The Stability Paradox
Yesterday, during a masterclass with colleagues from Erickson Coaching International Georgia, we were discussing a deceptively simple question:
What does leading through uncertainty now require from leaders, organizations and from coaches?
At one point, I drew this image
In the middle was a person, let’s call her a COO. Around her was the organization: its people, structures, processes, strategy and expectations. And around the organization was the world: technology, the economy, geopolitics, wars, social change and everything else shaping the conditions in which people and organizations operate.
All three were changing. But not at the same speed!
When the Background Becomes the Main Source of Change
For a long time, the organization was often the fastest-changing system in a person’s professional life. The company introduced a new strategy or new technology. New objectives and expectations.
The world outside was never completely stable, of course. But it moved slowly enough to remain in the background. The organization could define the change, communicate it and give people time to adapt.
Today, that relationship has been reversed.
The world around the organization is changing faster than most organizations can process.
Technology evolves before companies have integrated the previous generation of tools. Economic assumptions shift before annual plans are completed. Geopolitical instability, wars and social tensions enter decisions that once appeared purely operational.
The background has become the main source of change.
Organizations are trying to respond, but they are usually slower systems. They need governance, alignment, budgets, approval and implementation. Even when they genuinely want to change, they cannot move at the speed of everything happening around them.
At the same time, they still need a certain level of stability and predictability to function. They need plans and commitments. They need someone to say:
This is where we are going.
And this brings us back to the person in the middle of my drawing.
The Person Expected to Hold the System
Our COO is part of the organization, but she is also part of the much larger world surrounding it. In fact, as a human being, she is more directly exposed to that world than the organization itself.
Technological change does not reach her only through a new company strategy. It raises questions about her relevance, knowledge and future. Economic instability does not appear only in financial reports. It affects her family, choices and sense of security. Wars, political tensions and social changes do not remain outside the office. They influence her emotions, relationships, identity and perception of what the future might bring.
And yet, this same person is expected to create organizational stability. She is expected to provide direction while questioning some of her own assumptions. To reassure others while she may not feel particularly reassured herself. To make long-term plans in conditions that make reliable prediction increasingly difficult. To help people navigate change while being deeply affected by that same change.
We are asking her to absorb the uncertainty of the world and return stability to the organization.
This is not only the reality of a COO. It applies to, increasingly, almost everyone. The people expected to stabilize the systems around them are being exposed to greater instability than the systems they are supposed to stabilize.
Pressure Never Remains Personal
I explored part of this dynamic in an earlier article, How Pressure Reorganizes People and Systems.
External pressure creates urgency. Urgency narrows attention. People begin focusing on whatever appears most important for survival, while gradually disconnecting from relationships, health, creativity, learning and everything else that sustains long-term performance. But pressure rarely remains personal. It travels through relationships and reorganizes teams, families and entire organizations.
- A manager’s unprocessed uncertainty becomes control.
- Confusion becomes constant reorganization.
- Fear becomes another urgent initiative.
- Loss of direction becomes another set of priorities presented with artificial certainty.
- The pressure entering through one person eventually becomes part of the system.
The question is what happens to that uncertainty as it moves through the people expected to lead.
What Leading Through Uncertainty Now Requires from Coaching
Coaching developed much of its practice in a world in which the challenge could often be clearly located.
There was a goal to achieve, a behavior to change, a capability to develop or an organizational transition to navigate. These questions remain relevant. But they are no longer sufficient. The person sitting in front of us may not simply need a better strategy for reaching a goal. The assumptions on which that goal was built may already be changing.
The challenge may no longer exist only at the level of behavior or capability. It may be reaching deeper.
- What do I believe when so many of my previous assumptions no longer hold?
- What remains important when priorities keep changing?
- Who am I when my role, expertise or professional identity is no longer as secure as it once appeared?
- Where do I find direction when neither my organization nor the world around me can provide a reliable map?
Coaching through uncertainty cannot be reduced to helping someone produce a better plan. Coaching cannot stop the world from changing. It cannot remove ambiguity or promise certainty where certainty no longer exists. But it can help people develop the internal capacity to remain present, connected and intentional while change is still unfolding.
And this is where personal leadership becomes essential.
Personal Leadership Is No Longer Optional
Personal leadership is sometimes presented as a softer version of organizational leadership: self-awareness, better habits, personal responsibility and a little more discipline.
I believe it has become something much more fundamental. Often discussed under the term self-leadership, this capacity is not simply about managing ourselves more efficiently. Personal leadership is our ability to create direction when the environment can no longer provide it. It is the ability to remain connected to ourselves while adjusting how we think, act and relate to other people.
- It means knowing what should remain stable within us—and what must be allowed to change.
- It does not mean becoming invulnerable, endlessly resilient or perfectly calm.
- It does not mean pretending that uncertainty does not affect us.
- And it certainly does not mean making individuals responsible for every failure of the systems around them.
Organizations still have a responsibility to create healthy conditions, realistic expectations and structures that support people. But even the healthiest organization can no longer protect us from the speed and scale of change taking place outside it.
When stability is no longer something the world can provide, it must become a capacity we develop within ourselves.
This is not a requirement only for people with leadership titles. It is becoming a requirement for all of us. The difference is that, for formal leaders, the consequences become systemic. The way a leader processes personal uncertainty affects decisions, relationships, teams and, eventually, the entire organization.
But the opposite is also true.
The Journey Begins Closer to Home
This is one of the questions at the heart of My Leadership Journey. Not simply how we lead organizations through change, but how we lead ourselves when the world no longer provides the stability we once relied on.
- How do we preserve our capacity for impact when control is limited?
- How do we remain in connection with ourselves and others when pressure encourages us to disconnect?
- And how do we allow genuine transformation when holding on to the old version of ourselves is no longer enough?
This may be the central challenge of leadership in uncertain times. I do not believe the future will belong to those who successfully predict every technological, economic or social change.
There are simply too many moving parts.
I believe it will belong to those who can remain present without having all the answers. Who can create direction without pretending to possess certainty. Who can change without losing contact with who they are.
Because before leadership becomes organizational, it becomes personal, and perhaps the most important question about leading through uncertainty is :
How do we become people capable of moving through instability without passing all of it on to the systems and people around us?
Written by Pedja Jovanović
Pedja Jovanović is the Founder of Atria Group International and Co-creator of My Identity Journey and My Leadership Journey. He works internationally with senior leaders, founders, and executive teams navigating growth, complexity, and transformation, combining cognitive, embodied, and intuitive approaches to leadership development.
