When the future seems unsafe and uncertain, we look for comfort and clarity. 

The geopolitical, socioeconomic, and polarized conditions of the world are increasingly creating an environment of instability, crisis, and ambivalence. There are few areas of life without risk or danger, while trusted neighbors, experts, officials, partners, and institutions are increasingly difficult to find. Adapting to change and maintaining hope becomes a daily struggle in a fast-moving world. In these moments, differing views of the world attempt to stake their claim while our own beliefs are simultaneously challenged in the process.

There is presently an overwhelming movement toward traditionalist and authoritarian styles of leadership worldwide. This is not surprising given the number of emerging challenges humanity faces. These leaders are often perceived as clear, confident, and courageous because their reality is defined by binary results – success and failures, profits and losses, good and evil, friends and foes, winners and losers, us and them. In their world, there is little room for nuance, complexity, or flexibility. 

Adapting to change and maintaining hope becomes a daily struggle in a fast-moving world.

The pull toward this leadership is appealing because these individuals and their associated movements speak in terms of certainty and authority. They rely on their past experiences and understanding to assure their followers that tomorrow can be built or restored to the conditions that once created the past. They do so while blaming the present conditions on the perceived forces of evil and the policies of others. They offer comfort in a romanticized past and promise victory over their enemies.

Given the right conditions, this form of leadership is extremely effective and sometimes required. The fallacy, however, is believing the world only operates as a binary, simplistic organism. 

Indeed the world is built on simple biological, physical, and social systems, but they do not exist independently of the others. Every simple part works in perfect and imperfect harmony in the broader ecosystem of the biosphere, society, and unseen realities. No one part or system has complete dominance or superiority over the other, with each influencing the other. 

In a world with increased uncertainty, we need confident leaders who respect and uphold the non-binary complexities of our time. Decisive black-and-white decision-makers are great head coaches in a game with clearly defined rules. Thoughtful and nuanced collaborators create the conditions for a sustainable and equitable future where the rules are always being rewritten.