The Truth About Leading in Uncertain Times: 3 Myths Holding You Back

What if your need for certainty is actually making it harder for you to lead with confidence?

As humanitarian and development leaders, we face uncertainty every day—from funding cuts and organizational changes to decisions about our teams and the future. And when we don't know what will happen, it's easy to feel anxious, powerless, or hesitant to take action.

But what if the problem isn't uncertainty itself, but what we believe about it?

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Three common myths about certainty that can keep you feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or afraid to make decisions.

• Why feeling certain doesn't necessarily mean you're right, and how our assumptions can limit our effectiveness as leaders.

• How to lead with greater confidence even when the future is unclear, by focusing on what you can influence, making values-based decisions, and trusting your ability to adapt.

Press play to discover why you don't need to know what will happen next to move forward with confidence—and how changing your relationship with uncertainty can help you become a more effective leader.

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] How many decisions have you delayed because you weren't certain that something would happen? Or how often have you found yourself worrying about something that you cannot predict or control? As we discuss frequently on this podcast, humanitarian and development leaders are operating in very increasingly uncertain environments.

Funding cuts, organizational restructuring, changing priorities, climate change, many things that make it super difficult for planning. But uncertainty itself may not be the biggest challenge. The bigger challenge may be our relationship with uncertainty and our belief that we need certainty to feel confident and move forward.

So there are three commonly held myths about certainty that influence how we think, feel, and [00:01:00] lead. These myths often go unquestioned, yet they can contribute to stress, indecision, and our desire to control situations and people. So understanding them can help us become more confident and effective leaders, even when we are feeling uncertain or don't know what is going to happen.

My name is Torrey Peace, and welcome to the Modern Humanitarian and Development Leader podcast.

So first, I think it's really important that we clarify and define certainty versus uncertainty. Because we use these terms a lot, but it helps to really understand what do they actually mean. So I looked it up on the Googles and

uncertainty refers to not knowing something for sure, particularly when information or future outcomes are unclear. Whereas certainty [00:02:00] can refer to confidence in something we believe to be true or expect to happen. However, there is a very important difference between external uncertainty or not knowing what will happen in a particular situation versus our internal experience of uncertainty, how we think and feel about that not knowing.

So the key insight here is that we often speak about uncertainty as if it's automatically what creates our anxiety, our fear, or our lack of confidence. But uncertainty and fear are not the same thing. Two leaders can face exactly the same uncertain situation and experience it very differently. One may feel overwhelmed and powerless, while another may feel calm, curious, and confident in their ability to respond.

This brings us to our first myth. Myth [00:03:00] one: Uncertainty makes us powerless. So the belief is we often act as though uncertainty is something that happens to us and automatically determines how we feel. When we don't know what will happen, we may feel like we are victims of circumstances beyond our control.

We focus on everything that could go wrong, what might happen, or what we might lose. But while we cannot always control uncertain circumstances, we can influence how we think about and respond to them. The situation itself does not have to determine our emotional state or our behavior, and we can acknowledge that we don't know what will happen without allowing that uncertainty to dominate our thinking.

So, for example, an organization may face significant [00:04:00] uncertainty about future funding. I think a lot of you might be familiar with this type of example. Let's say that leader A spends considerable time worrying about whether funding will continue, imagining worst-case scenarios, and trying to predict what will happen.

Whereas leader B acknowledges the uncertainty but focuses on preparing the team, communicating transparently, identifying alternatives, and making decisions based on available information. Neither leader knows what's going to happen, but their experience of uncertainty and their ability to lead through it can be very different. We may not control the circumstances or the situations that create uncertainty, but we can have greater influence over our response than we sometimes realize. Uncertainty does not automatically mean [00:05:00] helplessness.

So here's a reflection question for you. Where in your leadership are you giving an uncertain situation more power over your thoughts, feelings, and decisions than it needs to have? All right, myth two, because I'm certain it must be true. So the belief here is that when we feel certain about something, that we often assume that our confidence is evidence that we are correct.

We confuse feeling certain with actually knowing. We confuse being certain and feeling certain with the truth. But certainty is not the same as truth.

We can be completely convinced something will happen and still be wrong. Feeling confident about an outcome doesn't make the outcome more likely. Sometimes certainty is only [00:06:00] based on assumptions, past experience, or patterns that we expect to continue. So here's an example of this, which I think many of you can also relate to.

For years, many organizations have planned around the assumption that USAID funding would continue in some form. That next year we'd be able to apply for that funding, we'd receive it, and it would fund a significant number of our projects. This is based on historical patterns and available information.

That prediction seemed quite reasonable. Organizations made staffing decisions, developed programs, and planned futures accordingly, and yet major changes came to USAID fundamentally disrupted those expectations. What once seemed predictable suddenly was not. Certainty can also influence how we perceive people and make [00:07:00] decisions. A leader may be certain that a team member isn't capable of handling additional responsibility, or certain that their solution is the best one, or certain that their team will resist a proposed change or a different leadership style.

But these are not facts. They're beliefs that have become so familiar that we no longer question them. So the risk is when we become too certain, we actually may stop listening, asking questions, or considering alternative perspectives. Our certainty can limit our curiosity and actually make us less adaptable.

