Most people find the concept of radical uncertainty natural and indeed obvious. For them, the challenge is not to accept the existence of radical uncertainty but to find ways of coping with it. (Kay & King, 2021, p. xv)

Radical uncertainty is defined by Kay and King (2021) as the combination of “imperfect knowledge of future states of the world and of the consequences of action” (p. 160).  The authors describe these situations of such radical uncertainty as either a puzzle or a mystery. Puzzles have specific rules and lead to single, well-defined solutions although, like a puzzle, reaching these solutions might still be difficult to accomplish. Mysteries on the other hand are vague, poorly understood and have no verifiable solution. For all leaders, the COVID-19 pandemic was more of a mystery rather than a puzzle which required changes in leadership practice beyond what may have been identified prior to the pandemic (Tourish, 2020).

Scholars of leadership have an opportunity through the context of the pandemic to thoroughly examine and better understand how leaders have addressed such radical uncertainty in these circumstances (Kay & King, 2021; Romeijn & Roy, 2014). The pandemic has presented new opportunities for improved leadership practices some of which will endure into the post-pandemic period and change the way that leadership is done. In education, one of these opportunities included new ways to communicate with and involve students and stakeholder communities in leadership (Anderson et al., 2022). Other practices in educational organizations involved inventing new structures to solve radical uncertainty which involved a greater number of people with a broader range of expertise (Smith, 2012). A central challenge for the theory and practice of leadership in the post-pandemic period is to identify what practical ways of communicating and finding solutions emerged which can help leaders better cope with events of radical uncertainty where “the margin of error is high and consequences of failure potentially catastrophic” (Tourish, 2020, p. 265). While the literature on crisis management is well developed, specific preparation for educational leaders has not kept up with the current circumstances, and more models are needed which provide direction for leaders in developing action and response to increasingly complex situations of uncertainty (Beven, 2016; Eiser et al., 2012; Sword-Daniels et al., 2018).

Leaders need a more complete understanding of the theoretical and practical components of how to address uncertainty in the future. In education, is it possible to change the perspective on uncertain events toward making not only surviving the crisis but making the system more resilient and more successful (Tamtik & Darazsi, 2022)? When people are confronted by situations where there is no established method for determining what action to take, the natural response is to claim that ‘we don’t know what to do’ which in the reality of life is not an available option. Kay and King say that when confronted by a mystery, leaders must first seek understanding about ‘what is going on here?’ (Kay & King, 2021) and identify the sources and causes of uncertainty. My studies seek to understand better the mystery of “what is going on here?” so that leaders can then focus on the question, “what to do?”. While leaders can never have a perfect knowledge of outcomes, we can at least have a better idea of what just happened here so that we are better prepared when uncertainty appears, in whatever form. 

References

Anderson, D. J., MacCormack, J., & Sider, S. (2022). Exploring school principals’ experiences during the first four months of the pandemic as a way to reimagine inclusive education. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 200, 37–48. https://doi.org/10.7202/1092706ar

Beven, K. (2016). Facets of uncertainty: Epistemic uncertainty, non-stationarity, likelihood, hypothesis testing, and communication. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 61(9), 1652–1665. https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2015.1031761

Eiser, R. J., Bostrom, A., Burton, I., Johnston, D. M., McClure, J., Paton, D., van der Pligt, J., & White, M. P. (2012). Risk interpretation and action: A conceptual framework for responses to natural hazards. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 1, 5–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2012.05.002

Kay, J., & King, M. (2021). Radical uncertainty: Decision-making beyond the numbers. W.W. Norton & Company. https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324004783#!

Romeijn, J.-W., & Roy, O. (2014). Radical uncertainty: Beyond probabilistic models of belief. Erkenntnis, 79(6), 1221–1223. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-014-9687-9

Smith, C. (Ed.). (2012). Pluralism in the arts in Canada: A change is gonna come. Our Schools/Our Selves Education Foundation ; Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Sword-Daniels, V., Eriksen, C., Hudson-Doyle, E. E., Alaniz, R., Adler, C., Schenk, T., & Vallance, S. (2018). Embodied uncertainty: Living with complexity and natural hazards. Journal of Risk Research, 21(3), 290–307. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2016.1200659

Tamtik, M., & Darazsi, S. (2022). Navigating turbulent waters: Leading one manitoba school in a time of crisis. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 200, 22–36. https://doi.org/10.7202/1092705ar

Tourish, D. (2020). Introduction to the special issue: Why the coronavirus crisis is also a crisis of leadership. Leadership, 16(3), 261–272. https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715020929242

Tamtik, M., & Darazsi, S. (2022). Navigating turbulent waters: Leading one manitoba school in a time of crisis. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 200, 22–36. https://doi.org/10.7202/1092705ar

Tourish, D. (2020). Introduction to the special issue: Why the coronavirus crisis is also a crisis of leadership. Leadership, 16(3), 261–272. https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715020929242