Leading Through Uncertainty: What Successful CEOs Do Differently
Mastering Leadership: The Distinctive Traits of Executives Thriving Amid Uncertainty
Welcome to Issue #4 of The Inner Boardroom™. Every week, I open this quiet space where high-performing leaders can step away from the noise, reconnect with themselves, and rediscover what it means to lead with presence and purpose. If you’re ready to deepen your journey, you’re invited to join our conversation by subscribing to this newsletter.
There was a moment last winter when a CEO sat across from me, his hands folded, his breathing shallow. The quarterly numbers were in. The board was asking questions he couldn't answer. The market was shifting in ways that made his five-year plan feel like fiction.
"I don't know what to do," he said. "And I've never said that out loud before."
32% of people admit feeling completely paralyzed when faced with making decisions in ambiguous situations [4]. But I've learned something else from sitting with leaders in these moments: the paralysis isn't the problem. The performance around the paralysis is.
We live in a time when uncertainty has become our constant companion. The National Federation of Independent Business Uncertainty Index recently reached its highest levels since November 2020 [4] [15]. 42% of people confess to postponing important decisions simply because the discomfort of not knowing feels unbearable [4].
But here's what I've witnessed in boardrooms, in private conversations, in the quiet spaces where leaders think no one is watching: what separates exceptional leaders isn't perfect decision-making. It's their willingness to be present with not knowing.
They don't eliminate uncertainty. They stop running from it.
The most effective leaders I work with have learned something that goes against everything our culture teaches about success: uncertainty isn't just an obstacle to overcome [15]. It's information. It's a teacher. It's the raw material from which clarity emerges—not through force, but through presence.
That CEO who sat across from me? He didn't need better strategies. He needed permission to not know. Permission to feel the weight of responsibility without carrying it as identity. Permission to lead from the ground of his being rather than the performance of his role.
The events of recent years have made this clear: the ability to be present with uncertainty isn't just a leadership skill [16]. It's a human necessity. And those who can sit with the unknown—who can make decisions from stillness rather than panic—they're the ones who will guide us through whatever comes next.
What follows isn't a formula for eliminating uncertainty. It's an invitation to change your relationship with it. To discover what becomes possible when you stop trying to control what cannot be controlled, and start trusting what you've always known but perhaps forgotten how to hear.
The Architecture of Your Inner Weather
The body remembers what the mind forgets.
When uncertainty arrives, your nervous system responds before your intellect even registers the threat. Your chest tightens. Your breathing becomes shallow. Your jaw clenches in ways you don't notice until someone points it out.
I've sat with leaders who can dissect market volatility with surgical precision, yet they have no language for the contraction that happens in their ribcage when the numbers don't add up. They've mastered the external landscape but remain strangers to their own internal weather patterns.
Understanding your personal response to uncertainty isn't about fixing yourself. It's about recognizing the signals your body sends before your mind starts spinning stories.
The Three Faces of Overwhelm
Under pressure, I've observed leaders move through predictable patterns—not categories to be diagnosed, but rhythms to be witnessed.
Some become what researchers call "delusional"—clinging to familiar realities even when the ground is shifting beneath them. Others become "mesmerized"—they see the challenges clearly but remain frozen, waiting for the fog to lift. The third group learns to be "agile"—willing to ask questions that have no easy answers and to move forward despite incomplete information .
But here's what the research doesn't capture: these aren't fixed identities. They're states. And states can shift.
Nearly one-third of small business leaders report feeling exhausted or burned out regularly, with 7% experiencing burnout daily . But I've learned that what we call burnout is often the nervous system's way of saying: "I've been bracing for too long."
The warning signs are more subtle than we think. Decreased creativity. Difficulty focusing. A heaviness that doesn't lift with rest. Increased irritability that feels foreign to your usual nature . These aren't character flaws. They're the body's intelligence trying to communicate what the mind isn't ready to hear.
When Fear Becomes Your Compass
There's a particular quality of thinking that uncertainty triggers—the spiral into catastrophic possibility. I've watched brilliant minds become prisoner to scenarios that will never unfold, yet feel more real than the present moment.
"It's easy for leaders to get caught up in worst-case-scenario thinking," but what if that vigilance is actually intelligence misplaced? What if the mind that can imagine disaster is the same mind that can envision breakthrough?
The practice isn't about forcing positive thinking. It's about recognizing when you're in the spiral and asking: "What if something beautiful is trying to emerge from this chaos?"
Jeff Bezos applies this principle through his "70% Rule"—make decisions when you have 70% of necessary information, then adjust course as needed . This isn't about recklessness. It's about trusting that clarity emerges through movement, not waiting.
