Dr Eric Perez is Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Australasian Institute of Marine Surveyors (AIMS). Eric believes foresight and strategic thinking are key leader capabilities that are fundamental to developing informed, timely and futures-oriented strategy. Future-fit leadership requires strategy-level leaders with a deep understanding of the links between foresight and strategic thinking, moving industries away from a reliance on the past and toward genuine engagement with possible futures.
Leaders today must navigate volatile market environments, changing public expectations, the needs of their teams and unstable geopolitical circumstances. You might therefore expect our leaders to embrace uncertainty as an inevitable part of decision-making.
My view is that the reality of modern leadership is an acceptance that uncertainty is, and will remain, ‘the new normal’. Once you accept this, you also accept that some decisions will require the best information you can access, feedback and counsel from your teams, and a pinch of experience.
What I am getting at is that there is a science to decision-making, but decisions will not always be based purely on intuition or purely on evidence. Often, it will be a mix of the two, leading to either a great decision or one you might later regret.
The psychology of decision-making, uncertainty and leadership
There is a rich and extensive body of empirical research on the topic of decision-making, uncertainty and leadership. Type ‘decision-making, uncertainty and leadership’ into Google Scholar, for example, and you will get almost 2.8 million results.
Why so many results? I believe we collectively keep seeking insights into these topics because decision-making is a complex psychological phenomenon. Add uncertainty and you increase the complexity, possible variables and person-specific issues generated by unstable environments.
Decision-making is a complex process, and the psychological variables leaders need to be aware of include, but are not limited to: (1) risk perception, (2) ambiguity tolerance, (3) cognitive load, control and flexibility, (4) emotional regulation, (5) intolerance of uncertainty, (6) cognitive biases, (7) time pressure, (8) social influence and norms, and (9) self-efficacy and confidence calibration.1
Being aware of these variables will go a long way towards helping leaders build their leadership toolbox. Testing how you think with your peers, a mentor or coach can help you see where your potential biases lie. Thinking about thinking is not an academic exercise; it should form part of how you build your own professional practice.
Why good leaders still make poor decisions
In 2013, Glenn Llopis, writing for Forbes, identified six reasons why leaders make bad decisions: too much reliance on previous experience, corporate political considerations, lacking purpose, mismanaging resources, missing opportunities and lack of self-belief.2 Do any of these ring true for you? If they do, then welcome to leadership.
A bad decision is not necessarily the end of a career. What matters is what you learn from the mistake. Have you reflected on the process that led to an error in judgement, and what will you do differently next time?
You might also consider what happens when a leader within your team makes an error in judgement. Have you helped create an environment where they can review their leadership practice and feel safe enough to share what they have learned?
Navigating ambiguity with confidence
Leaders and teams want what we all want: predictability and patterns that create feelings of safety.3 I will draw on my experience during COVID-19, which was a significant disruptor on a global scale in terms of health and its impact on organisations, teams and leaders.
I was working as a CEO during the pandemic and, fortunately for me, I was working remotely from home. The significant impacts on my members — commercial fishers, wholesalers and retailers — left a lasting impression on me.4 My members’ work was considered an essential service by government.
My recollection of the period is that the first question from my members or Directors was often, ‘How are you and your family?’ Their concern for the health and welfare of my family and me was appreciated and helped reduce my anxiety.
The levels of ambiguity and uncertainty were prolonged and had short- and long-term implications for how leaders lead, the expectations of teams and how roles were — and continue to be — defined, including work-from-home and remote roles.
The post-COVID-19 leadership landscape is, I believe, one that has forced leaders to embrace uncertainty, review what they perceive as strategic and reorient themselves towards demonstrated, authentic and team-focused leadership.
David Bartlett, writing for Better Boards, shares several insights from a not-for-profit and strategic planning perspective that I believe are worth restating: ‘the need for speed’, or reacting quickly rather than seeking perfection; ‘new value through innovation’, or business-wide innovative thinking; ‘top-down and bottom-up collaboration’, or a team-based, non-hierarchical way of working; and ‘experimentation’, or growing the options available to achieve better long-term planning.5
Practical frameworks for making higher-quality strategic decisions
I support and suggest leaders consider the framework proposed by Dr Wade Azmy under the ‘Future Whisperers’ framework.
