Leading Through Uncertainty: Navigating Ambiguity as an Adaptive Practice

Leading in uncertainty is not about having all the answers; it’s about how you show up when you don’t. 

In this episode, explore two simple practices that help you anchor in what matters and keep moving, even when the path ahead is anything but clear.

Ambiguity is not just a strategy or org‑chart issue; it is a human constant in modern work. In this conversation, Jessica and Coral reframe uncertainty as an adaptive practice rather than a problem to “fix fast,” especially for leaders who feel pressure to hold it all together. 

You’ll learn two grounded tools: a Values‑Based Decision Filter to choose direction when information is incomplete, and The Next Small Step to move the work one inch forward without needing the full plan. 

Together, they offer “handrails, not heroics” for navigating uncertainty with steadiness, honesty, and care for yourself and your team.

Further links and resources from this episode:

• Subscribe to our newsletter: https://oneop.aweb.page/practicing-connection-newsletter
• Join our LinkedIn group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12879756/ 
• Send us a message: practicingconnection@oneop.org 

Transcript

JESSICA BECKENDORF: [00:00:00] Hi, and welcome back to the Practicing Connection Podcast. I'm Jessica.

CORAL OWEN: Hey everybody. I'm Coral.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Today we're taking on a topic that shows up everywhere this time of year, and I would argue always, in organizations, in teams, and in our personal lives. And that's the experience of not knowing, not having all the answers, not being sure what's next. In other words, ambiguity.

CORAL OWEN: Yep. And the truth is ambiguity. It isn't just a workplace issue, right, Jess? It's not a leadership issue either. It's a human issue, and anytime something is changing, whether it's a strategy, a role, a habit, a direction, there is this window of time where you don't, and we don't have the full picture yet. And that gap, it can feel really uncomfortable.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, it really can. And I think a lot of times, leaders especially [00:01:00] feel responsible for holding it together during those moments, even when they are just as affected by the uncertainty as everyone else.

CORAL OWEN: That is so true, and this is why we wanted to talk about ambiguity from a different angle today, not just as something to push through or fix as fast as possible, even though that's probably what we would most like to do.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah.

CORAL OWEN: But rather is something that we can learn to navigate more intentionally, and something that we can practice in grounded and very human ways.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: So to help us get into this conversation, you brought two practices to explore, and I'm really curious: not why these specific practices, but why bring practices at all into a conversation about ambiguity.

CORAL OWEN:Yeah, that's a really good question, Jess. So, ambiguity, it feels big and fuzzy and when things feel that way, people tend to either freeze or overwork like kind of at the extremes. 

So these practices and practices period, it helps us create a bit [00:02:00] more structure where there might not be a whole lot of structure in the moment.

And it's not to control the uncertainty, but it gives us a way and a framework within which to engage and show up within it.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: So it's kind of like a way to stay steady. When the situation isn't steady at all, when it's swirling all around us.

CORAL OWEN: Absolutely. It's a way to just kind of anchor us and give us, you know, a guidepost by which to navigate. And the two practices that we're going to be going through today, it's the values-based decision filter and the next small step. They're actually not related to resolving ambiguity, although probably.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Now I'm really confused!

CORAL OWEN: I know our listeners are probably like, “Wait, what? How is this even helpful?” 

But, you know, hang in there with us. So these are all about helping you move through it without losing your grounding. One helps orient you, and the other helps you move in the direction of resolution.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, so it's more like handrails than solutions. Or like walking sticks.[00:03:00]

CORAL OWEN: Jess.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Stop me now before I keep going.

CORAL OWEN: Okay. We're just gonna roll with it. So yes, they're like simple things that you could hold onto, and the path ahead isn't fully visible and gives you stability. How'd you like that?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I love it. I love a good walking stick too, by the way. So before we get into the practices, let's talk about why ambiguity is so hard in the first place. Because it's not just a leadership challenge, right? It's not only for leaders and people in leadership positions. It's a human challenge.

CORAL OWEN: Definitely, and ambiguity taps into our most fundamental wiring. As humans, we all want patterns. We want predictability. Because it's safety, right? It's security and it's knowing.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: We want to put things in boxes neatly with a bow, yep.

CORAL OWEN: And life is anything but, and so we want to know what's expected of us. It gives us a way to understand where things are headed and what's going on. And so when information is incomplete, or paradigms [00:04:00] are shifting, oftentimes we'll feel anxious and patient and thrown off.

And it's not just our team. It's oftentimes the leaders that are rolling through this while also trying to give some assurance in these times. So, it's a tough space to be in for a lot of people.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, well, and then on top of that, leaders often feel pressure to have answers for others when they don't have the answers for themselves, yet they can't even give those answers, so that's gotta feel really tough.

CORAL OWEN: Absolutely. I know that both of us have been in leadership roles. I've certainly felt this way in the past, when guiding different organizations and teams, and it is, I truly believe, one of the most difficult aspects of leadership, is leading through these times of change or ambiguity. 

You're thinking, “Ah, I should know more, I should be further along, I should have this guidance.” But we're rolling through something called Adaptive Leadership Practices today, and it's not having everything figured out. It's about helping to help everyone else stay steady in the discomfort and move [00:05:00] through uncertainty together.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Well, let's talk more about that. This idea of ambiguity as something we practice, not something we magically become comfortable with.

CORAL OWEN: Yeah, exactly. Adaptive leadership means learning to make progress, even when information is incomplete. Like we were saying earlier, a lot of people tend to either kind of freeze or rush, and maybe it's not in the most productive direction. 