The Mirror You Didn't Know You Were Holding
Your relationship with uncertainty doesn't stay private. It becomes the atmosphere your team breathes.
Employees mirror their leaders' nervous systems during ambiguous periods. If you're bracing, they're bracing. If you're present, they can exhale . This isn't about performance. It's about transmission.
I've seen leaders inadvertently create what I call "toxic optimism"—appearing uncomfortable with their teams' genuine struggles, creating a disconnect between leadership's perception and employees' lived reality . The result? People stop sharing what's really happening.
But here's what builds trust: acknowledging the limits of your knowledge. Not as weakness, but as honesty. The most respected leaders I work with communicate more frequently during uncertain periods, authentically sharing their own questions while holding steady in their commitment to the organization's deeper purpose .
Because what your team needs isn't your certainty. They need your presence. Your willingness to not know and still show up. Your capacity to hold space for the unknown without making it about you.
That's the beginning of leadership that doesn't just manage uncertainty—it transforms it into the raw material of trust.
The Paradox of Not Knowing
I've watched leaders try to hold two truths at once: the need to decide, and the reality of not having enough information to decide well. This tension lives in the body. I can see it in the way someone's shoulders rise when asked a question they can't answer. The slight pause before they speak. The almost imperceptible shift in breathing.
Most leaders resolve this tension by choosing a side. They either perform certainty—speaking with authority they don't feel—or they collapse into indecision, waiting for a clarity that may never come.
But there's a third way. A way that holds both the knowing and the not knowing without needing to resolve the paradox.
When the Map Runs Out
There comes a moment in every leader's journey when the familiar territory ends. The strategies that brought you here no longer apply. The expertise you've built your identity on suddenly feels insufficient.
Exceptional leaders recognize that waiting for complete information often creates more problems than it solves . They've learned to distinguish between what they need to know and what they think they need to know. "Sometimes we have to figure out when to move forward and stop collecting information," note leadership experts. "There's a tradeoff for waiting ."
This isn't about rushing into decisions. It's about recognizing that the quality of a decision isn't measured by the amount of information you had, but by how present you were with what you did have.
Many leaders become trapped by an obsession with outcomes. They confuse good decisions with good results, which creates hesitation when the future is unclear. But the leaders I work with have learned to separate process from outcome. They make decisions based on coherence, not on the need to be right.
The Inner Compass
When external markers disappear, something else must guide you. Not strategy. Not forecasts. But something deeper.
Values become your compass when visibility drops to zero. Not the values printed on office walls, but the ones that live in your bones. The ones that emerge when everything else falls away.
Effective leaders "outline the principles which will guide decision-making through the maze of ambiguity ." These aren't moral decorations. They're practical anchors. They answer the question: "Who do we choose to be when no one is watching?"
These principles don't eliminate difficulty. They clarify it. They help you see that the hard choice and the right choice are often the same choice.
And when you lead from this place—when your decisions reflect your essence rather than your anxiety—something shifts. Not just in you, but in the surrounding field. People can feel the difference between leadership that's performed and leadership that's grounded.
The Strength in Softening
The most powerful leaders I know have learned to say three words: "I don't know."
Not as confession. As declaration.
"Being vulnerable doesn't mean being weak; it's about creating deeper connections by being real with others ."
This isn't about collapsing your authority. It's about locating its true source. Authority that comes from presence, not pretense. From coherence, not control.
The balance looks like this:
• Acknowledging uncertainty without abandoning direction • Feeling the weight of responsibility without carrying it as identity
• Sharing concerns while staying anchored in possibility • Saying "I don't know" and then outlining how you'll find out
This approach builds trust not because it projects strength, but because it reveals humanity. And in that revelation, something deeper than confidence emerges.
Presence.
The kind of leadership that doesn't need to know everything because it trusts what cannot be measured: the intelligence that emerges when we stop performing and start listening.
The Currency of Truth
Trust is not built solely on competence. It lives in the spaces between words, in the pauses before answers, in the willingness to name what everyone else pretends not to see.
I've sat in rooms where leaders spoke with perfect polish while their teams held their breath. The words were right. The strategy was sound. But something in the field felt hollow. Trusting employees are 260% more motivated, have 41% lower absenteeism rates, and are 50% less likely to seek new employment [9]. Yet most employers overestimate their workforce's trust by nearly 40%.
The gap isn't in the metrics. It's in the transmission.
Trust isn't earned through performance. It's cultivated through presence. Through the radical act of telling the truth—not just the facts, but the felt reality of what it means to lead when the ground is shifting beneath everyone's feet.
The Ache of Silence
Silence, I've learned, is not neutral. It's not the absence of communication—it's a force. And in uncertain times, silence becomes the story your people tell themselves when you don't.
