Leaders are praised for “seeing around corners” and told to “skate to where the puck is going.” But what if you can’t even see your own feet, let alone a puck or a distant corner?
Today’s volatility and uncertainty obscure any clear path to the future, and the forecast isn’t improving any time soon. In a recent World Economic Forum survey, 52% of experts expect an unsettled two-year horizon, 31% anticipate turbulence, and 5% foresee storms.
Even if the weather were clear, setting a direction of travel is increasingly difficult as leaders face more complex problems with no obvious or easy solution. Close to 60% of business executives admit that they are missing opportunities because they can’t make decisions fast enough. However bleak the landscape, there is a way to lead even when you can’t see the future. This requires letting go of standard practices and building a new skill.
What No Longer Serves You
Leadership has long meant setting a compelling destination, planning the route, and mobilizing people to move. The classic tool kit—forecast, plan, execute—assumes a knowable future. With today’s complexity, forecasts are guesses and plans expire fast. Leaders who aren’t shifting away from a predict–plan–act approach will see their impact erode—and their well-being with it.
The reason sits in the brain. When complexity is high, trying to predict accurately and act decisively strains a leader’s cognitive load—the mental effort required to process information and choose. It’s the difference between running on a clear, lit path and running on dark ice with crosswinds: far more effort, far less progress. Add time pressure and constant digital distractions, and cognitive load spikes further.
When cognitive load stays high, brain fog sets in, decision speed drops, details slip, and big-picture comprehension narrows. In short, you’re not the leader you intend to be. It’s time to work differently.
Awareness: The Quality That Changes How You Lead
We can’t control the pace of the world, but we can change how we meet it. We can move from a predict-plan-act approach to a stop-sense-adapt approach. The key to this approach is awareness, the ability to notice what is happening—in yourself, your team, and the larger system—and choose accordingly. With greater awareness, you enhance your perception of emotions, biases, strengths, and limitations and can read the dynamics of the team, the organization, and the market. Rather than constantly seeking answers, you stop, notice, and let answers arise.
Unfortunately, our awareness is often scattered, crowded out by biases, fears, and clouded perceptions. Roughly 45% of our everyday behaviors are habitual (often outside conscious awareness), and our noisy, information-filled world clouds awareness even more. However, the case for building awareness is strong: in recent Potential Project research, teams led by highly aware leaders reported 78% higher trust in the company’s leadership, 57% higher psychological safety, and 56% higher commitment to the company.
For leaders, mastering three mindsets makes awareness actionable and achievable: presence to anchor us in the moment, clarity to see options and define a path forward, and adaptability to navigate new paths even when uncomfortable.
Three Mindsets for the Moment
Presence: Stay in the Moment
Presence is the ability to be fully attentive in the moment—with ourselves, the people in front of us, the task at hand, or what’s happening around us. Our research indicates that we are distracted even when we think we are paying attention, about 37% of the time. But when we can be present in the moment rather than being pulled by a million thoughts, things slow down and it’s easier to focus our attention on the things that matter, not just the things that squeak the loudest.
Clarity: Find a Path
Clarity is the ability to rise above uncertainty and chaos rather than trying to solve for them. It’s not about having clear answers all of the time, but about having a clear mind that can better find the signal within the noise. Clarity of mind feels spacious and calm. It is the difference between being in the clouds and feeling overwhelmed versus being able to step back into the vastness of the sky and see the clouds more clearly. It is a welcome alternative when nearly 2/3 of leaders say they experience information overload from trying to keep up with texts, chats, emails, and meetings. Clarity helps us to see ways forward, even when it is foggy
Adaptability: Navigate the Path
Adaptability is the ability to shift approaches as things change. Adaptable leaders accept new circumstances or unfamiliar territory with openness rather than holding too tightly to familiar routines or past experiences. Adaptable leaders often believe that change is inevitable, natural, and a source of growth. With a mindset of adaptability, leaders can navigate more confidently down new paths, even when the unfamiliar feels hard.
The marriage of Awareness and AI
As we regularly witness, AI can scan oceans of data, summarize patterns, and surface signals faster than any team. This is a huge advantage for leaders. For example, AI can give us consistent, data-informed feedback on our leadership and correct for blind spots we have about our strengths and weaknesses. AI can synthesize data about how our organization and employees are doing and surface trends, opportunities, and challenges that may have escaped our notice.
However, AI is a leader’s advantage only if paired with awareness. Awareness adds the human context machines don’t hold: history, social dynamics, values, and the lived experience of people affected by decisions. It also keeps us alert to borrowed bias—assumptions in the data or model that would steer us wrong if left unquestioned. Used together, AI expands what we can see; awareness ensures we interpret wisely.
Here are a few ways to start strengthening your skills of awareness, with and without the help of technology:
- Don’t outsource connection to yourself and others. Take advantage of devices that help monitor your levels of distraction and track heart rate variability, pulse, and stress levels. These can help us be more present with ourselves and take corrective action to be more present with others. But over-relying on devices to tell us how we feel diminishes our capacity for self-awareness. Similarly, using tools for feedback on a team shouldn’t prevent you from reading a room, understanding others’ feelings, and making a connection.
- Clear the mental clutter. There is so much already competing with our attention, and the abundance of AI resources can get overwhelming. It is harder to practice awareness when our brains are full. The best approach is a both/and: use AI as a filter and summarizer, for example, but watch that it doesn’t tip over into a source of distraction.
- Try new things: When we implement new routines or learn new skills, we become more adaptable, capable of seeing habitual patterns and breaking free of them. Experiment with AI-enabled apps that can support you in this pursuit in fun and rewarding ways. But don’t hesitate to try something very simple like brushing your teeth with your nondominant hand or taking a new route to the grocery store.
You don’t need a perfect forecast to lead—just a better beam
When visibility is low, speed—or constant action—is not a leadership virtue. Better to change the way you see and respond. Awareness widens your field of view and keeps you oriented to what needs to be done—one confident step at a time. When we stop to be present, sense the signals with clarity, and adapt in short, honest moves, we demonstrate to our teams that we are steering with care.