What Leadership Needs to Learn from Uncertainty

The human being, since time immemorial, has had the temptation. If not the desire, to have control of everything that happens around him, including his own life, when not that of others. As superior as we think we are, the desire for control is becoming more and more part of our desires.

 

What is curious is that this goes hand in hand with an increasingly pronounced childhood or permanent adolescence state. I am going to give an example lived from my own experience:

When I started in the art of driving (the early 1970s) and became old enough to have personal commitments. First and professional ones later, I began making trips in the famous Seat 600 and 124.

 

I remember trips to Valencia from Alcoy (2 -2.5 hours) in which the weather forecast, GPS and others, were pure fiction. You knew when you were leaving. But you did not know when you would arrive since mechanical breakdowns, punctures, rain, or snowstorms were part of what you could find on the way. And you assumed it as part of the trip.

 

So you had to learn to face them and get out of those situations, and the funny thing is that nothing happened.

 

However, before leaving a trip, we need to know the weather forecast. Decide the clothing we will wear, what will be the best route. How we can avoid traffic jams that may exist, and so on. Long etcetera. We have all internalized the recommendations, which become orders. It tells us that in the car, we always carry water, food, a blanket, a full tank, a charged mobile battery, etc.

LEADERSHIP WITH SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

 

I am not against the advances that science and technology can provide us to make life easier. Unfortunately, what happens is that it seems that it complicates it more than it does not facilitate it.

 

These same situations and behaviors can be perfectly extrapolated to the business world. 

Technological progress since the 70s has been brutal. However, the advance in supporting oneself in life has not gone hand in hand with technological development. Instead, it seems that it has made us more dependent, more immature, and less responsible.

 

Why am I saying this? Very simple: when today we hit the road knowing that there will be a significant snowfall (today we don’t know before – I want to emphasize-). And due to whatever circumstances, we are caught on the road. In most cases, we react by demanding responsibility from others for what is happening to us.

 

How is it possible that this is happening to me? We ask ourselves with amazement and anger when the answer is straightforward: why YOU have decided to travel in times of snowfall, or simply because every trip implies a specific risk that one must be willing to assume.

 

In the situation that we are experiencing due to the coronavirus, which is being very dramatic for many groups and people in this country, we must ask ourselves what lessons and lessons can be drawn from this situation? I think that is the question we must ask ourselves.

 

The answer is to be aware that our romantic ideal of wanting to control what happens to us, what happens around us, is simply that, a utopia.

 

That is why the employer, the manager or person in charge of a team in a company, who is experiencing the complexity of this situation in their flesh, has to be aware that the path of control is not the appropriate option for these times that we live.

 

In the previous crisis (2008), I learned to internalize that disposition to abandon control. My reflection was the following:

 

I start from the premise that was wanting to have everything under control. This, for more than obvious reasons, is far from being something real. Therefore, and apart from the thought that I have previously cited, given the situation we live in, there are two options for which we can choose:

 

OPTION 1) The way of CONTROL:

 

The objective of this route is to make the control trust me and give me security. However, reality tells me that there is no perfection or absolute power of what happens or the result of our decisions.

 

The result of all this is that fear and mistrust increase in me because I cannot control things.

Furthermore, in a fictitious attempt to regain control, I pretend that all things pass through my hands, which causes the delegation to disappear, and with it, the trust in others ceases to exist.

 

The result of all this is that I am gradually entering what is known as “manager’s paranoia,” Consequently, this way of acting is extrapolated to the entire company.

 

The feeling that I transmit with my example to others is that having lost the north, there is no clarity of the way forward.

 

On the other hand, and through this way of acting, I begin to be questioned about my loss of leadership. Demotivation and lack of commitment are beginning to affect the company and the people who work there.

 

However, another alternative path provides a radically different result, and this is the path of self-control.

 

OPTION 2) SELF-CONTROL FOR LEADERSHIP:

 

This path’s objective, which motivates me in this option, is neither more nor less than doing what I like and showing myself what I’m good at.

 

How hard pregnancy can be. But, still, the question is not to look at that hardness, that difficulty, if not to focus on the child that is going to arrive. We are going with more happiness, or in the longing to reach that desired place on vacation, that is the look you have to have.

 

Can you imagine parents who will have offspring wanting to be in control of the risks that will exist throughout the pregnancy or even after the child’s birth? Right not?  because the important thing is the life that is going to come again.

 

The same happens in business coaching. The answer is to do what you are there for. In your position and responsibility, starting from the base and therefore accepting that reality is uncertain. The only authentic thing is the same.

 

The result that is achieved is to maintain self-confidence, passion for what you do, and with it the enjoyment. Being able to adapt to the coming situations, not getting angry at them. Simply accepting them because only then will you be agile in your decisions.

 

And how will everything impact the people on your team?

 

You will transmit security and poise to them. In this way, you will generate confidence and will become a reference for them. Because you will know how to keep the north, and with this, your leadership will be strengthened through example.

 

As we have seen, there are uncertainties, and those will always be a constant in our path. It can be our great learning in this situation caused by Covid 19.