"If you're not giving your employees regular updates, they'll make up what they don't know to fill the information vacuum" [10]. But here's what I've observed: it's not just the absence of information that creates anxiety. It's the absence of emotional honesty.
Your people can sense when you're withholding—not just data, but feeling. When you're managing your own fear by controlling the narrative. When you're performing confidence instead of embodying it.
The rule I've learned from working with leaders who build lasting trust is this: when you feel you're over-communicating, you're finally communicating enough [11]. But communication is more than frequency. It's transmission. It's the willingness to let your humanity show through your authority.
Use language that includes rather than instructs. "We" and "us" instead of "you" and "them." Because trust isn't built by talking at people. It's built by thinking with them.
The Power of Not Knowing
There are three words that separate leaders who perform authority from those who embody it: "I don't know."
These words don't diminish your power. They reveal it. Because real power isn't the ability to have all the answers—it's the capacity to hold the questions without falling apart [12].
When you acknowledge the limits of your knowledge, you don't weaken your position. You strengthen the field. You transform uncertainty from a threat into a shared threshold. You give your people permission to think, to contribute, to co-create solutions instead of simply executing commands.
Your message doesn't need to be complex. What's happening. What you're doing about it. What you need from your team [13]. This simplicity isn't reduction—it's distillation. It's the difference between managing information and transmitting coherence.
The Vision That Breathes
Transparency without vision is just confession. But vision without transparency is just manipulation.
The leaders I work with understand that a shared vision isn't a destination you're selling—it's a frequency you're living. Approximately 70% of significant transformation efforts fail due to poorly articulated visions [14]. But most of these failures aren't about clarity of language. They're about authenticity of feeling.
People don't follow visions because they're compelling. They follow visions because they can feel their leader's genuine relationship to what they're saying. Because the vision isn't something being imposed from above—it's something being remembered together [15].
This is what I mean by transparency "at the highest level roadmap, showing everyone where we're headed and why" [15]. It's not just about communicating direction. It's about creating coherence. About helping people feel how their individual truth connects to something larger than themselves.
When you reinforce your team's mission regularly, you're not just providing information. You're tending to the emotional architecture that sustains people when outcomes feel uncertain [16]. You're creating what I call an anchor of purpose—not something that keeps people stuck, but something that keeps them steady.
Ultimately, trust isn't built solely through transparency. It's built through the integration of truth and vision, honesty and hope, presence and possibility.
Your people don't just want to know what's happening. They want to feel that someone is holding the bigger picture while they do their part of the work.
That someone is you. Not because you have all the answers, but because you're willing to hold all the questions.
The Circle of Witness
No one walks this path alone.
Not the CEO who sits in the corner office. Not the founder who built something from nothing. Not the leader who carries the weight of decisions that ripple through hundreds of lives.
The myth of the solitary leader—the one who has all the answers, who never wavers, who stands apart—is not just false. It's dangerous.
92% of executives believe feedback, especially from peers, is essential for their growth as leaders [17]. But this isn't just about feedback. It's about being witnessed. It's about having someone see you—not the role you play, but the human beneath it.
Your ability to build a support network might be the difference between thriving and merely surviving during challenging times. More than that, it's the difference between leading from isolation and leading from wholeness.
The Sacred Council
Unlike formal corporate boards, a personal advisory board consists of 3-5 handpicked individuals who provide objective guidance during uncertain periods [18]. But think of them not as advisors—think of them as witnesses. As companions on the spiral path of leadership.
These should be people with complementary skills and experiences different from your own—former executives, industry leaders, or experienced coaches who bring lived experience and integrity [18]. They are the ones who can see your blind spots. Who can reflect back what you cannot see yourself.
The gifts they offer:
Strategic clarity before formal presentations
Emotional resilience through safe spaces for vulnerability
A broader perspective to avoid echo chambers
Anticipatory guidance from those who have walked similar terrain [18]
Regardless of industry, your advisors should have "no vested interest in the outcome of your deliberation" [19]. They are there not to tell you what to do, but to help you remember who you are when the pressure mounts.
The Mirror of Peers
Organizations that incorporate peer feedback in their leadership development programs are 42% more likely to outperform their competitors [17]. But this isn't about performance metrics. It's about the medicine of being met.
When you create regular feedback mechanisms, you don't just improve processes. You create a culture where challenges become shared thresholds. Where no one has to carry the weight alone.
One CEO described peer-to-peer feedback as "a more interactive, live experience than other business programs" [1]. What he was really describing was the experience of being seen—not as a leader who should have all the answers, but as a human in process.
The Courage to Ask
There is a moment in every leader's journey when the pretense falls away. When the armor becomes too heavy. When the question arises: "What if I don't have to do this alone?"
