‘Wait and See’- Is it a Good Leadership Approach?
The idea of wait and see is considered to be a passive approach to leadership. According to a article published on Entreprenuer.com, “the reactive style of leadership–characterized by a ‘let’s-wait-and-see’ attitude and delayed decision-making–is rarely effective”. In most cases, this style works for the public sector organisations in our part of the world or old-fashioned companies let by the previous generation of the leadership.
For leaders to make right decisions, it takes time following global-changing events to absorb the best course of action — or reaction. It takes time to interpret the data/information. Leaders need to ask questions accordingly. Good leaders ensure that they are well-informed, take steps critical to ensuring safety and solvency, and then as hard as it is, they wait, monitoring the situation to determine the right next step. This seems logical, right? Yet we see responses to the COVID-19 pandemic similar to those we saw in the wake of 9/11. Many reacted too soon, and as a result made decisions that seemed sound at the time, but in reflection, decisions were made without sufficient information.
So how can we best cope when everything feels so out of control? Here are five strategies.
1. Stop Resisting
It goes without saying that we all live through challenging times. It’s not due to after effects of a global pandemic but we all can experience the economic meltdown as well. But resisting this current reality won’t help us recover. Let’s gather our courage and continue to develop ourselves by way of continue tolearn, grow and feel better. Ironically, resistance prolongs our pain and difficulty by amplifying the challenging emotions we are feeling. There is real truth to the aphorism that what we resist persists.
Try an alternative. Instead of resisting, we can practice acceptance. Research by Kristin Neff has shown that acceptance — particularly self-acceptance — is a counter intuitive secret to happiness. Acceptance is about meeting life where it is and moving forward from there because acceptance allows us to see the reality of the situation in the present moment, it frees us up to move forward, rather than remaining paralyzed (or made ineffective) by uncertainty, fear, or argument.
2. Invest in Your Life
The best resource that we have right now for making a contribution to the betterment is “ourselves”. We must understand that learning agility is the KEY to leadership. In other words, when we under-invest in ourselves (body, mind, spirit), we destroy our most essential tools for leading best lives. Generally, we don’t do well when we defer maintenance on ourselves. We need to sustain the relationships that bring us connection and meaning.
Let’s not confuse things here: Self-care is not selfish. Selfishness is an anxious focus on the self. The pandemic taught us that when you take care of yourself, you’re also taking care of your family, friends and community. On the contrary, selfish people tend to refer back to themselves a lot by using words like I, me, and mine. That sort of self-focus is linked to stress, anxiety, depression, and heart diseases.Here, we are not referring to selfishness.
3. Don’t live in Illusion
Most people spend their lives in living in illusion that they are always right. It is not true that whatever we think is correct. In uncertain times. It can be helpful for us to consider worst-case scenarios so that we can weigh risks and actively prevent disaster. But when we believe these stressful thoughts, we tend to react emotionally as though the worst case is already happening in real life, rather than just in our heads.
We grieve for things that we haven’t actually lost, and react to events that are not actually happening. This makes us feel threatened, afraid, and unsafe when we are simply alone with our thoughts. Our negativity bias can also set us up for failure. Expectations can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. When we expect the worst, we often feel too afraid or close-minded to seize opportunities or respond to challenges with creativity and grit.
4. Stay Focused
The opposite of ‘wait and see’ syndrome is to stay Focus. Instead of expecting a scary an unknown future, we can bring our attention to our breath. From there, we can check in with ourselves. Every time we wash our hands, e.g., we could ask ourselves: How are you doing right now? Notice what emotions translate, and where in our body we feel those emotions. Let’s bring curiosity and acceptance to our experiences.
Even when it feels like everything is out of our control, we can still control when we stay focused. We can turn off our alerts to keep the news or social media from hijacking our awareness. We can drop our negative fantasies by attending to what’s actually happening in our inner world, right now. Attending to what is happening within us at any given moment keeps a crappy external reality from determining our inner truth. It allows us to cultivate calm, open-mindedness, and non-reactivity.
5. Stop Relying on Others
When we act as if we are powerless, we get trapped in narratives that leave us feeling angry, helpless, and trapped. And we start hoping other people will save us from our misery. Although it can feel good when others dote on us, most rescuers don’t really help. Our friends might want to save us — because helping others makes people feel good — and their intentions may be noble. But rescuers tend to be better enablers than saviors. We must always remember that rescuers tend to give us permission to avoid taking responsibility for our own lives.
On the other hand, emotionally supportive friends (or mentors) see us as capable of solving our own problems. They ask questions that help us focus on what we do want instead of what we don’t. To best cope with uncertainty, we need to stop complaining. When we fix our problems, we can focus on the outcomes we desire. How can we make the best of this mess? What can we gain in this situation? When we take responsibility for our lives, we trade the false power of victimhood for the real power that comes from creating the life we want.
Final Word
As John Allen Paulos — a renowned mathematician once said: “Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security”. On the surface, taking a ‘wait and see’approach seems to make sense. After all, we’re dealing with the circumstances that, at times, are beyond our control. We’re witnessing not just rapid technological changes, but major transformations on so many levels. So “waiting and seeing” what happens certainly seems less risky.
In a world filled with uncertainty, it’s easy to fall into a “wait and see” trap. But we must realise that ‘wait and see’ has a cost just as high, if not higher, than making an informed decision. Because technology is changing so fast and because we live in a time of rapid transformation are the exact reasons why you can no longer “wait and see” what will happen. Remember this: “If you don’t do it, someone else will.” And they’re doing it right now!
About the Author
Muhammad Sajwani is the Founder and Managing Director of Evolve HR which aims at transforming, enriching and evolving Human Capital of Pakistan, Evolve HR thrives in challenging assumptions that hinder organisational aspirations, by creating innovative solutions that yield maximum impact, scalability & benefit to a wider base of stakeholders. As a Business Coach and Organisational Consultant, Sajwani knows how to combine business insights with people insights to transform organisations and put them on the path to growth.
