It sounds almost clichéd to talk about how the pace of change and level of uncertainty in today’s world makes leadership especially challenging. Leadership has always required navigating uncertainty. However, I am noticing that things have amplified in 2025. In a ‘post-truth’ world, many leaders at both national and organisational levels are struggling to navigate the way forward when almost everything they reach for is intangible.
In this atmosphere, many leaders, regardless of experience, are questioning their capacity to handle their responsibilities. The way they respond to this situation is telling, and a real test of emotional health. When faced with these challenges, some leaders manage to stay above the line, while others struggle to do so.
I’ve written previously about the role of vulnerability in authentic leadership. I wrote about the ‘protective coatings’ that leaders can adopt when their focus turns to self-protection, even if that is detrimental to the greater good.
What is happening now, as things become harder still, is that some leaders are doubling down on their self-protection strategies. This is an understandable automatic reaction, given the pressures involved. However, it nearly always achieves the opposite of what they intend.
Defensive leadership turns inwards
In addition to the protective coatings I described in that previous post – actions that are largely individual coping mechanisms – I am noticing a more all-encompassing approach to leadership that defaults to the below-the-line response of defensiveness … while also undermining trust and effectiveness. Come of the characteristics of this approach include:
- Information hoarding: leaders withhold critical information from their teams and key stakeholders under the guise of ‘not wanting to worry them’, ‘protecting them from uncertainty’ or ‘waiting on more information’. This reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what people need more than ever before: truth, context and the opportunity to contribute to solutions.
- Selective transparency: sharing only positive updates, while hiding challenges, setbacks or areas of genuine uncertainty. Another version of this is to maintain a ‘black hat’ view of the situation, that causes everyone else to sit in unease and concern. The first situation creates a false narrative that everything is under control when it clearly isn't, while the second creates a false narrative that everything is very much out of control when that may not be the case.
- Decision paralysis disguised as deliberation: endless analysis and consultation that masks a leader’s fear of making the wrong choice. Ultimately this creates more uncertainty for everyone involved.
- The ‘saviour’ complex: taking on increasingly impossible workloads and responsibilities while insisting that others ‘can't handle’ certain information or situations. This effectively isolates the leader from the very support systems they need.
- Communication shutdown: reducing communication frequency or depth when challenges arise, rather than increasing connection and dialogue when it's most needed.
As I mentioned, these below-the-line reactions seldom improve the situation and generally lead to the opposite, whereby:
- Trust is eroded. People can sense when information is being withheld. They then assume the worst.
- Capacity is reduced. Teams can’t help solve problems they don’t know exist.
- Anxiety increases. Uncertainty about what is really happening creates more stress than knowing the truth.
- Innovation is limited. Without full context, teams can’t contribute their best thinking. As a consequence, the leader becomes further disconnected from their support systems.
Emotionally healthy leadership embraces vulnerability
Emotionally healthy leadership deals with uncertainty very differently. As I wrote last time, ‘The emotionally healthy leader embraces vulnerability, recognising that it is a normal and expected aspect of being a leader.’
Emotionally healthy leaders bring their team along with them. They accept and admit that they don’t have all the answers. They are comfortable saying, ‘I don’t know’, and in doing so they are willing to ‘share the pain’.
Emotionally healthy leaders trust that their team will be able to cope with reality, so they share bad news with context and hope, not from a place of hesitation or fear. They trust that their people are capable of rising to meet challenges when they’re equipped with truth, and that bringing everyone on board is the best way to find a way forward.
How do they do this in practice?
The first step is to engage the inner observer and be honest with themselves about what they see. Leaders need the behavioural freedom to recognise any protective patterns or defence mechanisms they are starting to adopt, and then choose more emotionally healthy alternatives. For instance, they need to notice when they are withholding information out of their own discomfort rather than for genuine strategic necessity.
Further, in their authentic desire for the truth, emotionally healthy leaders will reach out to trusted colleagues or friends who might notice these mechanisms creeping in.
Let’s look at some specific examples of questions emotionally healthy leaders might ask themselves:
- What information am I withholding, and why?
- What am I afraid will happen if I share this challenge or uncertainty?
- How might my team or key stakeholders be able to help if they knew the full picture?
- What assumptions am I making about others’ capacity to handle difficulties?
- How is my defensiveness creating more problems than it solves?
In contrast to shifting back into patterns that are self-defeating and that reduce engagement and the trust of others, the leaders who will thrive in today’s uncertainty will be those who can sit with that uncertainty while creating connection, who can be honest about challenges while maintaining hope and who can ask for help while providing direction
Gayle