Leading through fog: How decisive leaders thrive amid uncertainty

In early 2020, as the world reeled from the shock of a global pandemic, an unlikely name began to quietly rise in the manufacturing sector. A mid-sized tool-and-die company in Ohio, hardly the kind of enterprise you would expect to outpace its global peers, made a split-second decision to retool its operations for medical-grade face shields. No long deliberations. No perfect data. Just a hunch, a need, and a commitment. Within three months, they weren’t just surviving; they were hiring.

What gave them an edge? It wasn’t innovation in machinery. It was a clarity of decision amid chaos.

“Instead of chasing complete certainty, impactful leaders build responsive systems that sense, decide, act, and adapt.”

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As leaders, we often crave perfect data before taking bold steps. We want more feedback, more projections, and more guarantees. But in today’s climate, where change moves faster than analysis, decisive clarity is the new currency of leadership. The leaders who win are not those who know it all; they are those who know how to move forward even when they don’t.

Harvard Business Review found that high-performing CEOs make decisions more quickly and with less information than their peers, and they do so consistently. Why? Because in uncertainty, momentum often matters more than precision. Clarity isn’t always found at the start; sometimes, it is forged through motion.

This doesn’t mean abandoning wisdom. It means shifting the leader’s job from knowing to navigating. And the best navigators don’t wait for the fog to lift; they move with intention through it.

Here’s the shift: great leaders don’t demand certainty; they design clarity. How?

In a world laced with volatility, ambiguity is no longer the enemy of progress; paralysis is. Waiting for perfect conditions often leads to missed opportunities. Instead of chasing complete certainty, impactful leaders build responsive systems that sense, decide, act, and adapt. The old model of analysing, planning, and executing no longer fits. Today’s leadership demands a new rhythm: sense, decide, act, and adapt.

Sense: What signals are emerging? What patterns are forming beneath the noise? What’s true now, and what’s likely changing? Leaders must sharpen their perception, spotting subtle shifts in culture, behaviour, and market dynamics. Listening deeply, especially to what is unsaid, becomes a strategic tool.

Decide: What’s the smallest yet most strategic decision I can make with what I know? Where can we commit now, even if we must correct later? Deciding isn’t about perfection; it’s about making the smallest, most impactful choice with available information. Momentum matters more than mastery.

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Act: Acting means setting the direction. Communicate clearly. Model confidence even if the destination remains partially obscured. People don’t follow ambiguity; they follow resolve.

Adapt: Not reactively, but intentionally. Adaptation, the most underutilised skill, is about learning faster than change occurs. It turns feedback into foresight and keeps organisations nimble and responsive. Adaptive leaders ask: What did we not expect? What feedback is emerging? What do we need to adjust—not because we failed, but because we’re learning?

This loop, Sense, Decide, Act, Adapt, is the rhythm of resilient leadership. It values curiosity over control and alignment over absolute certainty. Clarity isn’t about having all the answers; it is knowing what matters most and moving forward with courage and purpose.

One of the most paralysing mistakes leaders make is outsourcing momentum to clarity. They say, “Let’s wait until we’re sure.” But markets won’t wait. Teams won’t wait. Sometimes, confidence must precede confirmation.

Ask yourself: What if the decision doesn’t require more certainty, just more courage? What if the risk of waiting is greater than the risk of acting? It is not recklessness; it is responsible momentum. In moments of ambiguity, leaders are often tempted to delay, hoping for more data or clarity, but delay can sometimes deepen the problem rather than solve it.

Here is a diagnostic tool I share with executive teams. When facing ambiguity, ask: What’s the cost of inaction? What’s the smallest decision that moves us forward? What would we do if we were 10x more confident? Often, the answers to these questions are surprisingly revealing.

I once coached a nonprofit leader paralysed about whether to launch a new donor initiative. They feared backlash, misalignment, or resource drain. But when we reframed the goal, not as “launching a perfect new campaign” but as “testing a pilot with 50 donors and learning fast”, they acted within two weeks. They gained clarity through action, not before it.

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And that’s the deeper truth: clarity isn’t something you wait for; it is something you generate. It emerges from forward motion, reflection, and feedback. Like headlights on a mountain road, you don’t need to see the entire path, just enough to take the next curve.

As I wrote last week in “The Capacity Code”, leaders must grow before they scale. But what does that growth really look like? It’s not just skill. It’s not just strategy. It’s resilience in the fog. It’s the ability to decide with integrity, act with intention, and adapt with humility. Because the future will not always send a memo. Markets won’t pause for your committee. Vision without decisiveness is hallucination.

So here is your call to action: Stop waiting for the fog to lift. Pick a direction. Make the best decision you can with what you know. Then lead with clarity, not certainty. Because in today’s world, it’s not the clear plan that wins; it is the clear leader.

Clarity is a luxury. Commitment is a discipline. Great leaders don’t demand the fog to lift. They learn to lead through it.

About the author:

Dr Toye Sobande is a strategic leadership expert, lawyer, public speaker, and trainer. He is the CEO of Stephens Leadership Consultancy LLC, a strategy and management consulting firm offering creative insight and solutions to businesses and leaders. Email: [email protected]