There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that doesn’t come from working too hard.

According to CCL/Centre for Creative Leadership, leaders who can’t handle a fast pace of unrelenting uncertainty are less likely to feel motivated and more likely to become overwhelmed. They suffer, and so do their teams.

It comes from working hard while pretending things are stable… when they’re not.

You’ve felt it.

Plans shift mid-stride.
Priorities quietly rearrange themselves.
A meeting ends, and you’re left unsure what just happened or where things actually stand.

And still, you show up.

You make decisions.
You hold space for the people around you.
You keep things moving, because if you slow down, everything might slow down with you.

I just need to get through this next bit.

Most leadership advice for uncertain times will tell you to stay calm. Communicate clearly. Be decisive. Project confidence.

Useful. Not wrong.

But incomplete.

Because it focuses on what leadership looks like…
not what leadership requires underneath.

And that gap is where most leaders burn out.

The Question Nobody’s Asking

Before you can lead well through instability, there’s something worth noticing first.

What does instability actually activate in you?

Not rhetorically. Actually.

Because uncertainty doesn’t arrive as a neutral event.
It lands on whatever is already running in the background, which parts of you have been carrying the load, and which parts haven’t had a moment to breathe in a while.

For some leaders, instability activates the doer, the achiever.
Work harder. Move faster. Create momentum.
Productivity becomes a way of feeling in control.

For others, it’s the protector.
Scan for risk. Anticipate what could go wrong. Stay alert.
Even when the day ends, your mind doesn’t.

And for others, particularly those who lead with deep care for the people around them, it’s the caretaker.
Holding everyone steady. Managing the emotional climate.
Being the calm one in the room, even when there’s very little left for yourself.

None of these is a wrong response.

They’re intelligent.

They’ve likely served you well for a long time.

But when one of them runs on repeat, without the others to balance it, something starts to shift.

The achiever, running alone, starts making decisions that are fast… but not always wise.
The protector, running alone, starts seeing threats where curiosity is needed.
The caretaker, running alone, starts absorbing more than they can hold.

The ground keeps moving.

And the response that once felt like strength starts to feel like a cage.

What Your Team Is Actually Picking Up

Here’s the part that lands differently when leaders hear it for the first time.

Your nervous system is contagious.

Not metaphorically. Neurologically.

Which means your team isn’t just responding to your decisions.

They’re responding to your state.

Research on emotional contagion shows that people are significantly more likely to mirror the emotional tone of a leader than of any peer. Through facial expression, tone, posture, and micro-behaviors, your team’s nervous systems are constantly and unconsciously synchronizing with yours (Barsade, 2002).

When you’re regulated, they think more clearly.
They take considered risks.
They speak up.

When you’re holding tension even subtly, even well, they are too.

This isn’t a reason to perform calmly.

That distinction matters.

Because calm is its own signal.

People who work closely with you don’t just hear what you say.

They read the pause before you say it.
The shift in your tone.
The email sent at 9 pm that feels just slightly different.

They can tell the difference between a leader who is grounded
and a leader who is holding it together through sheer effort.

One creates safety.
The other creates vigilance.

And a team operating in low-level vigilance is not a team doing its best thinking.

Emerging neuroscience research reinforces this: a leader’s emotional state doesn’t just influence mood, it shapes how teams process information, assess risk, and relate to each other (Boukarras et al., 2024). The effect is also asymmetric; it flows more strongly from the leader to the team than the other way around.

You have more influence than you realize.

Which is both the weight of this work and the possibility in it.

Steadiness Is Not the Same as Stillness

Leading through instability doesn’t require you to have all the answers.

But it does require something most leadership advice doesn’t talk about:

The ability to stay with yourself when things feel uncertain.

There’s a difference between a leader who appears unaffected by everything
and a leader who is affected and knows how to come back to the center.

One is performing invulnerability.
The other is grounded.

Your team can feel the difference, even if they can’t name it.

And when you lead from that grounded place, something shifts.

People speak more honestly.
They named uncertainty earlier.
They take considered risks instead of defensive ones.

Research into authentic leadership shows that in uncertain environments, it isn’t confidence or decisiveness that reduces defensive behavior, it’s authenticity. When leaders are honest about what they don’t know, while staying present and oriented, teams make better decisions (Artinger et al., 2025).

The inside work is the outside work.

It always has been.

What Grounded Actually Looks Like

Not a perfect exterior.

Not a rehearsed version of calm.

Not pretending you’re fine when you’re not.

