When There’s No Magic Wand: Leading in the Unknown

After I published my last post on leading through change, a colleague offered a thoughtful response:

 “What’s most unsettling now is that organizations are having to change within an unknown frame!”

 I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. It’s true—usually change comes with some kind of roadmap: a new strategy, a funding shift, a crisis-response. But lately, we’re seeing organizations called to change even before the next picture has come into focus. So, what do we do when the frame itself is unclear?

 It reminded me of a segment I watched recently from Dr. Becky Kennedy of Good Inside. You may know her from Instagram as @drbeckatgoodinsde, and she’s a clinical therapist who specializes in parenting. She was giving a lecture at Duke about resilience in learning, particularly with children. She described the space between “Knowing” and “Not Knowing” as frustrating—and even painful. But she reframed that space as “The Learning Space.” And in doing so, she made it something worth honoring.

 That stuck with me. Because in organizations too, we often rush to close the gap between knowing and not knowing. We want clarity fast. But sometimes, the job of leadership is to help people stay in the learning space—to sit with the frustration without letting it become fear or disengagement. To say: “This is the space where something new is being made.”

 I’ve seen this in action. In a previous role, I inherited a team that had experienced major leadership and strategy transitions. Trust had eroded—across teams and between individuals. People were tired, unclear about their roles, and unsure whether the next wave of change would help or hurt.

 I felt the itch, like many leaders, to move quickly into transformation. I wanted to stop my team from hurt. And my team was desperately looking for fast fixes, too—two team members even mailed me a magic wand, suggesting I wave it to fix the problems.

 But I realized that what was needed first wasn’t a new system. It was healing. That meant listening deeply to understand what wasn’t working and why. It meant creating space for honest feedback, rebuilding clarity around decision-making, and acknowledging the human side of organizational change.

 We focused on restoring trust through transparency, consistency, and re-centering the “why.” Over time, that clarity allowed for debate without defensiveness, for alignment without forcing consensus. Only then could we move into the deeper work of structural change.

 And that’s what I’ve learned: We may not always know the full picture of what’s ahead, but we can create clarity in how we show up, how we listen, and how we lead. No amount of wand-waving will eliminate the unknown, but we can shape the space inside it—and that space is where learning, trust, and transformation begin.

 This is the second post in a series on leadership in times of change. More to come.