Many leaders are concerned about the uncertain business environment in 2026. Given the transformative nature of AI, geopolitical instability or economic disruptions, it is difficult to plan for the future. According to an academic project that has been tracking global economic policy uncertainty since the 1980s, the five highest measurements of uncertainty recorded since the study began occurred in the last five years.
Mentions of uncertainty in Glassdoor reviews grew 80% compared to the previous year. And the word itself appeared in 87% of public earnings releases in early 2025.
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So the ability to manage uncertainty—to tolerate it long enough to discover possibilities on the other side—is more important than ever. As Sam Yagan, co-founder of OKCupid, said, “The single biggest predictor of an executive’s success is how they handle ambiguity.”
For my new book about how to better deal with the unknown, I spoke with leading psychologists, economists, and philosophers about how to develop tolerance for uncertainty. Here are three key principles.
Find your anchors
Being certain in some aspects of life makes it easier to sustain uncertainty in others. For a business leader, an anchor might be the company’s values or a commitment to serving a particular target customer. By clarifying which aspects of your business will remain constant amidst so much change, you will be better prepared to navigate what lies ahead.
A telling example comes from Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb. In early 2020, he was preparing to take the company public in what was expected to be one of the biggest technology IPOs of all time, valued at more than $30 billion. But when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world, the company lost 80% of its revenue and the IPO had to be postponed.
Chesky knew this would be a period of unprecedented uncertainty for the company. So one of the first things he did was create a list of four guiding principles for himself: act quickly, preserve cash, act with all stakeholders in mind, and play to win the next travel season.
In a crisis, “you make decisions on principle, not business decisions,” he said, reflecting on what he learned. A business decision is “a decision that predicts the best possible outcome. A decision of principle is independent of the outcome.”
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These principles became Chesky’s anchors as he led the company through 2020, positioning it for success as the travel industry rebounded. In December 2020, Airbnb went public, with a market capitalization of US$86.5 billion after the first day of trading.
Build to learn
When things seem uncertain, our first impulse is often to plan. But especially in today’s fast-paced world, spending too much time planning can come at the expense of progress.
At Ideo, where I worked as a design lead for four years, we had a saying: “Never come to a meeting without a prototype.” Low-fidelity experiments were our learning tools and kept us from talking too much before building and testing. Now, in the age of generative AI, this kind of work has never been easier.
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A few years ago, Pixar visual effects supervisor Danielle Feinberg, who I interviewed and saw speak on this panel, was sensing uncertainty in her industry. Fewer people were going to theaters, budgets were being cut, and his staff were being asked to do more with less. Amid the added pressure, his colleagues felt there was no longer room to innovate. But Feinberg had an idea to change that.
During the development of any film at Pixar, there are regular screening days with a “board of experts,” a group of executives and high-level creative leaders who leave the rest of the team on hold while they await feedback.
Feinberg proposed treating these “dead” days as days of innovation — an opportunity for people to work on whatever they want, even without practical application, and then share what they create.
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A team member had an idea for a technical experiment that he always wanted to test, but “never had the time.” He spent the day reusing animation software, which ended up allowing the team to solve, in hours, a problem that previously took weeks. Innovation day was not designed to maximize productivity, but building led to learning, which led to progress.
Row through the fog
When we perceive uncertainty as a threat, blood moves away from the brain and toward the body as we prepare to fight or flee. This is why stressed leaders often cling even tighter to a fixed plan or avoid discomfort.
But when we see uncertainty as an opportunity to learn, we enter what scientists call approach mode — our blood vessels dilate, sending more oxygen to the brain and allowing us to explore new ways of thinking.
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Shaan Hathiramani, founder of startup Flockjay, a boot camp to help people with non-traditional backgrounds get into technology sales, experienced this in 2021.
While the company’s business was growing thanks to the shift to remote work and increased demand for salespeople, the team was also burning through cash, starting to burn out and facing recruiting difficulties.
Other leaders might have ignored these warning signs or worried about them so much that they panicked.
But Hathiramani leaned into the uncertainty of these mixed signals, carefully considering whether to ride the wave of growth or recalibrate in light of emerging negative indicators.
After conversations with his team and the board, he decided to change direction, maintaining the same mission, but switching from operating boot camps to building software-based training solutions. Four years later, Flockjay has successfully transitioned into a B2B SaaS business (subscription software provision).
“The uncertainty of change could have been paralyzing,” he said in an interview, “but what made it bearable was falling in love with the problem, not the solution. Falling in love with the problem helped me keep going.”
His story reminds me of a metaphor I learned at Ideo. Being a leader is like sitting in a rowboat on a foggy lake. You can’t see far ahead or know exactly where you’ll end up, but you have two tasks: keep faith that, at some point, you’ll reach the shore and keep paddling.
c.2026 Harvard Business Review. Distribuído pela New York Times Licensing
