How to Lead Through Chaos
Use this strategic lens—first developed by the military—to bring clarity to uncertain times
Business and policy leaders increasingly find themselves leading through chaos. Just a generation ago, the world appeared more stable—more predictable, linear, and manageable. But since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the bipolar Cold War era, we’ve entered an era of accelerated, interconnected change, which has only intensified in recent years.
Today, an event on one side of the world can ripple throughout the rest of the world in real time. The COVID-19 pandemic made this visible to all—impacting not just public health and security, but also economies, supply chains, and local business operations. The whole world has become deeply interconnected. Inevitably, this has led to even the most local of businesses being exposed to global events.
Leaders in politics and business increasingly sense that they are leading their teams through chaos, where a new crisis could break out at any moment, requiring them to revise their plans and push in a new direction. The biggest driver in this new norm is a shifting context.
In the late 1980s, as the old geopolitical order dissolved, the U.S. military recognised that traditional planning models no longer fit their purpose and thus developed a new situational diagnostic lens to better understand the changing international context and the challenges it posed.
They called this new reality:
VUCA—Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity
It captures the defining features of today’s leadership environment—and it demands a new style that is deliberate, flexible, and responsive.
Now widely applied in business, government, and organisational strategy, VUCA helps decision-makers read the landscape before making important decisions. In our era, shaped by AI disruption, climate volatility, and shifting geopolitical power, it provides a shared language for complexity and change.
It functions as a sort of strategic weather report —a way to diagnose the environment before applying the sort of change tools that I have recently written about, such as Force Field Analysis, Kotter’s process, or managing people through the Kübler-Ross or Maslow frameworks.
Here’s the framework and some ideas that leaders can use to bring order to the chaos and lead with intention through each of its dimensions:
Volatility means rapid, unpredictable change. Markets tend to swing in different directions, trends flip overnight, and yesterday’s playbook no longer applies.
Uncertainty means you don’t have all the facts—or even if you do, they keep changing.
Complexity is about the multitude of interconnected variables. When decisions are made, they can have ripple effects. Even small changes in one area can create unexpected consequences in other areas.
Ambiguity is about unclear meaning, a fog that inhibits clear decision-making. Even with data, it’s still not obvious what’s happening or exactly what should be done about it.
To help leaders respond constructively, the futurist Bob Johansen proposed a VUCA Prime model. It flips the original acronym to the following:
VUCA—Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility
This reframing encourages leaders to move from passive reaction to active transformation.
How to Lead with Intention in a VUCA Environment
So, given the above, how can leaders proactively lead through chaos across these dimensions? Well, here are some ideas to help leaders navigate this environment.
Volatility
The key here is to provide a clear vision—that is to say, be your team’s north star. In volatile times, people need direction more than certainty. Your role is to paint a compelling picture of where you’re going—even if the path changes later.
At the same time, it makes sense to adopt an agile methodology. Devote resources to preparedness. Create processes where feedback is rapidly gathered and assessed. Fast feedback loops help teams quickly understand what is working and what isn't. Develop an iterative process of experimentation where ideas are tested, results are analysed, and lessons are quickly learned.
🔎During global supply chain shocks, some businesses adapted within weeks by shifting to local sourcing and alternative distribution hubs—while others were caught out by the sudden change and did not change fast enough.
Uncertainty
When you don’t have all the facts or they are constantly subject to change, you will want to build a shared understanding of what is happening. Knowledge is power, so to build that shared understanding, start by talking to customers, listening to frontline teams, and monitoring weak signals. After doing that, communicate openly: what you know, what you don’t, and how you're still learning. This approach builds psychological safety, trust, and alignment within your team even when clarity is hard to come by.
Risk management processes can help better prepare and mitigate uncertainty, so having access to insightful analytics, metrics, and the room for manoeuvre is important.
🔎During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, political leaders who said “here’s what we’re seeing, here’s what we’re trying to do” built more credibility than those who over-promised, delayed, or offered non-credible proposals.
Complexity
Small changes in one area create unexpected consequences in others. When multiple factors and forces are at play, there is the risk of unintended consequences and chain reactions. So, it is important not to oversimplify—instead, it is much better to synthesise. That’s where systems thinking becomes essential—mapping relationships, feedback loops, and leverage points. The key is to clarify what's essential, enable cross-functional collaboration, and decentralised problem-solving. Empowering others within the business to make decisions can lead to more agile and contextually appropriate solutions.
🔎Global firms navigating climate regulation, stakeholder activism, and tech disruption often succeed by creating cross-disciplinary “sensemaking hubs” to inform their strategy.
Ambiguity
Ambiguity blurs the landscape—even with the benefit of lots of data. The important task is to bring order to the disorder, which means taking an agile approach and creating space for solution exploration. Run pilot projects to gather insight before scaling decisions. Ambiguity is best tackled with curiosity and controlled risk.
🔎Companies entering new markets often don’t rely on static forecasts—they have to get out into the field and test, iterate, and adapt their business model in real time to what is needed and wanted on the ground.
Final thoughts
Chaos doesn’t necessarily mean pending failure. It can also be the start of a beautiful new system, a new logic, or a new way of operating.
So, the question isn’t so much whether we face volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity—a summary read of any quality newspaper or business magazine will confirm that we already do.
The real challenge is this: are we actively shaping the future, or just passively reacting to it?