Learning How to Slow Dance With Uncertainty
-A Lesson in Leadership
Leadership is a dance. It is the art of moving deliberately to the rhythm of the world that surrounds you while bringing emotion and meaning to those you dance with and to those who might simply watch. Have you ever noticed how smoothly and effortlessly a great leader moves?
Gene Kelly said, “You dance love, and you dance joy, and you dance dreams”.
In its highest form leadership is a joy to watch. It is also a source of great personal satisfaction – and even delight – even in the most solemn and somber calls for leadership. An exceptional leader is fully aware that they are accomplishing something that is necessary and serving something much greater than themself. It is how leaders transform senseless pain into meaningful action and purpose. This is how great leaders shaped history – and defined themselves.
“I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Every leader I have ever known and worked with would always choose certainty over uncertainty. Knowing you have the correct answer or are making the best decision in any circumstances not only make you feel safe – it makes you powerful. But when you have good reason to feel confident- it’s easy to overestimate your competence.
Certainty is easy to dance gracefully with.
There is little that needs to be interpreted in the familiarity of the moment and the pace of the rhythm is light and breezy. You can close your eyes and still see where you are going. There are no surprises and your steps land solidly and your balance remains strong. Certainty teases you to take risks and invites a degree of playfulness. Certainty makes it easy to be a good dancer.
Dancing with uncertainty is another matter. Your movement feels awkward and you feel out of sync with the people you must lead. The rhythm is harder to follow and the pace with which you must make decisions often speeds up to the point that you easily lose your footing. Or it slows down to the point that you find it hard or even impossible to move.
Uncertainty often yields paralysis.
“Uncertainty aims to distract and overwhelm you, but only if you allow it to. It is easy to run from it. Yet it is in the moments of uncertainty that leaders are made.”
You must learn to embrace and dance with uncertainty.
The poet, Maya Angelou noted “Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances.” You must find the rhythm of the uncertainty you face and lean into it. Like an enemy that you hold closer to you than you hold your friends.
Leadership is learning how to slow-dance with uncertainty. You have to get your arms around it and slow the pace until you feel that rather than struggle, you can move together as one through whatever adversity you face.
The more you practice the better you get until you can effortlessly switch from going wherever uncertainty takes you – to taking the lead and guiding uncertainty to where you want to go.
As a youngster I remember dancing being absolutely terrifying. The thought of not knowing how – or of exposing my clumsiness was nearly as frightening as the intimacy dancing elicited. The motivation to dance was simply that being a wallflower was slightly more embarrassing than the awkwardness of asking someone to dance.
The dancing of those days wasn’t particularly intimate – or especially challenging: I could shuffle my feet back and forth, rock my shoulders and twist my arms to the simple beat of late sixties rock-and-roll.
It was much later when I found the nerve to ask someone to slow dance with me. It happened because I cared enough to make it happen. It wasn’t pretty – but that didn’t matter. When you discover what really matters to to you – you can find the courage to slow dance.
“You learn to slow dance with uncertainty when you discover the need to accomplish what matters most.”
Perhaps the Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher, Satchel Paige said it best: “Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching.”
