How Leaders Prepare Organisations for Unstable Conditions

Periods of economic and structural instability are not new; however, the forces shaping today’s environment are intensifying in both scale and speed. Government and historically, imperial overspending, unsustainable debt, currency debasement, excessive military expenditure, and the high cost of maintaining large and complex territories have existed for millennia. What is concerning today is not that these patterns exist, but that history is repeating itself, with debt expanding faster and necessary financial adjustments are being deferred rather than resolved.

Trillions in accumulated sovereign debt now sit like an iceberg beneath global markets, creating underlying fragility even when surface conditions appear stable. The issue is less about immediate panic and more about systemic pressure (financial, policy, institutional trust, business operations, public and consumer behaviour swings) building within the system.

Most leaders and business owners I speak with fall into three groups: those unaware, those choosing to ignore it, and a smaller group who are alert and acting on what is within their control. The operating environment is shifting again, and viewing it through the lens of chasing external stability is no longer useful; what matters now is strengthening internal resilience, reassessing and extending planning horizons, exercising grounded leadership, and maintaining active, thoughtful dialogue with other leaders. This article examines how to do that in a practical and structured way.

What this shift looks like in practice is not dramatic disruption, but persistent friction across the operating landscape. Take, for example, a project that would previously move from proposal to approval in six weeks now stretching to twelve, as each stakeholder reassesses risk, timing, and exposure. Deals take longer to close, customers hesitate before committing, costs move unpredictably, and capital becomes more selective, while regulatory settings shift just enough to demand ongoing attention. External pressures add complexity by slowing movement and increasing the demands placed on decision-making.

This is where leadership starts to matter in a different way. The leaders who cope best in these conditions do not try to out-predict the environment. As Peter Drucker observed decades ago, the role of management is not to foresee the future, but to build organisations capable of performing in it. Preparation rather than prediction provides the true advantage, and that preparation begins within the organisation.

I was recently advising the CEO of a mid-sized manufacturing business that had performed reliably for years in a relatively steady market. As volatility increased due to global tariff changes, fluctuating consumer demand, supply chain delays, and pricing pressures, the leadership team instinctively tightened control, reduced spending, and limited capital expenditure. They raised approval thresholds, centralized pricing and discount decisions, required executive sign-off for procurement and supplier changes, added layers for production scheduling, overtime, and inventory decisions, and introduced more frequent operational and financial reporting. This is a common response, but it had the effect of pushing decision-making upward, multiplying approvals, and drawing senior leaders deeper into the day-to-day operations of the business.

Although the business had strong potential and demand, growth slowed as bottlenecks and unclear communication created hesitation. Managers became frustrated and uncertain without full visibility into shifting priorities, while teams paused, waiting for guidance to avoid mistakes. As a result, the organisation became overly cautious at the very moment it needed to act decisively and adaptively.

What emerged was a fear-driven response to several disruptions that challenged the organisation’s long-held assumptions of order and stability, leaving leaders unable to recognise the need for internal redesign. The business had been constructed to operate under predictable conditions, and its structures, processes, and decision-making frameworks were optimised for stability rather than variability. As pressures mounted, these assumptions proved inadequate, exposing the organisation’s unpreparedness for an environment that demanded flexibility, rapid adaptation, and decisive action, which ultimately led them to turn to us to reimagine their operating strategies.

Preparing an organisation to navigate unstable conditions does not mean making it rigid. If anything, it requires the opposite, and the first step is to test existing assumptions.

Now, take a moment to reflect on your own organisation. When external noise is high, information is incomplete, performance data sends mixed signals, and timing is critical, do your people act with confidence, or do they default to escalating every decision? Toyota, which began as the world’s first manufacturer of automatic looms in 1924, has long understood the imperative of adapting to change, from post-war survival to the digital, electric, and autonomous mobility era. What makes Toyota unique is their ability to combine disciplined long-term cultural principles with rapid, flexible execution. They have demonstrated that surviving and thriving through change requires a relentless focus on strong stakeholder relationships, hedging costs, continuous improvement, a culture of learning, leverage technology to humanise work, build where they sell and a deep respect for their people.

