Many people underestimate the role of luck in success. It’s not just about hard work. In reality, the most important contributor to success in any endeavour is to be lucky. But leadership is essential to help people overcome uncertainty and succeed, making the most of the luck you enjoy.

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All progress turns on leadership and the luck experienced along the way.

The things in life that are certain and truly under one’s own control are far outweighed by things that are uncertain and beyond control. And people don’t really like uncertainty that much.

Uncertainty creates anxiety. This discomfort can then cause inertia in a team, impeding performance and progress. In the leadership process, the leader must ensure progress despite uncertainty, anxiety and discomfort.

And in dealing with people, many of the tasks of the leader are about providing certainty and supporting emotional needs for comfort. Followers trust leaders to take care of these intrinsic emotional needs.

So, management of uncertainty starts with the leader. It’s firstly about how the leader manages their own response to uncertainty. And it ends with how the leader enables and supports followers to perform and progress despite uncertainty.

The leader’s job is to support and enable people so they can perform and progress despite uncertainty.

Here’s a model that might help.

Three Circles of Care

1. Circle of Control
   These are things within our control. It includes our internal thinking patterns and external behaviours. It’s the plans and actions we take. And most importantly, it’s how we respond to uncertainty, undesirable events and things beyond our control.
2. Circle of Influence
   These are things a outside of ourselves, but close enough that we can influence. This includes the followers in our group and externals outside the group. Leaders can use influence to shape the environment in their favour.
3. Circle of Concern
   These are the things we don’t and can’t control, and have very little ability to influence. They are exogenous but can affect the progress and outcomes we can enjoy, so they concern us. This is the domain of luck and uncertainty.

Leadership is about what is done in the first two circles. This is where we have control or influence about how we respond to what happens that’s beyond our control.

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

Mike Tyson

Self-leadership, uncertainty and luck

The leader’s role is to lead no matter what luck gives you. This is self-leadership – being responsible for one’s own response to uncertainty, undesirable outcomes and things beyond control. At the core of this is the idea of agency, and a choice: to be either a victim of circumstance or a creature of it.

Strategy helps in the first two circles, but character – core thinking patterns and behaviours – is what separates good from great self-leadership. The planning is important, but the leader’s response to reality is what matters. What matters is what you do when a punch in the mouth hits you unexpectedly, and how the leader helps their followers to proceed no matter what happens.

Leadership is a service you provide for yourself and others, in that order.

In dealing with uncertainty, the leader’s responsibility can be simplified to:

1. Plan well and prepare themselves and the team,
2. Understand and shape the environment in the team’s favour, and
3. Respond well to whatever is found as the team proceeds.

The best leaders do more than just respond to luck and uncertainty. They turn it to their advantage.