The approach involves:6
Foresight: Identifying trends, uncertainties and potential futures to build a proactive stance. This foundation creates clarity and direction.
Narrative: Crafting compelling stories that translate complex foresight into a clear, relatable vision. Narratives make the future feel tangible and desirable.
Engagement: Using storytelling to create emotional connection and shared purpose. An engaged workforce is motivated to turn vision into reality.
Action: Inspiring collective action and adaptability. When teams are aligned and motivated, they co-create the desired future together.
While this framework extends beyond the decision itself, I think its value for leaders lies in recognising that good strategic decision-making does not end when a decision is made. Leaders must be able to translate foresight into a direction their teams understand, engage people in that direction and ultimately turn it into action.
Closing thoughts
I truly believe that the challenge for our leaders is not to remove uncertainty, but to develop the judgement, discipline and confidence to lead through it.
Better decisions emerge when leaders combine evidence with experience, invite diverse perspectives from their teams, test their assumptions and remain honest about what they do not yet know. Decision-making under uncertainty is part of ongoing professional practice. It will never be perfect, so expect a few stumbles, but remember to be humble, reflect, learn and grow your leadership practice.
When uncertainty becomes part of your operating environment, the most effective leaders are those who help their teams make sense of complexity and convert it into shared direction.
Our leaders should deliberately invest time in testing their assumptions, strengthening their foresight capability and listening to diverse voices. This approach can lead to better business cultures and create an environment that fosters innovation, creativity and, importantly, engagement from the teams — the human beings who ultimately help organisations achieve positive outcomes.
References
1 Shye, S & Viale, R (2025). “The cognitive basis for decision making under risk and uncertainty: research programs & controversies.” Frontiers in Psychology, 16, 1546461; Castellón-Flores, A.M., Molina-Perez, E., Molina, I., Cortes, P.M., Sobrino, F., & Serra-Barragan, L (2025). “Integrative and syntactic complexity’s role in decision-making under uncertainty,” Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1450703; Choudhury, N.A, & Saravanan, P (2026). “An integrative review on unveiling the causes and effects of decision fatigue to develop a multi-domain conceptual framework,” Frontiers in Cognition, 4, 1719312; Timashkov, A., Anderson, S.A & Zinchenko, O (2025). “Neural correlates of uncertainty processing: Meta-analysis of fMRI studies,” Frontiers in Neuroscience, 19, 1662272; Westover, J.H (2026). “Managing Emotional Uncertainty: Five Leadership Traits That Drive Decisive Action,” Human Capital Leadership Review, 31(3); Valentin, S & White, C (2026). “Decision-Making Styles and Intolerance of Uncertainty,” Psychological Reports; Kovic, P., Doyle, S & Tyler, V (2025). “Cognitive biases in strategic decision-making: Unravelling the psychological barriers to rational leadership”; Yang, R., Li, S., Qi, Y., Liu, J., He, Q & Zhao, H (2025). “Unveiling users’ algorithm trust: The role of task objectivity, time pressure, and cognitive load,” Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 18, 100667; Alzahawi, S & Flynn, F.J (2025). “Does expressing uncertainty help or harm leaders?” The Leadership Quarterly, 36(5), 101880; Muchová, M & Nosáľová, E (2025). “From intolerance of uncertainty to action crisis: The mediating role of goal self-efficacy,” EWOP in Practice, 19(2).
2 Llopis, G (2013). 6 Reasons Leaders Make Bad Decisions. Forbes.
3 Lang, M., Krátký, J & Xygalatas, D (2022). “Effects of predictable behavioral patterns on anxiety dynamics,” Scientific Reports, 12(1), 19240; Munakata, Y., Placido, D & Zhuang, W (2023). “What’s Next? Advances and Challenges in Understanding How Environmental Predictability Shapes the Development of Cognitive Control,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 32(6), 431–438.
4 I served in senior positions and eventually as CEO of the Queensland Seafood Industry Association.
5 Bartlett, D (2026). Post-COVID Lessons for Strategic Leadership and Planning. Better Boards.
6 Azmy, W (2025), Slide 21. ‘The Future Whisperers: Leaders who don’t just predict the future – they inspire their teams to build it,’ in World Futures Studies Federation – WFSF World Conference.