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Confidence – or the attempt to bring back heroic leadership
While the 20th century was often shaped by the idea of heroic leaders, the conditions of the 21st century made it increasingly clear that it takes more than individuals for complex systems to function. The age of post-heroic leadership had begun. The insight prevailed that complex organisational challenges cannot be mastered by individual leaders alone, but require the interplay of many people, different perspectives and organisational structures.
Today, in many places, we are once again seeing the demand that leadership should spread more confidence. Leaders are expected to provide orientation, convey security and get people to remain capable of acting even under uncertain conditions. This is interesting insofar as confidence is thereby declared a skill that leaders must develop in order to meet the demands of the present time.
On the other hand, this demand – as so often in the past – ignores the fact that confidence is not something that can simply be prescribed. Rather, it is something that emerges in a social system under certain contextual conditions. Whether people look to the future with confidence depends not only on the attitude of a leader, but also on how they understand the situation, what experiences they share with one another and what future they consider possible.
This first raises a different question: What exactly is confidence supposed to be the solution for?
If we look at confidence from a systems-theory perspective, it is not only about how individuals can overcome their uncertainty. Rather, it is about how organisations develop orientation, enable decisions and remain capable of acting under conditions of increasing uncertainty.
One possible approach is offered by the three dimensions of meaning as described by Niklas Luhmann: the factual dimension, the social dimension and the temporal dimension. They make it possible to look at the question of confidence from different, interconnected perspectives.
The factual dimension: What is it really about?
The factual dimension concerns what communication refers to and which topics, distinctions and possibilities become relevant.
Today, organisations have to find answers to ever more complex questions. At the same time, the conditions under which decisions are made are becoming increasingly opaque. The consequences of a decision can often be foreseen only to a limited extent. Organisations must nevertheless decide, because not deciding also has consequences.
A central function of organisational structures and decision premises is to reduce this complexity and to make decisions connectable. Organisations cannot re-examine every possibility for each decision. They therefore draw on established programmes, responsibilities, communication channels and expectations.
Against this background, the question of uncertainty absorption becomes relevant: How does an organisation manage to deal with the irreducible remainder of uncertainty in such a way that decisions still become possible?
If established decision premises no longer work or their reliability is called into question, orientation can be lost. Additional need for coordination arises, decisions are postponed or responsibility is passed on. Where the organisation finds no viable answers to the questions at hand, confidence also becomes difficult.
The crucial question is therefore not simply how an organisation can generate more confidence. Rather, one should ask: What factual clarifications, distinctions and decision bases does the organisation need in order to remain capable of acting even under uncertain conditions?
This is not just about making decisions possible at all. It is equally important whether concrete options for action emerge from them. Confidence can become effective where people not only recognise a desirable future, but also see opportunities to help shape it. Organisations therefore face the question of how a shared vision of the future can be turned into concrete next steps – and how people experience that their actions actually make a difference.
The social dimension: Who are we to one another?
The social dimension brings into focus the people involved, their different perspectives and the relationships between them. This is not only about the quality of interpersonal relationships.
It is equally relevant how people understand their respective tasks, how they relate to the organisation and its goals, and what expectations they have of one another. Whether different views can be expressed and worked on also plays a role.
Confidence can gain in importance where people experience that they are not left alone with their questions and uncertainties, that different perspectives are taken into account and that joint action is possible despite differing assessments.
This also includes the experience of being able to make a difference oneself. When people recognise that their contributions are wanted, that they can influence how their work is shaped and that something actually comes of shared deliberations, this can strengthen their confidence. This is not about promising every individual unlimited room for manoeuvre. What matters is whether scope for action becomes visible and usable within the actual framework conditions.
The question of what an organisation focuses its attention on is also relevant. Which problems are constantly communicated, and which experiences of success go unnoticed? It is not about reframing difficulties positively, but about expanding the observed reality to include the possibilities and resources that further action can build on.
This also includes the organisation’s relationship with its own history: How does it interpret its past? Which experiences are remembered as helpful, which patterns are perpetuated and which previous certainties may need to be called into question?
Shaping these relationships is a systemic task. It can hardly be delegated to individual leaders, because leaders are themselves part of the relationships, expectations and dynamics at work in an organisation.
A possible question for further reflection is therefore: What forms of collaboration, what expectations and what experiences of working together need to emerge in the organisation so that people can see meaning in what they do and develop confidence?
The temporal dimension: What future do we consider possible?
The temporal dimension directs attention to the past, present and future. It is of particular importance with regard to confidence, because confidence always relates to something that has not yet happened.
At its core is the question of a desirable future: Who and what do we want to be? What do we stand for with what we do, in a world that seems to be in upheaval in many places? What contribution do we as an organisation make to the future and to coming generations?
Such questions cannot be answered simply by formulating a vision. What also matters is whether the envisioned future can be connected to people’s present experiences and whether plausible next steps follow from it.
A future can provide orientation without its arrival being guaranteed. Confidence therefore does not mean ignoring uncertainty or promising a positive outcome. Rather, it can consist in seeing a desirable future as a possibility and considering next steps achievable despite open questions.
The question is therefore: What future do we want to make possible as an organisation, and how can we already work towards it in the present without pretending that the future can be reliably predicted?
Confidence as an organisational task
The three dimensions make it clear that confidence cannot be considered independently of the conditions under which an organisation acts. Factual orientation, viable relationships and a comprehensible vision of the future are interconnected. They influence how people interpret situations, what expectations they develop and which decisions they consider possible.
Placing all these questions solely in the hands of leaders would be more than problematic. Leaders are not positioned outside the system they are supposed to lead. They are themselves part of the organisational dynamics and are affected by the same uncertainties, expectations and contradictions.
This does not mean that leadership plays no role in confidence. Rather, it means that its task cannot simply be to radiate or demand confidence. It also consists in creating space for clarification, making different perspectives workable, enabling decisions under uncertainty and initiating a shared engagement with the future.
From a systemic point of view, then, it is less about creating confidence in individual people. It is about understanding and shaping the conditions under which confidence can emerge in an organisation and become effective in action.
Perhaps this is precisely a contemporary task of leadership: not to dissolve uncertainty for everyone, but to help people deal with it together, recognise possibilities and remain capable of acting despite open questions.
