I’ve been having lots of conversations around how to lead well through uncertainty and complexity and so I want to share with you three things that I think are critical from my own experience, and working alongside and supporting leaders who are dealing with very complex and changing environments. 

1. Complex and Chaotic versus Business as Usual 

Many organizations have complexity and a chaotic nature to their context that is just (00:39) ongoing. It’s not that it ebbs and flows, it’s not that we just have periods of chaos and complexity, it is the environment in which more and more of us are operating day to day now. So, how is it that, rather than think of this as something that gets in the way of business as usual, we can understand that it is part of our business as usual.  

When we understand it as that, it doesn’t become something that gets in the way of us doing the work it becomes something that is an inherent part of how we approach doing the work. 

There’s a really important role for leaders in this in understanding that when we operate in complexity, when we have an ongoing environment that is changing, it takes more of our brain power because we can’t operate on autopilot. The constant need to reassess and think about what’s going on, what do I need to respond to and in what way is the reality in which most of us operate now.  

As leaders, communicating to our team members the understanding that the chaotic and complex nature of our environments is business as usual helps close the expectations- reality gap of our team members so that rather than having a big response when chaos and complexity arise, they understand that it is just the environment that we’re working in and we understand that actually this is normal. 

Understanding chaos and complexity as business as usual is an important part of how we navigate it more successfully. 
 

1. Clarity, Certainty and Control 

The second point is around the ideas of clarity certainty and control. Given the complex nature in which we’re most of us operating there are often things that are outside of our control but that fundamentally influence the way that we work. The challenge with this is that people feel unsure about what’s coming at them from around the corner. Unfortunately spending time effort and energy trying to look around the corner is just a waste of valuable resources; it wastes our time, our effort, our energy and it depletes us, and that doesn’t serve us because change and complexity is exhausting enough! It takes energy to think and act in an agile way, to be aware, open and curious to think about what what’s the right way for us to respond here.  

The challenge in this is that certainty is a hardwired need – our brains are wired for certainty because it helps us feel safe and confident to take action. So the critical part of this is accepting what we can’t control and making progress based on what we know to be true – at least for now – whilst knowing also that it’s going to change so it’s likely to we’re going to need to adjust. 

This is a critical mindset for everyone, and leaders, one of the most important things that we can do is provide clarity to our people around what is known, what is not known and given that, what good looks like in terms of progress. That’s how leaders role model this mindset.   

Clarity, certainty and control – how do we find the right balance in that that for people still to feel that they can make progress because for team members research shows that the most important thing that helps them feel engaged and motivated is a sense of making progress. 

1. Perspectives on Primary and Priority 
   The third factor is the idea of perspectives on primary and priority.  Many of our organizations have a broad, broad remit add to this that our environments are complex and changing, and you can see how it’s natural that there are going to be competing commitments and different perspectives across the organization, across our teams, across the individuals in our teams around what should be primary as a priority for next action, next steps and resources. 

People may genuinely be following what they believe needs to be the priority from their perspective and their primary responsibility, and yet from an organizational perspective that may not be the case. It may be that by leaning in to what they feel is the best contribution they can make, they’re actually moving something else in the organization or another team’s work backwards.  

Differing perspectives on primary and priority are a main cause of conflict between teams and between individuals. 

So how do we resolve this? 

The thing to do is to bring above the surface how are we making these decisions, what is the primary expectation, the primary accountability, the perspective we have on what should be our priority here, and talk about that. Because until we bring that above the surface, we’re not having the right conversation, we’re not having the conversation about the right thing.  

When we do bring it above the surface, it stops being about pointing fingers and starts being about (05:56) ‘ah we’ve just got a different understanding of what needs to be primary here, of what our priority is’. 

As Leaders, sometimes only we have the whole of system perspective that can help people see why a particular aspect is a primary priority right now, so encouraging and inviting conversations that surface what people believe to be the primary priority helps to resolve those issues. It means that we also need to do that difficult work of confronting all the ways that perhaps we haven’t done that before and that have led us into patterns of dysfunction that actually need to be dissolved in order for us to make the progress we need to make. 

So, three things: Complex and Chaotic is business as usual, create Clarity, Certainty and a sense of Control around what progress looks like, and surface Perspectives on what is Primary and Priority so that people can pull in the same direction and feel that they’re making the contribution alongside their peers and colleagues. 

That’s how we lead exceptionally through challenging, complex and changing environments.