944: LEADERSHIP MINDSET: The Gifts of Suspending Certainty

Update: 2025-06-17

Description

I was recently sitting in one of my Change Leadership classes for my Master’s degree in Organizational Leadership, and my teacher asked us, “What would it look like if, as change leaders, we were to suspend certainty more often?” I immediately made a note to myself, “podcast episode on suspending certainty!”

As someone who craves certainty but understands that nothing is certain, I often think about becoming more comfortable with impermanence. I’ve never heard this referred to as “suspending certainty”, but this term struck me, and I knew I wanted to dig into it with you all!

In this episode, we talk about the importance of suspending certainty in leadership and personal growth. We talk through the benefits of embracing uncertainty, including:

Increased curiosity

Access to new perspectives

Openness to learning and new opportunities

Increased surprise, delight, and joy

Gifts that come when we step out of our “I got it all figured out” ego

Resilience, resourcefulness, tenacity, creativity, fun, and JOY are all born out of figuring out new things, embracing new realities, letting go of the old, and stepping into new opportunities where we don’t know exactly how things will go. What might happen for you if you felt prepared to step into uncertainty at any time? Suspending certainty will help you with this preparation.

Episode Highlights:

00:00 Introduction and Exciting Updates

03:35 The Concept of Suspending Certainty

04:03 Understanding the Gifts of Suspending Certainty

11:10 Benefits of Embracing Uncertainty

20:10 Navigating Personal and Collective Uncertainty

30:30 Conclusion and Upcoming Workshop

Links Mentioned:

Attend my free workshop for women small business owners, Focused and Fierce: Lead with Purpose and Build Your Business in a Noisy World: saradean.com/fierce