There is a particular pressure that comes with leading change.
The expectation – your own internal expectation of yourself, more often than anything your team explicitly asks for – that as the leader you should know exactly what’s happening, what’s coming, and what it all means. That uncertainty is something to be managed, contained, and ideally hidden until you have something more concrete to say.
Many leaders feel they need to project confidence they don’t entirely feel. They say ‘don’t worry, it’ll be fine’ when they don’t actually know that it will be. They defer updates until they have something definitive to share. Or they say nothing at all, because saying nothing feels safer than admitting they don’t know.
When this happens their teams are left to fill the gaps. When there are gaps in information, our brains don’t sit patiently with the unknown – they speculate. Unknown is interpreted as uncertainty and uncertainty triggers the threat response.
Our brains fill the gaps with worst case scenarios, because our brains in threat response are scanning for danger. The silence you intended as neutral – or the update you’re holding back until you have something concrete to say – is interpreted as a threat. In your team’s heads, the silence is being replaced with something considerably worse.
This is one of the reasons that honest, regular communication – even when there is nothing new to say, and you have no amswers – is one of the most powerful things a leader can do during a period of change.
If you’ve been following this series you’ll know that our brains cope better with the certainty of a bad outcome than with not knowing what the outcome will be. Which means that naming uncertainty clearly – ‘I don’t have the answers to that yet, and here’s what I do know’ – is more settling for your team than reassurance that fudges what you don’t know and doesn’t quite ring true.
Here is what that can look like in practice.
When you don’t have an update: ‘There is no new information this week. I know that’s frustrating. What I can tell you is that when there is something to share, you will hear it from me directly. I will update you every Thursday at our team meeting, whether there is news or not.’
When you genuinely don’t know the answers: ‘I don’t know yet. That’s an honest answer. I will always be honest over making something up to sound more certain. What I do know is [x], and my best thinking right now is [y]. I’ll update you when that changes.’
When the situation has shifted and you need to change direction: “‘We made the best call we could with what we knew. What we know now is different, and so is the plan. Here’s what’s changing and here’s what isn’t.’
When you can see your team is anxious: ‘I know there’s a lot of uncertainty at the moment, and you want answers that we don’t have. I know that’s uncomfortable. I can’t make that go away, but I can make sure you’re not sitting with it alone. What would help you most right now?’
What these have in common is that they don’t pretend. They acknowledge the uncertainty rather than papering over it, they give people something concrete to hold onto – even if that concrete thing is just ‘you will hear from me every Thursday’ – and they create space for the team to say what they need rather than leaving them to speculate. This kind of consistency builds trust. And when everything else feels uncertain, knowing they can trust you is the most settling thing you can offer your team.
This matters because your emotions as a leader are contagious. Your team takes its cues from you – not just from what you say but from how you carry yourself. A leader who is visibly uncomfortable with uncertainty, who changes the subject when difficult questions come up, or who gives reassurances that don’t quite add up, communicates anxiety even when the words say otherwise. A leader who can sit with uncertainty calmly, name it honestly, and keep showing up consistently – that is the thing that settles a team.
You don’t need to have all the answers. You just need to be the person your team can trust to tell them the truth about where things are.
If this resonates and you’d like more practical thinking for leaders navigating change, sign up for the Lucidity email – I drop practical tips and tools into your inbox every week.
P.S. If you’re leading a team through a period of significant change and finding the communication side of it harder than expected – that’s something I work on with leaders directly. Book a call and let’s talk about what’s getting in the way.