Coach Me! Your Personal Board of Directors
by Brian Underhill, Jonathan Passmore, Marshall Goldsmith
35 Letting Go of Certainty
David Clutterbuck
David Clutterbuck is one of the earliest pioneers of coaching and mentoring and the co-founder of the European Mentoring & Coaching Council. Author of more than 70 books, including the first evidence-based titles on coaching culture and team coaching, he is a visiting professor at four business schools.
This case is an amalgam of several.
One of the causes of the current global crisis in leadership is that in times of upheaval and uncertainty, people and organizations seek leaders, who offer certainty. But this comes at a price. If there is only one right way, then all other ways must by definition be wrong. The results include dictatorial behaviors, marginalization of those who dare to think differently, and polarization of opinion – often the easiest antidote to oppressive certainty is another equally uncompromising view of the “truth.”
The leaders I coach – and who come to the coaches I supervise – are overwhelmingly people who recognize the dangers of too much certainty. Although they may be unfamiliar with the term “simplexity”1 (the art of making complex issues simple but not simplistic), they instinctively recognize that simplistic perspectives and solutions do not work in a complex adaptive environment.
This was certainly the case with one CEO – let us call her Janice – of a medium-sized multinational business. The problem she faced, however, was that there was so much uncertainty, she was struggling to make decisions at ...