Grounded looks like noticing your reaction before you hand it to the room.

Pausing, not to suppress it, but to choose how it lands.

It looks like being able to say:
“I don’t have full clarity on this yet”
without it reading as a collapse.

Because the words aren’t coming from anxiety.
They’re coming from presence.

It looks like staying curious about your team instead of rushing to fix or reassure.

“Why won’t they settle into this direction?”

Maybe because they’re doing exactly what you are.

Looking for solid ground.

And maybe what they need isn’t more information.

Maybe they need to feel that the person leading them
isn’t outrunning the uncertainty, but can stay with it.

That kind of presence is not soft.

It’s one of the most demanding capabilities in leadership.

And it can’t be performed for long.

It has to come from somewhere real.

The Part That Doesn’t Get Said

For some leaders, this work carries another layer.

When you’ve had to work harder to be taken seriously…
when you’ve learned to read rooms quickly and adapt…
when you’ve spent years managing how you’re perceived…

Steadiness is not just a skill.

It’s something you’ve had to earn.

And it has cost something.

Holding yourself in systems that weren’t designed for you.

Being both excellent and unthreatening,
confident and accommodating,

that is its own form of invisible labor.

So the question isn’t just:

How do I lead steadily through this?

It’s also:

Who is holding me while I hold everyone else?

Because real groundedness isn’t built in isolation.

It’s built through support.
Through honest conversations.
Through rest that actually restores something.

And through moments where you don’t have to be the steady one.

That’s not a weakness.

That’s what makes it sustainable.

The Invitation

If things feel unsettled right now in your organization, your industry, or the wider world - that’s not a personal failing.

It’s the context.

You didn’t create it.

But how you move through it will shape the culture around you in ways that outlast whatever is currently shifting.

The tone you set in the difficult meeting.
The way you respond when the plan changes again.
What you model when no one is watching, and when everyone is.

Over time, something else becomes clear.

Resilience isn’t about getting to a place where things feel certain again.

It’s about becoming someone who can move, decide, and lead
without needing certainty to come first.

Because the more we resist uncertainty, the more pressure we create.

And the more pressure we create, the harder it becomes to think clearly, act cleanly, and trust our own judgement.

Steadiness, real steadiness, doesn’t come from having more certainty than everyone else.

It comes from being able to stay present when certainty isn’t available.

And most leaders aren’t taught how to do that.

That work begins here.

With a quieter question:

Which part of you has been leading lately, and is that the part you’d actually choose?

Frequently Asked Questions

What if I don’t feel grounded right now, where do I start?

Start with noticing, not fixing. Before you change anything, understand what’s currently running. Which pattern has been leading, achiever, protector, caretaker? Awareness isn’t a delay. It’s the work.

How do I regulate without performing calm?

Regulation isn’t the absence of emotion. It’s the ability to feel something without immediately expressing it. Even a short pause between trigger and response changes the neurological pattern. Build spaces where you can process honestly, not perform.

My team seems disengaged, could this be about me?

Partly, sometimes. Research shows that a leader’s emotional state influences team engagement. But the more useful question is: what is the disengagement signalling, and have I created conditions where it can be spoken?

Is it okay to show uncertainty as a leader?

Yes, with intention. There’s a difference between sharing uncertainty in a way that invites thinking and sharing it in a way that spreads anxiety. When grounded, honesty builds trust more than false certainty.

References

Barsade, S. G. (2002). The ripple effect: Emotional contagion and its influence on group behavior. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47(4), 644–675.

Artinger, F. M., Marx-Fleck, S., Junker, N. M., Gigerenzer, G., Artinger, S., & van Dick, R. (2025). Coping with uncertainty: The interaction of psychological safety and authentic leadership in their effects on defensive decision making. Journal of Business Research, 190.

Boukarras, S., Ferri, D., Borgogni, L., & Aglioti, S. M. (2024). Neurophysiological markers of asymmetric emotional contagion: Implications for organisational contexts. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience.

Edmondson, A. C., Kerrissey, M., & Bahadurzada, H. (2024). Psychological safety as an enduring resource under organisational constraint. Harvard Business School Working Paper.

Backlinks

https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/leadership-resiliency-handling-stress-uncertainty-and-setbacks/

If this resonated and you're ready to build the kind of communication skills that make difficult conversations feel less like a minefield and more like a doorway — let's talk. Book your complimentary discovery session at tracyganducoach.com and let's explore what becomes possible.

With love, Tracy.