Reducing Friction in Execution

According to a Forbes review of execution research, 54% of organisations achieve less than half of their strategic objectives, and only 2% of leaders believe they will achieve 80–100% of their goals, illustrating how execution often falls short of strategic intent. Execution frequently encounters bottlenecks, as aligning daily operations with short-, medium-, and long-term strategies requires navigating shifting priorities, managing complex human behaviours, and maintaining accountability, communication, and reporting. While execution naturally follows preparation, work under pressure tends to stall in familiar areas, employees may hesitate to provide buy-in, and execution can be treated as an afterthought rather than a core discipline. 

Effective preparation involves identifying choke points early, removing resistance to change, instilling new behaviours, aligning resources, monitoring progress in real time, simplifying processes, maintaining consistent communication, and eliminating dependencies that slow progress. The objective is not to work harder but to reduce friction, enabling teams to act decisively and consistently when conditions demand it.

Building Resilient Structures

Organisational structure plays a far greater role than many leaders realise. Companies that rely excessively on a few key individuals, fragile systems, or informal knowledge are vulnerable when circumstances shift. Leaders who anticipate change invest in capability beyond the founding team, reduce single points of failure, and ensure the organisation can continue functioning even when essential personnel are unavailable. 

Global firms such as Nvidia have spent years deliberately building organisational resilience, reflecting an understanding that volatility is not an exception but a persistent feature of the business landscape. They achieve this by combining disciplined processes with scalable structures, investing heavily in talent development and cross-functional collaboration, and maintaining flexible resource allocation to respond quickly to emerging challenges. Nvidia continually monitors market signals and internal operations, encourages experimentation while containing risk, and embeds a culture where rapid learning and iteration are valued as much as long-term strategic planning. This approach enables them to act decisively under pressure while sustaining performance across multiple dimensions of the business.

Cultivating Adaptive Culture

Ronald Heifetz, a pioneering scholar in leadership studies and founder of the concept of adaptive leadership, emphasises that culture shapes how organisations respond under pressure. Culture is critical because unstable or unfavourable environments place emotional strain on teams, and stress reveals the behaviours that lie beneath established routines. As Heifetz has shown, some organisational cultures react defensively when familiar solutions no longer apply, while others remain composed, focused, and disciplined. Leaders actively shape these outcomes through consistency, modeling desired behaviours, healthy transparency, and a clear articulation of priorities, creating a framework that helps people navigate trade-offs with confidence, clarity, and purpose.

Seeing the Organisation Clearly

This is where THE LEAD ICON’s Leadership Strategic System Mapping (LSS/DNA Bus) becomes invaluable. It enables leaders to understand how their organisation truly operates under pressure, not just how it appears on paper. The Diagnostic reveals how decisions flow, where execution slows, where accountability resides, and how culture responds when tested. Crucially, it shows whether the organisation is aligned with the current business environment rather than the one it was built for. By uncovering these insights, THE LEAD ICON empowers leaders to redesign models, structures, revenue engines, processes, and behaviours for sustained performance, and resilience that lasts.  

Preparing Organisations for Systemic Pressure

Periods of instability do not create organisational strength, they reveal it. The structures, behaviours, and dependencies within an organisation come into sharp focus under pressure, showing where resilience holds and where fragility exists. While the world’s external environment continues to shift unpredictably, organisations that anticipate disruption rather than react to it are those that endure. By aligning strategy, structure, culture, and execution, reducing friction, clarifying decision-making, and embedding adaptive capabilities, organisations ensure they can withstand systemic pressure and move decisively when conditions demand it. Preparation is not about controlling the unknown; it is about being strong enough to hold, agile enough to act, and resilient enough to thrive, even when history repeats at greater speed and scale.

Take the iconic path

Publisher, Writer & Founder

ICONIC Business Journal

Dijana Dragomirovic