Uncertainty is Why Leaders Exist

There’s a feeling I vividly associate with my memories of night patrols: total disorientation. Moving in total blackness and as silently as we could, my senses did me little good in providing me with context. Often the only thing I could see was the two little strips of luminous tape on the back of the helmet in front of me. I would lose track of time and direction, and start to think we must be lost.

It’s human nature to want to be able to see what’s ahead of you and have a map and compass for what’s out beyond the range of your eyes. We like traveling familiar routes. We hate the uncertainty of having no idea what we’re doing.

Here’s the deal, though: uncertainty is the only reason leaders are needed. Your team doesn’t need you if they already know where to go

Uncertain times are when you prove your worth. In fact, the more chaotic, the more you’re needed. There are learnable skills that will make you the master of chaos, but first you have to stop fearing it.

So instead of avoiding uncertainty, seek it out. You know it’s out there – key people leave, budgets dry up, customers go bankrupt, laws change. Your job is to know where uncertainty has reared its ugly head, and keep it from making your team anxious.

The Lesson of the Ugly Chair

I spent some quality time over the holidays in an overstuffed chair, sometimes with a book and sometimes watching TV or playing a computer game. That chair has been around a long time; I think I bought it when my kids were just tykes; now both are married and I have grandchildren. it fits my behind pretty well, but it has seen its better days.

That chair reminds me of something Andy Stanley, founder of North Point Ministries, said in a LeaderCast presentation a few years ago. Mr. Stanley suggested we try to look at our organizations as our replacement would. Try to imagine, he said, what the guy or gal who comes after you will get rid of, just like a new tenant in your apartment would junk that old ugly easy chair.

There’s a lot of truth there. We all have things we hang onto far beyond their usefulness. Sometimes we just don’t notice them anymore; often we’ve lived with them so long we don’t see how bad they’ve really gotten. Maybe it’s something we started, so it’s precious to us.

So look at your area the way your replacement would. What would he stop doing? What would she change or refurbish? What processes or practices or reports or meetings would be the hardest to explain or justify?

It’s something you ought to do every year, and the New Year is a natural time for evaluation. It will help you answer the question, “What will I do different this year to get a better result?”

The Fastest Improvement is Slow Change

If you want change to work, it's best to go slow.

I remember my first day in South Korea. I couldn't buy coffee; I couldn't even tell which places might sell coffee. I couldn't hail a cab. Forget about getting anything done, all I thought about was feeding myself and putting a roof over my head. And I learned a key leadership lesson: When everything changes, people shift into survival mode and work slows to a crawl.

Your best bet: Change one thing at a time. Change process flow, and then when that becomes normal, reassign people, for example. If you do both simultaneously, you're asking for chaos.

There's something I used to tell soldiers when they were trying to learn to do something quickly under pressure: Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. When you try for speed, you're more likely to make mistakes that just cost you time.

Take it slow, things will go smoothly, and overall the pace of change in your area will speed up.