Before we kick off how to lead your team through uncertainty, we must connect with some basic facts.

Fact No. 1: The word “uncertain” means “unable to rely on or not being defined.” Merriam-Webster defines uncertainty as a lack of sureness about someone or something or a lack of conviction of knowledge, especially about an outcome.

Fact No. 2: When we experience uncertainty, we experience doubt or a lack of confidence, which can catapult us into other emotions, such as sadness, anger, and confusion, with a worst-case scenario of depression.

Fact No. 3: A catalyst for uncertainty is change. When something disrupts our usual and known way of working or living, it may produce an inability to rely on or define our future.

With these facts setting the groundwork, think about your team members. They can feel uncertain about their role or organizational direction, especially after a change. Your team members may have three general responses to a season of uncertainty. Some people like it and view it as an adventure, while others fear it and shut down, wanting to extricate themselves. A majority remains somewhere in between these two extremes.

In an article on the top 10 strategic predictions for 2023 and beyond, Gartner sets the year’s theme as “seize uncertainty.” The article describes 2023 and the years ahead as opportunities to let go of previous ways of thinking and acting. Though the article doesn’t state it like this, one can deduce that the myriad of changes produced by economic, environmental, technological, social and political activities makes planning for the future more difficult. The market conditions a company believes will exist in the future are more sensitive to variables than ever. Gartner’s theme encourages leaders to see uncertainty as a “repository for hope — for opportunity.” An underlying message from this attitude is to be proactive about uncertainty, because we are certain that uncertainty exists.

5 Proactive Ways to Lead Your Team Through Uncertainty

Leading your team through moments when the future is as clear as a dirty windshield may seem uncomfortable and impossible, especially if you are having your own bouts with uncertainty.

Here are five proactive ways for helping you and your team manage in times of doubt and lack of clarity.

1. Decide to be transparent.

Historical leadership methods taught us the leader had to be strong and could not demonstrate vulnerability. To do so showed signs of weakness. However, this technique is no longer helpful with five generations of employees in the workplace. Your team members need to see you being transparent about your own experience.

You are not superhuman with immunity to the impact change brings. You feel like your team members do when uncertainty strikes your environment. Share your experience and share your choice on how to deal with it. Be vulnerable if this is your first experience of this kind. Share if you’re looking for other resources to support you as you support your team. You allow your team to be transparent about their struggles when you are open about your own.

2. Decide to listen.

You will need to listen to understand what your team needs in uncertain times. As you know, each team member is unique, and how they process uncertainty will be unique. Give team members time, space and permission to discuss what they are experiencing. This will inform how you lead the team and how you nurture the team culture.

Let team members be authentic about their complaints and concerns. Allow them to express themselves without judgment while coaching them to rise above what they can’t control.

Allowing team members the time to share with you can be therapeutic for them. Often, it’s about giving their emotions an escape route and validating how they process their thoughts and feelings.

3. Decide to nurture your team culture.

The shared values, attributes and beliefs — the elements that define your team culture — may be impacted in times of uncertainty. Team culture defines how your team communicates, collaborates and connects. When a lack of doubt or confidence occurs, you may think a team with a strong sense of culture can handle a lack of clarity. You may believe a team with a looser clarity will fall apart. But indeed, the opposite may happen.

Monitoring your team’s culture and reinforcing behaviors that diminish the negative impacts of uncertainty is essential. You want your team to support one another, and you want your team to share information. You want your team to identify how they can solve uncertainty-related problems. Promote this behavior.

If your team’s culture beforehand was not healthy or you begin to see something shift in a healthy team, now may be the time to devote your energy to building a better team culture. Think about how you want your team to be for each other. Think about what kind of team your customers need. Consider how you may need to flex your leadership style to suit your team’s needs.

4. Decide to plan with what you can control.

Planning and manipulating what you cannot control is mentally, emotionally, and physically challenging. Lead by identifying what you can control. Think about what you know versus what you don’t know and how you can show up in your role with this information. Remember that in the absence of information, people will create narratives, which are often worst-case-scenarios. You can avoid this by planning using the available information. If the overall organizational vision and purpose are a bit murky or team members no longer trust it, create a sub-vision and purpose based on what you know to bring clarity.

You play a significant part in how your team moves through this time. The team goes as the leader goes. How do you want your team to go? Do you want them to see you as an understanding leader? Do you want them to share their experience with you? Do you want to guide them to hold onto what they can control? Be an example of what you want to see.

Your decision on how you lead the team is not about you but the team and its needs. The team culture will be a massive part of what you determine will be your direction.

5. Decide to learn.

If you are a veteran to change-producing-uncertainty events, you may be tempted to use familiar tactics to deal with the situation. Why not? We create a toolbox from our experiences for the sole purpose of pulling out the right tool when needed. I recommend before doing so, you consider each situation unique with different people and/or different circumstances. Decide to learn what change / resilience tools and methodologies can best support your team in this instance.

Engage your learning and development (L&D) team to help you determine what challenges your team may be facing. Through the analysis method of performance consulting, your L&D team can help you identify your organization’s specific struggles and make recommendations to address them. This is helpful because your team’s response to uncertainty may not be like another team’s. For instance, one team may need to know how to build new partnerships while another team may need a better approach for meeting management. Your L&D function can help you pinpoint needs and identify solutions.

My Personal Experience

I managed a team with a strong culture. Their support of one another and desire to see each other succeed made them a well-performing team. When an organizational change created worry about their roles’ future, we discussed it. We had conversations in which I expressed how frustrating it was not to be able to reassure them and where I allowed them to express their concerns.

Our team had built a culture based on the Oz Principle. We permitted ourselves to go below the line and then worked to identify what we knew, what we could control, and what problems we could solve. We drove a sub-vision on how we would work to support our customers even though we didn’t feel comfortable about our future. What amazed me was how the team found ways to support each other. I believe this was because we created an environment where it was okay to voice our challenges, and the team saw me moving through my frustrations to deliver still as I worked with other leaders to continue our services. Honestly, I did not consider incorporating my L&D team into my approach at the time. I’ve put this recommendation in my toolbox, because I now know it would have been a good time to revisit the principles of Oz, which my L&D group knew well.

In Conclusion

Gartner’s 2023 theme reminds us that uncertainty is not a one-time event. We may (and likely will) face uncertain futures more than once in our careers and our lifetime. Our response to uncertainty, however, is a choice — and choosing to be honest about your own experience, listening to your team’s concerns, nurturing your team culture, planning using information you know, and getting help from your L&D team is good way to begin leading your team through uncertainty and into the future.