How to lead your team through uncertainty to strategic action
In times of uncertainty, ambiguity, and chaos, our natural, very human instinct is to react. Alarming headlines are a daily occurrence — economic downturns, political instability, major industry disruptions—and emotions run high.
Before a day of strategic planning with an executive team experiencing dramatic changes in their business and stakeholders, we started by sharing how everyone was feeling and what those emotions meant to them personally. We heard everything from sadness, fear, frustration, and doubt paired with optimism, boldness, courage, and hope.
How do you communicate with those around you during times of uncertainty? Many leaders instinctively avoid discussing their emotions, believing that action is needed more in a crisis than acknowledging them. It’s moments like these that strengthen our philosophy at Incito: Leaders are people first, role second.
Acknowledging and expressing emotions isn’t a distraction. In challenging times, emotional awareness fuels creativity, strengthens trust, and helps us clear our minds to think more strategically. And a clear mindset allows us to shape the future we want, regardless of the challenges we face.
In this moment, they needed space to simply be human.
The power of acknowledging emotion
We worked with the team to process the emotions of the situation. We asked:
What are 3-5 emotions you’ve experienced in the last 2 weeks (consider work, family, personal life)?
What has caused those feelings in 1-2 sentences?
How has this been personally significant to you (not the business, not others—YOU)?
What is the vulnerable truth about what it's like to be you that you aren’t sharing with others in your life (spouse, family, direct reports)?
One by one, they answered our questions. The exercise created a shared experience that helped them process what they were feeling and see that everyone around the table was feeling the same way.
Processing emotions was needed in order to move forward and take on important, bold, and difficult work. And it’s much easier to do this when teams are fully committed to creatively building the future we want, rather than being stuck in the emotions of the crisis. They felt more hopeful, and remembered that the future they want to create is still within reach. This allowed them to begin developing a strategy with a clearer perspective.
Envisioning the future
In our experience working with leadership teams, high-stakes situations like these often accelerate difficult strategic choices. In the wake COVID-19, many teams were faced with hard realities and made bold decisions they had previously put off. They realized that they could take decisive action. Risk aversion fades when you realize you’re already in the mess, so why not make a change?
In this executive team’s case, we guided them in developing a new strategy with a shorter timeframe that still aligned with their North Star. If you’re navigating uncertainty, a structured strategic approach can help:
Envision the next 6 months: Start by envisioning the future for the next six months. Identify key actions and capabilities that your team can get really right today to lay the groundwork for achieving that future. These actions should align with your purpose.
Envision the next 12 months: Once your six-month actions are defined, extend the vision to 12 months. This longer-term view will inform the next set of actions needed to support ongoing success. Go back and assess your 6 month plan to ensure that it will set you up with a great foundation for the longer term future.
Assess your current situation: Bring it all back to what needs to happen today. Look at where your organization is now through the lens of the new short-term vision and strategic goals. Use is to make clearer decisions now.
Get feedback from senior leaders: Present the short-term plan to other senior leaders for feedback. They’ll help challenge assumptions and refine your team’s thinking.
Is your new strategic direction bold enough?
Where are you holding back?
What might you be overlooking?
Will the rest of the organization buy into this new direction?
How will you mobilize change and inspire others when everyone is feeling beaten down?
Every organization is unique, and some teams we've worked with began by focusing on immediate actions for the next three months, followed by a less detailed plan for the next three months. This gave them a six-month roadmap with high-level strategic actions designed to address key challenges. Some plans we've seen have included evaluating staffing reductions, managing necessary restructuring, and pivoting client strategies to align with the new direction. This structured approach is an example of what you can do with your team.
The tipping point for transformation
At first, processing emotions may seem like a distraction, especially when critical decisions and actions are on the table. But what was interesting was how tapping into the executive team's real, heartfelt emotions transformed into a powerful communication message: "We are sad, mad, and deeply frustrated with the current situation. But this has also renewed our sense of passion, and we are more committed than ever to fulfilling our dream and vision."
They left the session with a plan to communicate this to the organization. Despite the sadness, anger, and grief, they were inspired and resolute in their commitment to their dream. They now had a plan to achieve it—just in a different way.
During a crisis, leaders have an opportunity to create a tipping point—the moment when people move from uncertainty to commitment. As Malcolm Gladwell discusses in The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, leaders can identify key influencers who can spread the message and rally others. It’s also crucial to make sure the vision resonates deeply and leaves a lasting impact. Finally, understanding the power of context is essential—small shifts in the environment or how the message is delivered can significantly influence people’s commitment and drive the change forward.
McKinsey & Company’s research on business transformation shows how leaders can use storytelling to communicate a compelling vision. They share the concept of the narrative arc, which typically has three parts: the setup (beginning), confrontation (middle), and resolution (end). When introducing your new vision, a narrative can help map out the journey from where you are now to where you want to be, explaining why change is needed, how it will happen, and what the outcome will look like.
Instead of focusing on the doom and gloom, focus on: What are we solving? What’s the bigger picture? When people connect to a purpose beyond the crisis, they gain the clarity and energy to take meaningful action.
This tipping point isn’t just about solving immediate problems; it’s about inspiring buy-in for a new vision. You’ll need key influencers, a compelling narrative, and a way to consistently reinforce the change you want to see. How will you, as a leader, create that shift?
Moving forward with clarity
Uncertainty is inevitable, but paralysis is not. Leaders who acknowledge emotions, engage their teams in vision-setting, and take decisive action will come out stronger.
After a crisis, many executive teams tell us, "We needed this disruption. It's given us the clarity to accelerate the changes we’ve been avoiding." Now, they’re moving forward—not as victims of their circumstances, but as better teams building better businesses.
Take a moment to feel and think about where you’re going. Even when things feel hard and the future isn’t guaranteed, not doing so could mean missing out on a chance for transformation. And if you’re in need of a partner to help lead your team from uncertainty to strategic action, let’s talk!