Leading into Uncertainty
Amy Webb is a ‘Futurist’ and CEO of the Future Today Institute. She and her team keep an eye on emerging trends. In her keynote to SXSW regarding 2024 emerging trends (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uLSDbh6M_U) she laid out how she believes we are heading into a tech Super Cycle. She explained previous tech super cycles include the steam engine, electricity and the internet and how, after each, the world and how we function in it became a different place. This current cycle, she notes, stands out. AI, Biotech, and the Connected Ecosystem of Things are all combining and interact and are forming one large Tech Super Cycle. She predicts that as in the past, once the dust settles, the world and how we function in it could be very different.
Alongside her dystopian images, painted through what-if scenarios, she mentioned leaders today who are often having their decisions influenced by fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD). No one can predict the future, and it is moving very swiftly.
This raises my question (and a growing thought distillation): How does one lead into uncertainty? How do leaders rise above all that FUD they and their team members may be experiencing to create resilient environments that are able to sail through that unknown future?
What comes to mind are ship captains of long ago who knew their boat, their crew and how to read the sun, stars and weather indicators while they headed off in discovery mode, unsure of anything that lay ahead.
How does a leader navigate the uncertainty, the ambiguity of tomorrow’s unknowns, when all one can be sure of is “there will be change”? How does a leader inspire confidence when the team (including the leader) cannot see into the future and create the environment where team members anticipate and nimbly and enthusiastically embraces required change? How do they expand the professional capacity and potential of the team in order to increase their ability to deal with whatever may be coming, while also increasing the team’s observational and evaluation powers so all are on alert for pending dangers, additional shifts and changes, or opportunities? And how, through those rumbling background feelings of fear, uncertainty and doubt, does the leader cultivate the culture of innovation and creativity that will support that agility and adaptive pivots AND achieve their objectives – without burning out?
While my observation is that effective leaders may do this, the speed of change is accelerating, increasing the criticality of these leader-skills to the longevity and evolution of organizations.
My thought distillation is focusing in on how leaders create the environment for team resilience, and the team capacity to anticipate and respond to change, adapt and move forward productively if not enthusiastically; Inspiring confidence in the face of VUCA; Fine-tuning the radar that is inherent in the team; expanding capacity and potential; creating the environment to pivot and nimbly adjust.