Thread

Explaining reasoning and admitting uncertainty

Leaders earn trust by saying what is known and what is not, and by explaining why a path was chosen. They should not project false certainty. This is carried mainly by guests from health, government and academies, and Daniel echoes it. One guest adds the tension that leaders often carry uncertainty quietly.

How it developed: It moved from explaining decisions (E03) to admitting uncertainty in crisis (E12, E20). It then widened to public trust in expertise (E35). Hurley complicates it: uncertainty cannot always be shared downward.

The thread's title and description are AI-written, drawn from the episodes below. The quotations are verbatim from the episode audio, each linked to the moment it was said.

What was said

“If you don't explain why everyone has to, incur those restrictions, you're gonna wind up with, grief as a leader. And so having that individual and population perspective, I think, is really critical, and that certainly served me well.”
— Vivek Goel, guest · The doctor will see you now | Dr. Vivek Goel on Leadership and AI · [04:10]
“Saying I don't know sometimes is a really important admission.”
— Mark Walton, guest · Leading like a jazz conductor, not a classical maestro | Mark Walton · [15:15]
“People can live with uncertainty. As I reflect back now is people struggle with opacity.”
— Sara Hurley, guest · Putting the Mouth Back into the Body Politic | Sara Hurley · [30:36]
“The first is that ultimately philosophy is in many ways about understanding the limits of your knowledge. It's about understanding what you don't know and being clear about what you have, as it were, a warrant to believe.”
— Duncan Ivison, guest · Philosophy, AI and the Mess of Leading: the future of institutions in a rapidly changing world | Duncan Ivison · [12:29]
“One is not just provide the conclusion of our expertise, but also be careful in outlining our reasoning that takes us to that conclusion. And second, we need to be very honest about where that expertise ends and when, as I said, advocacy or judgment begins,”
— Sir Anton Muscatelli, guest · Sir Anton Muscatelli on Leading Public Institutions Through Complexity, Slow Growth, and the AI Age · [07:14]
“It's better not to have an answer than actually to actually claim something that isn't true.”
— Daniel Atlin, guest · Leading in Messy Situations | Ep. 98 | The Science of Leadership · [30:48]

Episodes in this thread

All topics and episodes of Messy with Daniel Atlin