Leading Through Change When You Don’t Have All the Answers: Five Mental Fitness Powers That Work
“Everyone is looking to me for answers and direction and I am not clear myself.” This is a common challenge I hear from leaders. Today’s level of uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity amplifies this challenge. In my experience, mindset is the key in leading through disruptive change.
That’s why I so deeply resonate with and became certified in the mental fitness principles of Positive Intelligence (PQ). Each of us has five sage powers, or mental muscles, that can help us effectively navigate and thrive through disruption, achieving high performance, wellbeing, and reduced stress. Through building self-command of our mind and harnessing our sage powers, we can grow our mental fitness. Having sets of questions to challenge, shift, and expand our sage thinking is an important leadership technique we can use to coach ourselves and others through change. Let’s look at how leaders can harness each Positive Intelligence sage power to lead through change and disruption.
Navigate Power
This power provides the calm, steady presence your team needs when everything feels uncertain. The Navigate power provides clarity and direction when the path forward seems unclear, helping you make values-based decisions despite incomplete information. This HBR article provides a powerful lens on higher level questions we can ask in times of disruption and uncertainty to guide our path. Questions to consider:
What decision today will still make sense a year from now? (HBR)
If a year from now this decision was used as an example of our leadership, what would it teach? (HBR)
What if this isn’t the storm—what if it’s the climate? (HBR)
What’s the cost of waiting? (HBR)
What are our non-negotiable values and priorities that must guide us through this uncertain period?
Considering our core mission, how can we ruthlessly prioritize?
I recently observed a leader in the U.S. Federal Government work with her team in ruthlessly prioritizing during a time when the future of their roles and function was unclear. She consistently anchored the team to their mission and value to the U.S. citizens and pushed the team for ongoing prioritizing based on what was known.
Empathize Power
The Empathize power helps you connect deeply with stakeholders’ concerns and resistance, creating psychological safety that enables people to navigate uncertainty together. By truly understanding the human impact of change, you build the trust necessary for collective resilience. It also enables deep self-compassion to enable you to tap into your inner resources during hard times. Questions to consider
What fears or concerns are team members not voicing about this change?
How can I practice vulnerability and transparency to help others feel supported and aware?
How is this disruption affecting different people in unique ways based on their roles, experience, or personal circumstances?
How can I acknowledge the losses and challenges people are experiencing while helping them see potential gains?
How can I best take care of my own energy and emotions during this hard time so I can also be there for others?
When leading a large global team during an organization transformation, I placed priority on regularly checking in with everyone by creating space in meetings and using technology in townhalls to hear unfiltered questions, concerns, and fears. I systematically answered every question to the best of my ability. When I didn’t know the answer, I said so and committed to finding the answer if I could.
Explore Power
The Explore power shifts uncertainty from a threat into an opportunity by approaching change with curiosity and openness. This perspective helps you discover innovative solutions and possibilities that emerge specifically because of the disruption. I like the concept of adopting an “Improv Mindset” as described in this Fast Company article. This can help expand our willingness and capability to stretch and grow from change and uncertainty. Questions to consider:
What new learning opportunities might be hidden within this challenge or discomfort?
What assumptions about “how we’ve always done things” can we now question and potentially improve?
How might this change actually serve our long-term vision in ways we haven’t yet considered?
What would we attempt if we knew we couldn’t fail in this new environment?
How can we stay open to exploring multiple insights and avoid rushing to action? For more on this, read this insightful article on negative capability by Michael Hudson
One of the things I’ve always admired about successful organizations is their willingness to use times of uncertainty to explore the skills needed for the future at all levels of the organization. They invest in learning during hard times to stay ahead of the curve.
Innovate Power
The Innovate power enables you to synthesize diverse perspectives and generate creative solutions that wouldn’t have existed without the pressure of change. It helps you see beyond “either/or” thinking to find “both/and” approaches. Questions to consider:
How can we collaborate and combine ideas and offerings from different functions, stakeholders, divisions, or even industries to address this challenge?
What if we approached this problem from the perspective of our most innovative competitor or a completely different industry?
How might we turn constraints created by this disruption into catalysts for innovation?
What unconventional partnerships or resources could help us navigate this change more effectively?
A service delivery leader I worked with whose team was undergoing massive change in leadership and organization alignment applied this sage power to collaboratively reexamine the team’s success metrics during the transition. This leader created a new operating model that focused more on the customer experience and measuring success by client value and impact rather than output.
Activate Power
The Activate power transforms planning into laser-focused purposeful action, providing the sustained energy and momentum needed to see change through to completion. It helps you maintain forward progress even when motivation wavers or obstacles arise. Questions to consider:
Given what we know today and what’s in our control, what’s the smallest meaningful step we can take toward our desired outcome?
How can we maintain momentum and accountability when progress feels slow or setbacks occur?
What systems or processes need to be established now to ensure this change becomes embedded in our culture?
Is this a one-way or two-way door decision (Read more about this in an HBR article on Amazon’s decision making approach)?
How can we apply experimentation and agility in our go-forward approach?
Examples of applying the Activate power to lead through change include launching experiments instead of waiting for perfect plans, creating rapid feedback loops to learn and adjust quickly, and emphasizing learning by doing over endless analysis. It also includes being discerning in your decision-making approach and noticing when you are prolonging decisions and taking actions that are reversible if needed.
Final Thoughts
The reality is your team doesn’t need you to have all the answers—they need you to have the mental fitness to navigate uncertainty with purpose and build this capability in others. When people are looking to you for direction and you’re struggling with the same ambiguity, the most impactful thing you can do is model how to turn uncertainty into opportunity.
These sage powers aren’t theoretical—they’re practical tools that change how you show up and engage others when everything feels chaotic. Your leadership during uncertain times isn’t measured by having all the answers, but by your ability to use these mental muscles to guide yourself and others through the unknown.