CEOs who openly seek assistance demonstrate self-awareness and determination to find optimal solutions in uncharted territories [20]. This vulnerability might feel uncomfortable at first. But it ultimately becomes a source of strength.
"Being vulnerable doesn't mean being weak; it's about creating deeper connections by being real with others" [21]. When you acknowledge that you need support, you give permission for others to do the same.
Your willingness to seek help during uncertainty sets the cultural tone. Teams who regularly engage in mutual support are 20% more likely to develop trust and respect [17]—essential qualities for weathering unpredictable challenges together.
But more than that, when you ask for help, you model what it means to be human. To be whole. To lead not from the illusion of perfection, but from the truth of becoming.
The circle of witness is not a luxury. It is how we return to ourselves when the world asks us to forget.
That CEO I mentioned at the beginning? He sits differently now. Not because he has all the answers. But because he no longer needs them to breathe.
What we've explored together isn't really about uncertainty at all. It's about remembering what lies beneath the need to know. What remains when the strategy falls away. What emerges when you stop performing competence and start inhabiting presence.
The leaders who move through ambiguity with grace aren't the ones who eliminate the unknown. They're the ones who have made peace with it. Who have learned to listen to the wisdom that lives in the space between stimulus and response. Who trust the compass that doesn't point north—but points inward.
This isn't about becoming a better leader.
It's about remembering who you were before you learned to lead from fear.
The practices we've touched—the willingness to not know, the courage to speak truth, the humility to ask for help—these aren't strategies to master. They're frequencies to embody. They're invitations to return to the part of you that never left, even when everything else felt lost.
Uncertainty will come again. It always does. But your relationship with it can be different now. Not because you've learned to control it, but because you've remembered how to be with it. How to breathe in the space where answers used to live. How to make decisions from presence rather than panic.
The fog will lift when it's ready. Your job isn't to see through it.
Your job is to remain whole within it.
And to trust that clarity, when it comes, will find you exactly where you are—not because you chased it, but because you were still enough to hear it approaching.
The greatest leaders I know aren't the ones who see the furthest ahead. They're the ones who can sit with the present moment so completely that the future begins to reveal itself through them.
That is what waits for you now. Not perfect vision.
But perfect presence.
And from that presence, everything else will unfold—not as you planned it, but as it was always meant to be.
If you enjoyed this read, the best compliment I could receive would be if you shared it with one person or restacked it.
Dr. Aldo Civico is a globally recognized executive coach and leadership advisor, ranked among the Top 5 Leadership Authorities by Global Gurus. He has taught negotiation and conflict resolution at Columbia University and partnered with legendary leadership expert John Mattone, former coach to Steve Jobs.
With over two decades of experience, Aldo has coached C-Suite executives, political leaders, creatives, and entrepreneurs across the U.S., Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East. His unique approach blends neuroscience, epigenetics, emotional mastery, and generative coaching to help leaders transform from the inside out.
Through The Inner Boardroom™, Aldo shares the confidential insights and deep shifts that create authentic, sustainable leadership in high-stakes environments.
References
[1] - https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/10-strategies-for-leading-in-uncertain-times/
[2] - https://ryanestis.com/blog/leadership/leading-through-uncertainty/
[3] - https://hbr.org/2021/04/6-strategies-for-leading-through-uncertainty
[4] - https://blog.haiilo.com/blog/ceo-communications/
[5] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/adriangostick/2024/09/12/4-strategies-to-lead-through-uncertainty/
[6] - https://www.russellreynolds.com/en/insights/reports-surveys/leadership-through-uncertainty
[7] - https://davidburkus.com/2025/06/leading-through-uncertainty/
[8] - https://voltagecontrol.com/articles/achieving-success-together-shared-vision-in-leadership/
[9] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexanderpuutio/2025/01/11/ceos-guide-to-transparency-how-to-build-trust-and-accountability/
[10] - https://bonezonepub.com/2024/04/09/effective-leaders-know-how-to-create-a-shared-vision/
[11] - https://smart-360-feedback.com/blogs/blog-what-are-the-key-benefits-of-incorporating-peer-feedback-in-executive-evaluations-40714
[12] - https://www.kingsleygate.com/insights/article/ceo-personal-advisory-board-solution-for-leadership-loneliness/
[13] - https://damienfaughnan.com/the-wise-ceo-has-many-advisors-how-to-create-a-personal-board-of-advisors/
[14] - https://inbusinessphx.com/leadership-management/even-successful-ceos-need-peer-peer-feedback
[15] - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/unveiling-strength-behind-ceos-seeking-help-faycal-salek
[16] - https://medium.com/@Jon_35384/leadership-lessons-how-to-ask-for-help-475acb1f086c