on this time. Ask your future-self:

Where are you being called to step up and make a change or take a chance?

What new ‘invented future’ would you pursue if you trusted yourself, not your doubts? What lays at stake if you don’t? 

Courage or cowardice? 

The desire for security and comfort will always be in a tug of war with the desire for growth and service. This is why real leaders must continually reconnect to their deepest values and highest intentions lest the self-protecting pull of lower-order intentions wins out, driving short-sighted decisions and over-cautious actions.  

Every significant crisis throughout history – depressions, wars, pandemics – has been followed by a rebound of the human spirit and an intellectual, social, and cultural blossoming. Yet reaping the opportunities that emerge from disruption does not go to organizations whose leaders are mired in indecision and unable to see beyond the immediate horizon. 

Addressing our biggest challenges will require leaders to embrace the discomfort of uncertainty, challenge their own best thinking, and take courageous action toward a future that lays beyond that horizon. Not just annually or quarterly, but daily. After all, our psychological immune systems can justify an excess of courage far easier than an excess of cowardice. 

Now is not the time to wait for certainty. It is, after all, an illusion. Instead, it’s the time to reframe uncertainty into possibility, to reimagine the future, and to recommit to transforming this crisis into a catalyst for good of the highest order – to do business better and harness the diversity among us to create a more equitable, sustainable and compassionate world. 

www.MargieWarrell.com / www.GlobalCourage.com