When we're in the messy middle of a crisis or a high-stakes waiting game, we hate how powerless it feels
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The Problem
At Stanford GSB, one of the foundational exercises given to first-year MBA students is Desert Survival. The first choice they’re presented with after being theoretically stranded in the desert with limited supply: stay put and wait for rescue or move in search of water and shelter. Almost everyone moves. Why? Because it feels like you're doing something.
But the safer choice is to stay still, which is excruciating under stressful circumstances. This is called Action Bias.
High-performing leaders do the same thing at work.
You fire an underperformer, and immediately reach out to three mentors to figure out how this happened. Was it them? Was it you? What's the right answer? How do I not let this happen again?
You're waiting on a massive enterprise deal to sign. You get one confusing email and immediately jump to: deal in danger, everyone all hands on deck…for something that didn't end up needing that kind of alarm.
When you don't know if a new hire is going to work out, or if your CEO will approve the budget, that uncertainty can lead you to go in search of water when you really need to stay put.
The Discovery
I recently read a piece by Lachlan Brown 1that captures an antidote to Action Bias. It argues that the rarest mental strength today isn't resilience or grit. It's the ability to sit with uncertainty.
In psychology and leadership, this is known as Negative Capability. Originally coined by the poet John Keats,2 it's defined as the capacity to be in "uncertainties, mysteries, and doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason."
When we're in the messy middle of a crisis or a high-stakes waiting game, we hate how powerless it feels. So we irritably reach for control. We lose our Negative Capability and immediately default to one of three anxiety-driven escape hatches:
Distraction: We manufacture busywork to feel productive. Or scroll.
Premature Explanation: We force sense-making before the data is in and jump to worst-case scenarios.
Outsourcing the Feeling: We poll our peers, friends, mentors—anyone—using other people's opinions to dilute our own discomfort.
Today, this psychological trap is amplified by AI. We have an answer machine open on our desktops 24/7. When the anxiety of the unknown hits, AI offers us instant, synthetic certainty. It's the perfect enabler for the escape hatches:
Distraction: Instead of sitting with the uncomfortable silence of a pending decision, we prompt ChatGPT to build out a dozen hypothetical contingency plans. We spin our wheels building scenarios that may never happen.
Premature Explanation: A board member sends a cryptic, one-line email. Instead of letting reality unfold and asking them for context on Monday, we paste the message into Claude and ask it to "analyze the sentiment." We treat AI like a crystal ball, not a tool.
Outsourcing the Feeling: We ask AI, "What should I do?" and it answers with total confidence—whether or not the advice is any good. AI doesn't hedge. It doesn't say, "I don't know yet." It gives us the illusion of certainty when what we actually need is the courage to sit in the unknown a little longer.
The Experiment
One element of executive presence is the ability to look at a terrifying unknown and calmly tolerate the silence.
This week, your goal is to calibrate your default escape hatch. When a deal stalls, a launch gets rocky, or a conflict arises, notice which of the three escape hatches you instinctively reach for, and run a different play.
1. If Your Default Is Distraction…
The symptom: You pull new data, build unnecessary spreadsheets, or aggressively reorganize your inbox.
The alternative action: Enforce a tactical freeze. Close the laptop. Walk away for 20 minutes. Remind yourself that frantic motion is not progress.
2. If Your Default Is Premature Explanation…
The symptom: You're jumping to conclusions while the fire is still burning. You've already decided the deal is dead, the hire is a mistake, or the board is unhappy before you have any actual evidence.
The alternative action: Name the timeline. Tell yourself (or your team), "We are in the thick of it right now, and we don't have the perspective to make sense of this yet. We will debrief on Friday." Give the reflection the time it requires.
3. If Your Default is Outsourcing The Feeling…
The symptom: You DM five different peers asking for their "take" on the situation, hoping their reassurance will lower your heart rate.
The alternative action: Contain the anxiety. Open a private, blank document. Type out every catastrophic thought and worst-case scenario you're feeling. Process your own anxiety first before you make it someone else's problem.
The Takeaway
Living with uncertainty is uncomfortable, and we don't naturally excel at it. Yet cultivating your Negative Capability can fundamentally transform how you lead.
With the practice of negative capability, of being in uncertainty without seeking facts or reason, you can strengthen your ability to hold conflicting ideas and emotions, explore the complexity of human behavior, and harness your creativity.
AI can deliver instant, synthetic certainty on demand. AI cannot demonstrate patience. It cannot sit in the discomfort of not knowing and still project calm, thoughtful leadership. So your ability to hold space for uncertainty becomes your human edge. One uncomfortable moment at a time.
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and saying human in the age of AI.
