From Overwhelm to Evolution: Navigating the Leadership Gap in a VUCA World
Across the world, more and more leaders are at unease and sensing the consequences of the growing leadership capability gap — a sign that the maps we’ve been using no longer match the terrain.
I’m talking about the gap between the complexity of the world we operate in and the inner and outer capacities of us as leaders.
From my perspective, this gap is not just a problem to solve. It’s a threshold to cross — a moment where we can either keep patching yesterday’s model or step into a different kind of leadership altogether.
Learning to Sail in Turbulent Conditions
The term VUCA — volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous — is now common in business language. But volatility and uncertainty aren’t new. Humans have always faced disruption and change.
What is different is the nature of the challenges we face today. Shifts happen faster, often outpacing traditional planning cycles. Issues are deeply linked; a decision in one area can ripple across markets, communities, and ecosystems. And, many of the most pressing risks and opportunities are invisible and systemic: think AI ethics, climate tipping points, or social trust.
It’s as if we’ve moved from sailing in a sheltered bay to navigating an open ocean — with shifting currents, changing winds, and storms that can appear from anywhere. In this environment, our job is no longer to “wait for calmer weather,” but to learn to sail with the conditions as they are.
Why Our Brains Struggle with Uncertainty
Our nervous systems are finely tuned to detect and respond to change. But as neuropsychologist Dr. Julia DiGangi explains, the brain is essentially a prediction engine.
If you have time, check out this video from our conversation about her book Energy Rising below. Here we talk about leading in uncertainty and a VUCA world.
So what’s going on?
When events defy our expectations — repeatedly and over long periods — the system signals threat and turns on our inner defence systems, resulting in what we recognise as stress.
Stress is actually crucial to all of life. Short-term stress can be like the spark that lights a campfire: it brings heat, focus, and energy. But when the spark turns into a constant blaze, it can scorch the very ground we’re trying to cultivate. Also for you as a leader.
Chronic stress in perceived uncertainty narrows our thinking, dampens creativity, and strains relationships. It pushes us into reactive patterns, even if those patterns no longer fit the reality in front of us.
This demands a different type of capacity building than we are used to, not with a focus on skills, but with a focus on enlarging our capacities.
Why Vertical Leadership Development is Necessary
Don’t get me wrong. Skills matter. Strategy frameworks, negotiation skills, communication tools — they’re essential. But perfecting our skills, or adding new ones, will only get us so far. In today’s environment, what’s needed is not just a bigger toolbox — it’s a stronger frame to hold the tools.
That means enlarging our capacity:
- To see more clearly and systemically.
- To hold complexity without rushing to premature answers.
- To stay grounded under pressure, without being pulled into reactivity.
And it can be done. This is, in fact, the essence of vertical leadership development: upgrading the way we see, think, and respond, so we can lead from clarity rather than from habit.
This is also the very core of the transformative leadership coaching that I do with my clients.
The Vertical Shift
If horizontal leadership development is like adding new apps to your phone, vertical leadership development is like upgrading the operating system so those apps can work at their best.
Through vertical leadership development, leaders develop a broader sense of purpose, resilience under pressure, systemic awareness, polarity thinking and more. We start orienting decisions toward value creation for society, stakeholders, and the planet over the long term. We can remain calm and present in volatile, high-stakes situations. We see patterns, interdependencies, and consequences across time, space, and stakeholders more clearly. And, we move from “either/or” to “both/and,” holding tensions such as stability and change, short-term and long-term focus.
These aren’t abstract ideals. They’re practical capacities for leading in the reality of today and tomorrow.
These insights make me hesitant to buy into McKinsey’s recent idea of creating “leadership factories” as an answer to deliberately cultivating leaders at scale.
What we need is rather an ecosystem approach which embeds vertical growth into real work and real challenges, balances stretch with support — using coaching, mentoring, and reflection to help leaders integrate what they learn, welcomes diverse perspectives, especially those that challenge the status quo, and anchors leadership development in the organization’s higher purpose and desired future impact. It is about cultivating diversity, resilience, and adaptability — the very qualities our future demands.
Ultimately, this is not about choosing between skills and capacity. It’s about integrating them in a way that each strengthens the other: skills give us the “what” — concrete actions we can take, while vertical capacity shapes the “how” — the clarity, presence, and discernment from which those actions arise.
When the sea is calm, skills may be enough to get us to shore. But in an open ocean, it’s our capacity — our inner compass — that ensures we stay on course, no matter how the winds change.
Closing the Gap
The leadership gap is real, but it’s also an invitation. It’s a signal to stop relying on outdated maps and to start developing the navigational capacity needed for the seas ahead.
Closing this gap means learning to regulate ourselves so we can think and act clearly in uncertainty, expanding our meaning-making so we can hold more complexity and integrate more perspectives, and designing leadership development more purposefully to capture the challenge.
It’s not about surviving the VUCA world. It’s about evolving with it — and through it — so that the organisations and systems we lead can thrive in the decades to come.
A Reflection for You and Your Team
As you think about your own leadership — and the culture you’re building — ask:
- Are we only building skills, or are we also expanding our capacity to lead in a VUCA world?
- Do we help our leaders regulate themselves and remain present under pressure?
- Is our environment safe enough for people to challenge assumptions and bring new perspectives?
The leaders who will thrive in the coming decade will not just know more — they will see more, hold more, and be more in the face of accelerating change.
Interested in exploring Transformative Executive Coaching for vertical leadership development to increase your capacity and impact? Feel free to contact me via elisabet.lagerstedt@future-navigators.com to set up a free discovery call.
Want to learn more on your own? Other blog posts on the same topic:
The Key to Future-Fit Leadership: Why Growing Yourself Is the Most Strategic Move You Can Make
Why We Need Inner Development to Navigate and Catalyze Outer Change
About the author
Elisabet Lagerstedt
Elisabet Lagerstedt is the founder and director of Future Navigators. As a trusted advisor, consultant, and Executive Coach, she helps business leaders navigate beyond business as usual to build Better Business and co-create a better future - through insight, strategy, innovation, and transformation. Elisabet is also the author of Better Business, Better Future (2022) and Navigera in i Framtiden (2018).