And so, this is all about moving in small intentional ways, making sure that we're making steady progress, not getting ahead of our skis, and letting clarity emerge through action and not before it.

Also, it's relational. It means leaders aren't navigating ambiguity alone. You know, teams make sense of this change together. The conversations are creating clarity collaboratively, and sometimes the best thing a leader can say, and sometimes it's hard to do this, but something along the lines of, “Here's what we know today, and here's what we're still figuring out.’

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, that kind of [00:06:00] honesty builds trust, instead of pretending everything is sorted when it isn't. I can think of one amazing example, and I've had the opportunity to tell him several times, you know, we were going through some pretty turbulent times for a while, as we completely shifted the way we operated as an organization.

And by we, I'm not talking about OneOp, I'm talking about the other organization that I belong to. But, that is a skill. It's a skill to be able to do that. Something that we can practice.

CORAL OWEN: Absolutely. And I think, you know, just what you noted there, Jess, you know, a skill is something that can be cultivated and practiced. It's not something that everybody's inherently good at. Just like, “Oh yes, I'm wonderful at change.”

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah.

CORAL OWEN: So yeah, that's what we're hoping to help you all with today.

Alright, let's go ahead, and that's a great segue into our first practice, which is the Values Based Decision Filter. Sounds pretty official, but it's very approachable. So, essentially when things are feeling uncertain, we often wait for more information, like we already [00:07:00] talked about before: making a decision.

Because with more information we feel like we can make a more correct choice. But sometimes what we need is actually a way to choose the next direction based on our values, and not on complete clarity. 

So here's how this value-based decision filter works. First off, you're going to name the value that matters most in this season. Not all your values, just one. “What's the most clear guiding value here?” It might be integrity, transparency, learning, stability, compassion, courage. There's a whole number of them that you can choose from.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I just wanted to, we did this in another episode and I just want to clarify the ‘season’ comment. What do we mean by ‘season,’ really quick? We're not necessarily talking about the winter season, which we happen to be recording right now in December. But, yeah, what do we mean by season?

CORAL OWEN: Thanks Jess. So in case y'all missed that mini conversation within an episode, one or two back perhaps, by season, simply referring [00:08:00] to this chapter that we're most recently moving through.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. And so the first step then is just naming the value that matters most in this season, which is, that is what you decide. You decide what the season is, and you decide what that one value is most important to you right now.

CORAL OWEN: So from there, step two, you're going to ask which option, even if it's small or imperfect, aligns most with this value. And the whole idea is that this filter, it gives you a way to move forward without having to wait for all of the answers to be provided, or to come into the light. And so this value becomes your compass by which you can make small, incremental moves forward.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, I love how grounded that feels. You're not forcing certainty, you're just choosing direction based on what matters most right now.

CORAL OWEN: Exactly. So values can help you find and they can give structure when the circumstances may not lend themselves to such.

Alrighty. So part two is the next small [00:09:00] step. So when ambiguity feels overwhelming, and it can certainly happen from time to time, usually it’s because we're trying to solve the whole situation at once. So instead of trying to tackle the whole elephant, in one bite, as my father might say, you instead want to pause and ask, “What is the next small step I can take that moves us one inch forward?”

Just one step. Just one inch. Something that you can do in the next day or the week and something that doesn't necessarily require full clarity. 

Alright, so just some examples, because that could feel a little bit nebulous maybe. Maybe it's setting up a meeting to gather perspectives. Maybe it's clarifying one decision that can be made now. You might take a crack at drafting their first version of something. 

A couple other thoughts: Maybe it's testing one small piece of a larger idea, like a, you know, kind of a mini pilot test. You might put a temporary structure into place, and so sometimes, these might be ‘no thank you’ bytes of like, “Ooh, we tried [00:10:00] that, it didn't work.”

But, you know, often clarity emerges and we can derive that from action. Or just doing a little bit of a/b testing, rather than just sitting still.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, that takes so much pressure off. You don't have to solve everything. That was also me just telling myself that right now you don't have to solve everything, just move the work forward in a way that's honest and manageable. 

And, you know, sometimes that's actually just reaching out to a person to check in on, like, how their leg of the project is going. Sometimes it is setting up a meeting and doing something a little bit bigger than that. 

But I just wanted to also mention that it could be super small, like just reaching out to someone.

CORAL OWEN: Yeah, just to keep that touch point and that momentum alive, nurturing it. So yeah, ambiguity, it becomes much more tolerable when we break it into smaller adaptive steps.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: So as we wrap up today, maybe take a moment to reflect on an area of your life or your leadership where things feel a little unclear: not to [00:11:00] fix it, just to notice it.

CORAL OWEN: Exactly. Ambiguity, it's not something that we will unfortunately ever eliminate. But it is something that we can learn to navigate with more steadiness and intention, and hopefully these two practices of anchoring your decisions and your values and taking the next small step can help you stay grounded while still making progress.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I feel like if we had a title for this episode that was, “Solving Uncertainty,” we'd probably get a lot of listeners, but then they would be disappointed that we were just trying to help them move through! 

Anyway, thanks so much for joining us for this conversation on navigating ambiguity as an adaptive practice.

If this episode resonated with you, feel free to share it with someone who might be navigating their own season of uncertainty.

CORAL OWEN: We will be back soon with another episode. Until then, keep practicing.

[00:12:00]

CREDITS: The Practicing Connection Podcast is a production of One-Op and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, US Department of Defense under award number 2 0 2 3 4 8 7 74 3 3.