What To Do When You Don't Know What's Next

There’s a moment in every leader’s career where the playbook runs out. The strategy that got you here won’t get you there. The market shifted, the team changed, or the world threw something at you that nobody planned for. And in that moment, the instinct is to freeze — to wait for more data, more clarity, more certainty before taking the next step.

But here’s what we’ve learned from three decades of working with organizations: waiting for certainty is its own kind of risk. The leaders who navigate ambiguity well aren’t the ones who somehow see the future more clearly. They’re the ones who’ve built the capacity to act without knowing exactly what comes next. They listen more than they plan. They make small, reversible decisions instead of betting everything on one grand strategy. They stay connected to their teams instead of retreating into isolation.

This is where the principles of applied improv become genuinely practical. In an improv exercise, you literally don’t know what’s coming next — and that’s the point. You train yourself to stay present, to respond to what’s actually happening instead of what you wish were happening. Over time, that practice builds a kind of leadership muscle that’s hard to develop any other way. It’s not about being spontaneous or funny. It’s about being adaptable and grounded when the stakes are high.

We’ve seen this play out with executives, middle managers, and frontline supervisors alike. When people practice navigating uncertainty in a low-stakes environment, they bring that confidence back to the high-stakes moments that matter. They stop waiting for permission to lead. They start trusting their instincts and their teams. And the organizations around them become more resilient as a result.

If you’re in one of those “I don’t know what’s next” moments right now, you’re not alone. The question isn’t whether uncertainty will show up — it’s whether you’ve built the skills to move through it. That’s a trainable capacity, and it might be the most important leadership investment you make this year.