Transferable Leadership Skills to Navigate VUCA

Neil Gonsalves discusses strategies to deal with volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) in the workplace.

Written by Neil Gonsalves for Seeking Veritas on Substack

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

“When you make decisions alone, you gratify your ego, but you’re relying on partial information. Ignorant like Icarus, you fly too close to the sun. Leaders need a new approach that engages everyone to solve problems.” - Garcia and Fischer , 2023

A lot has changed over my nearly two decades as a post secondary educator, and almost three decades in the Canadian workforce. The ways of doing business has been drastically changed, new technologies have altered processes but also norms. It is easy to forget that if we measured Google, social media, smartphones and the internet-of-things in human chronology, they are all still in the bratty teenage years.

The OEBM (Old Economic Business Model) has gone the way of the telegram or dial-up internet, and our new precarious gig economy is characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), yet somethings have remained fairly consistent.

Leadership skills are transferable skills that have potential benefits to many different areas of life. - Here are five leadership principles that I believe have had a net positive impact in my life and career. They are lessons I often conveyed when I taught leadership and management courses.

Consistency in application

Humans are pattern dependent in many ways, a fair argument can even be made for the predictability of human thought and action. History provides significant evidence of our inability to learn from our past.

Developing the capacity to detect recurring patterns early and often allow us to read situational cues more accurately and efficiently. Leaders benefit from consistency because people are more likely to trust those who offer a degree of predictability. When people enter interactions with a high degree of uncertainty, trust is hard to establish and rapport is even harder to develop. Having consistency in application creates confidence in those around you as it establishes the norms and the expectations that surround interactions.

Clarity in communication

Clarity is a central feature to effective communications because no where is the law of parsimony more crucial than in the transmission of an idea. If you want people to understand you, clarity will take you further than rhetoric; Organizations serve a distinct purpose, pretending otherwise only creates scope creep. When leaders communicate with clarity, people in the organization can make informed choices about participation and commitment.

Communication is complex however, we are always communicating even when we don’t realize it. Any time the verbal and nonverbal communication are incongruous, people will always read more into the nonverbal. By some accounts it is argued that 55% of communication is body language, about 38% is tonality and cadence and only 7% of all communication is dependent on the actual words. So while it is undoubtedly important to watch our words, it is equally important to ensure clarity in our messaging.

Authenticity in character

Ask five people what kind of leader you should be and you will get at least eight different answers. Trendy leadership theories are constantly emerging, many have merit, some have new packaging, but here is a simple approach…. Be your authentic self because everyone else is taken. - Having a few stable principles to guide your decision making is far better than having many convoluted ones… say what you mean and do what you say. That level of authenticity is easier to develop when you pay close attention to the first two points; Consistency in application and clarity in communication.

Diligence in managing risk

A savvy leader knows that alienating the people who disagree out the gate is the surest way to ensure you don’t get far. There will always be a segment who support you and a segment that oppose you. It’s the third group, the undecided where you need to focus your energy. Organizations are run by people and people are susceptible to trends and blind spots. The effective management of risks both near and far is what creates a sustainable organization that can withstand the tumult of rapid social and technological change. In our highly connected world, seemingly unconnected events on the other side of the planet can influence and even disrupt business operations. Effective management of risk is even more critical as the world shrinks. While we may never be able to plan for every possible scenario, the old risk management objectives still have value, namely, reduce the ratio  of unfavourable events to total events. Where possible, mitigate, avoid or transfer and when unavoidable, figure out your risk tolerance and operate within it.

Be driven by purpose

Lead with purpose not with rigid rules. Adaptive and efficient organizations need to be responsive. This necessitates clearly identifying the choke points within the organizational structure that slows  decision making. Highly effective organizations decentralize decision making, because the top down command and control model rarely works quickly enough to keep pace with rapidly developing situations. The loss of traditional control can be unnerving, even uncomfortable but it doesn’t have to be. We have a natural tendency to think in extremes, giving up some control does not imply a free for all. Organizations still need to coalesce around simple foundational principles that serve as guardrails for informed decision making at every level of the organization.

For me, developing the ability to be consistent, clear, judicious, authentic and purposeful has served me well in life. In the spirit of making knowledge accessible and democratizing information, I share this with you, take an idea, maybe leave one in the comments too. That after all is how community building is done.

About the Author: Neil Gonsalves is an Indian-born Canadian immigrant who grew up in Dubai, U.A.E. and moved to Canada in 1995. He is an Ontario college educator, a TEDx speaker, an author and columnist, a recreational dog trainer and an advocate for new immigrant integration and viewpoint diversity.