Humanist leadership in uncertain times

By Ian Brent-Smith

In an age of rapid change and uncertainty, Ian Brent-Smith explores the case for humanist leadership rooted in trust, transparency, and shared responsibility. Rather than relying on rigid top-down control, he suggests that resilient organisations are those where leadership is distributed and people are trusted to think and act.

Following service as an officer in the British Army, Ian ran successful engineering businesses for 40 years, providing equipment and services around the world to the fast-changing automotive, aerospace, and nuclear sectors. Since 2010, his focus has been on renewable energy – in particular the UK solar sector.

We’re living through a period of extraordinary uncertainty. By some measures, global uncertainty is now higher than it was even at the peak of the Covid pandemic. That probably won’t surprise anyone. In the past fifteen years we’ve seen climate pressures intensify, social media reshape how societies function, a global pandemic, war in Europe and the Middle East, and now the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence.

For leaders – whether in business or elsewhere – the challenge is not just the number of changes, but their speed. Things are not only uncertain; they are shifting in real time. Plans that looked solid a year ago can quickly become outdated.

So what can leaders do? The first task is to accept that uncertainty is now a permanent condition, not a temporary disruption. Once that’s understood, the focus shifts from trying to predict everything, to building organisations that can adapt to change.

That starts with clarity of direction. Even in uncertain times, people need to know where they are broadly heading. Without that, flexibility becomes drift. But equally, holding too tightly to a single plan can be dangerous. Leaders need to be prepared to adjust course as circumstances change.

In practical terms, this means moving away from rigid planning towards more flexible approaches. The military has long operated in what Clausewitz called the ‘fog of war’, where information is incomplete and conditions change rapidly. One useful idea that has come out of that tradition is to plan not just a primary route forward, but alternatives and for contingencies as well. The point is not to predict every outcome, but to avoid being locked into only one.

However, tools and frameworks only go so far. The real test of leadership in uncertain times is cultural.

In my own experience running a small manufacturing business, we worked in sectors where mistakes could be serious. Yet we learned early on that a blame culture makes things worse, not better. People become defensive, problems get hidden, and learning stops.

We adopted a ‘no blame’ approach. That didn’t mean mistakes didn’t matter – they mattered a great deal. But instead of focusing on who was at fault, we focused on understanding what had gone wrong and how to prevent it happening again. That only works if people feel trusted.

This is where humanist principles come into their own. Respect for individuals, recognition of human fallibility, and a commitment to honesty and transparency are not just ethical ideals – they are practical necessities. Without them, organisations become brittle. With them, they become more resilient.

Another important shift is recognising where information comes from. In times of rapid change, the first signs are often visible at the edges of an organisation – in contact with customers and suppliers, and in day-to-day operations. Leaders need to ensure that information flows upwards as well as downwards, and that people feel able to report concerns without hesitation.

At the same time, leaders must avoid being pulled entirely into the detail. There is always pressure to deal with the immediate issue, the latest problem, the next crisis. But leadership requires maintaining a view of the wider direction, even when events are demanding attention elsewhere.

There are, of course, specific risks that need attention – supply chain disruption, cyber threats, energy reliability, and the impact of new technologies. These are real and evolving challenges. But they are best understood not as isolated problems to be solved once and for all, but as part of a broader landscape of ongoing uncertainty.

It’s easy, in such conditions, to become overwhelmed or indecisive. But uncertainty doesn’t remove the possibility of good leadership. It simply changes its nature. Humanist leadership, at its best, combines rational thinking with ethical awareness. It accepts that we do not have perfect knowledge, but insists on making the best possible decisions with the information available. It treats people not as expendable parts of a system, but as individuals whose judgement and contribution matter. And it builds organisations in which trust allows people to respond intelligently when plans inevitably need to change.

Uncertainty is unlikely to go away. But with the right approach, it does not have to be paralysing. If anything, it can sharpen what matters most: clarity of purpose, flexibility in action, and a culture built on trust.