Needing to lead through uncertainty? Want to lead with more confidence and courage? In this episode of the Build a Vibrant Culture Podcast, Nicole Greer sits down with Pete Behrens, founder and CEO of the Agile Leadership Journey, to talk about what it actually takes to lead through uncertainty. Pete is the author of Into the Fog: Leadership Stories from the Edge of Uncertainty, and this conversation delves into aspects of leadership that lack a clear right-or-wrong answer.
Lead Through Uncertainty. Don’t Wait for Clarity
Pete opened the conversation with the central idea behind his book: uncertainty is not a problem to be fixed; it is the terrain leaders actually operate in. Most leadership training prepares people for two extremes, clear skies where you can plan and execute, and storms where a crisis calls for decisive action. But Pete pointed out that most of leadership happens somewhere else entirely: in the fog, where there is no obvious right choice.
In that fog, the instinct is to wait for clarity before acting. Pete flipped that idea on its head. Clarity does not come before movement; it comes from movement. Leaders build understanding by making a decision, gathering information from the result, and adjusting from there. That willingness to act without having all the answers is what Pete calls the real courage leadership requires.
The Difference Between Courage and Recklessness
One of the most memorable stories in the episode came from Pete’s early years leading a youth backpacking trip in Colorado. Faced with an incoming storm, Pete pushed the group forward instead of turning back, telling himself it was bold leadership. It nearly ended in disaster.
Looking back, Pete realized what felt like courage in the moment was actually his ego refusing to look weak in front of the group. That experience shaped how he now teaches leaders to think about courage: it is not an endpoint; it is a midpoint on a spectrum. Push too far past it, and you land in recklessness. Pull back too far, and you land in fear. Real leadership lives in that narrow, uncomfortable middle.
Why Ego Is the Hardest Fog to Get Through
Nicole and Pete spent a good portion of the conversation on ego, which Pete described as the common denominator he sees in leaders across every culture he has worked in. Ego is not inherently bad. It exists to protect us. The problem is that it often protects us from the exact feedback we need to hear, filtering out honest input and replacing it with the story we would rather believe about ourselves.
Pete shared a turning point in his career when a team he led staged an intervention to tell him they were only following his direction because of his title, not because they wanted to. Years later, working as a consultant, he watched another leader earn the kind of buy-in he never had. The lesson stuck with him: title and status carry far more influence than most leaders realize, and mistaking that influence for genuine leadership is one of the most common blind spots.
Leadership Presence Is Defined by Others, Not Intentions
Perhaps the most quotable moment of the episode came when Pete and Nicole discussed how leadership presence works. Intentions do not define how a leader comes across. The way others experience a leader’s actions is what actually matters. A leader might think they are being confident when it comes across as arrogance, or think they are joking when it comes across as dismissive.
Building self-awareness around this gap requires other people willing to tell the truth, even when it is uncomfortable. Pete credited his own growth to colleagues who had the courage to point out when his intentions did not match his impact.
Building Alignment Across Every Level of Leadership
The conversation closed on alignment, something Pete has seen play out across organizations like GE Healthcare, Salesforce, and Google. The mistake most leaders make is trying to align teams on tactics and techniques rather than on shared values and principles. Alignment holds when it is built on something stable, not on the specifics of any one project or process.
Connect With Pete Behrens
You can connect with Pete Behrens at https://www.petebehrens.com/about
Start Building Your Own Vibrant Culture
To lead through uncertainty, it’s important to have the tools to guide your team with confident communication and empathy. If you’re ready to build the kind of self-awareness and alignment Pete and Nicole discuss in this episode, explore Nicole Greer’s leadership training programs, designed to help leaders create the kind of workplace people do not want to leave.
