Every day, I find myself in boardrooms, classrooms, and on Zoom calls with leaders grappling with the profound uncertainty that defines Spring 2025. Many say to me this is the hardest moment they have ever led through. They do not know what is coming. They do not know if they will have funding next year, or if their lab, their program, or even their job will exist six months from now. And with that uncertainty comes a deep sense of responsibility - to protect their teams, their staff, their students - without inadvertently sparking panic.
But what do you do when you do not have answers yet? When people look to you for clarity and all you have is ambiguity? When being honest about the risks could help people plan - but could also break their morale?
This is the fog of leadership in uncertain times. And yet: we must lead anyway.
We are navigating systemic upheaval. Economic instability. Widespread burnout. Cratering institutional trust. Climate anxiety. Political polarization. A world in flux. And still, we expect leaders to hold complexity with grace. To act with limited data. To move even as the ground shifts beneath their feet.
So what do we tell the leaders we work with? We tell them this:
1. Don’t turtle
When chaos hits, it is natural to want to retreat - to wait for clarity, to try to hunker down and wait out the storm. But no turtle ever won the race. Crisis demands motion. Learning. Experimentation. Look for opportunities. Take small bets. Keep your eyes on the periphery.
2. Stay in conversation
Communicate what you know. Share what you do not know. Be transparent about your uncertainties - and also about your experience: what has helped you endure crisis before, what strengths you see in your team, what is not changing. Remind people of their capacity. Create space to listen. Fear thrives in silence; worries named are worries diminished.
3. Learn in motion
Do not wait for perfect information. Act anyway. Learn while moving. Go back to startup mindset: test new approaches, build coalitions, plan for multiple scenarios. You do not need certainty to act; you need courage and a feedback loop.
None of this is new. During the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt led with motion, communication, and course correction - not clarity. His leadership was not flawless. But it was active. Experimental. Hopeful.
“The country needs and… demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another.”
This mindset - courageous, iterative, responsive - is a leadership superpower in times like these.
So yes, the fog is thick. The stakes are high. The path is unclear.
Lead anyway.