Pete Behrens Published in SmartBrief: How Great People Managers Lead When the Fog Rolls In
Leading Through the Fog
When uncertainty settles into an organization, people managers feel it first. They're the frontline interpreters, absorbing confusion while being expected to provide clarity. In this piece for
SmartBrief on Leadership, Pete Behrens explores how the Fog—that swirl of shifting priorities, competing strategies, and underlying doubt—impacts teams and those who lead them.
Five Shifts for Navigating Uncertainty
The answer isn't eliminating uncertainty. It's learning to navigate it. In the SmartBrief article, Pete shares five practical approaches that help managers keep teams grounded and moving forward:
1. Reward Leadership as an Act, Over a Role
Recognize truth-telling and courage over hierarchy. The most meaningful leadership often comes from those who speak up when silence would be safer.
2. Replace Comfort With Confidence
Embrace "heat moments" that foster growth. Discomfort is often where development begins, and your job is to help people see themselves as capable of navigating hard things.
3. Coach Decisions in Motion
Keep teams moving through learning, not after learning. Break choices into smaller steps and normalize feedback as part of the process.
4. Make Connection a Core Part of the Strategy
In uncertain times, connection isn't a perk—it's a performance requirement. Create purposeful interaction and meaningful collaboration.
5. Stop Pretending Leaders Need All the Answers
Employees don't expect perfection—they expect honesty. "I don't know yet, but we'll find our way through this together" builds more engagement than any single right answer.
Organizations that successfully navigate the years ahead will be those with leaders skilled at navigating ambiguity and teams confident enough to keep moving when certainty disappears.
If you've ever felt caught between what your people need and what the job demands, this perspective offers a way through.
Explore more from Pete Behrens in his debut book,
Into the Fog: Leadership Stories from the Edge of Uncertainty. Available now in print and Kindle.