This can lead us toward controlling behaviors rather than empowering others. So confidence in a belief does not guarantee its accuracy or its truth. Also, effective leaders [00:08:00] need the humility to question what you think you already know. So what are you absolutely certain about as a leader that might actually be an assumption?

I know I'm teaching a course right now, and someone brought up yesterday that they did not think that their team would respond well with a leader who was asking them questions and coaching them rather than just telling them what to do. But that is, once again, an assumption. We don't know it until you actually try it, and that is why I encourage my students to become scientists and try things out and see how it goes.

All right, myth number three: I need certainty before I can take action. So the beliefs here are we often think that we need to know what will happen before making a decision. [00:09:00] We wait for more information, reassurance, or a guarantee that things are gonna work out, and we tell ourselves that once we're certain, we're ready to move forward.

And oftentimes, this also comes from the false belief or the false idea that there is a right decision. So most future outcomes cannot be guaranteed. Even when something seems highly likely, unexpected circumstances can change that outcome. For example, a new employee may be scheduled to start next week, but then unexpectedly withdraws.

Or a donor may indicate strong support for a proposal, but ultimately decides not to fund it. Or a carefully planned initiative may encounter unexpected challenges. But the important distinction here is we can be confident in a decision without being [00:10:00] certain about its outcome. Making a good decision doesn't mean guaranteeing a particular result.

It means using the best available information, applying sound judgment, and being prepared to adapt. So leaders make decisions under uncertainty all the time, sometimes out of necessity. They delegate, hire, introduce changes, and develop strategies without even knowing what's going to happen.

And if we wait until we are completely certain, we may never act, and sometimes this delaying a decision creates more problems than making an imperfect decision and just adjusting along the way. Because that's another thing to remember. Even if we made a decision, doesn't mean we can't go back and change it This also applies to [00:11:00] trusting our teams.

So when we delegate, we cannot be certain that someone will complete a task exactly as we would. If we require that certainty before giving someone responsibility, we may never truly empower them. Instead, we may need to trust their ability to learn, adapt, and take ownership.

So key takeaway here, we don't need certainty about the outcome to make a thoughtful decision.

Instead, we need clarity about why we're making the decision and confidence in our ability to respond to what happens next. So what decision are you postponing because you're waiting for a level of certainty that may never come? Okay, so let's bring this all together. Where can leaders find confidence when the future is uncertain?

So once [00:12:00] again, our three myths are myth one, uncertainty does not have to make us powerless. Myth two, feeling certain doesn't necessarily mean we're right. And myth three, we don't need certainty about an outcome before taking action. So the central insight here is perhaps the goal isn't to create certainty about the future, but perhaps it's to become less dependent on certainty in order to feel confident and move forward.

All right, so we cannot always control whether funding continues, how organizational priorities change, how others respond to our decisions, or whether our plans unfold as expected. But we can influence how we interpret and respond to to circumstances, the values that guide our decisions, how we communicate with and support our teams, and how we prepare, adapt, and learn.[00:13:00] 

This is where personal and organizational values can also become particularly important. When we are clear about our values, we have a strong foundation for making decisions, even when the future is unclear. We may not know whether a decision will produce the outcome that we hope for, but we can know whether a l-- it aligns with the kind of leader we want to be.

Values provide direction when circumstances do not provide certainty. So we can also build confidence by recognizing that we and our teams are capable of responding to unexpected challenges. We don't have to predict every possible outcome. We can trust our ability to learn, adjust, and make new decisions as, circumstances evolve.

This is not about pretending that everything is going to work out perfectly, but it's about recognizing that we have the capacity to respond [00:14:00] even when things don't go as planned. So the biggest leadership shift is moving from needing to, to control outcomes towards trusting our ability and our team's ability to navigate them.

From waiting for guarantees toward making values-based decisions. From fearing uncertainty toward accepting it as a part of normal leadership and life. So uncertainty is not something that we can eliminate from leadership or life. It's just part of the way things are. No amount of planning, preparation, or experience can guarantee what's going to happen next.

But we don't have to allow uncertainty pr- to prevent us from making decisions or going forward. We can become more comfortable with not knowing. We can question the assumptions that make us feel so certain, and we can develop confidence in our ability to [00:15:00] respond rather than depending on knowing the outcome.

So in conclusion, perhaps the most confident leaders aren't those who know what will happen next. Perhaps they're the ones who trust themselves and their teams to respond effectively, even when things don't go as expected. All right. So I want you to think about a situation you are currently facing where the outcome is unclear.

I want you to consider, what are you waiting to be certain about? Is there a decision that you're avoiding or an action that you're postponing? What is within your influence or control? Rather than focusing on predicting the outcome, what can you do to prepare or respond? And what would you do next if you didn't have or need a guarantee?

What action could you take that [00:16:00] aligns your values with the leader you are becoming? The challenge this week is to take one small action that you've been postponing because you don't know how things are going to turn out. Not because you're certain it will work,

But because you decided that uncertainty doesn't need to prevent you from moving forward. All right. Until next week, keep evolving. Bye for now