Developing Leadership Capacity in an Uncertain World

Last week I wrote about leading beyond the edge of our expertise — what it's like when the challenges we face outpace what we know.

This prompted a conversation with a senior leader who shared that it was the feeling of uncertainty that was most undoing her team. The sense that the ground was shifting beneath them. Grappling with growing demand. Accelerating AI adoption. Finite resources. A workforce with different needs across generations.

The responses were visible in how staff showed up. Frazzled, anxious, reactive. Conversations looping. Impossible to cut through the noise and find insight or clear decisions.

For years, expertise has been a currency of leadership. Diagnose, analyse, decide. That model still matters, but it was built for a world where problems were more easily bounded. Today's challenges cascade, interact, and mutate. By the time we understand the system, it has already shifted.

And yet, our instincts default to what worked before. More analysis. More frameworks. As if the problem is that we haven't thought hard enough.

But what if the issue isn't a deficit of knowledge — it's how we're relating to the challenge itself?

What if the discomfort leaders and teams are feeling in the face of uncertainty is not something to push past, but the work itself? What if the way forward is not around but through?

adrienne maree brown's work on Emergent Strategy reminds us that the patterns we create at small scales shape the whole system. How we meet uncertainty in the small moments ripples outward. The quality of our presence in uncertainty is not separate from the work of leadership. It is the work.

Over the long weekend I've been sitting with the writings of Bayo Akomolafe, a philosopher and poet who speaks to the challenges of these times in a way that invites deeper contemplation. He writes that wisdom is "what remains when we've come to the end of everything we know." And: "what gets in the way is part of the way."

The real risk right now is not that leaders don't know enough. It's that we over-rely on ways of knowing designed for a different world.

So the question shifts. Not how do we get back to certainty? But what capacities are needed when certainty is no longer available?

It’s a different development agenda. One concerned not only with capability, but with capacity. Less about accumulating answers, more about expanding how we pay attention, perceive, relate and respond.

That is the work that feels important now.

Warmly, Claire

PS — if this resonates, here are three ways we could work together:

Coaching — I work with a small number of leaders in 1-1 coaching. Two spots are opening now, with flexible invoicing across this financial year or next. Get in touch to see if we might be a good fit, we can find a time to connect - claire@clairemckendrick.com

Masterclass: Leading in Uncertainty — A new series for teams navigating complexity without a clear map. Email to find out more - claire@clairemckendrick.com

Retreat: Leading at the Edge — A deeper immersion, over 3 days in late October, for leaders ready to work differently. Register here, or get in touch to find out more - claire@clairemckendrick.com