The word “complexity” tends to sound like an external challenge, something that runs through our organizations and that we need to master. But complexity is not only out there. It arises from the relationship we establish with the context and with the people who constitute it. Leading in complexity is not about applying formulas or reaching a point of control, but about learning to live on a permanent tightrope, with humility, curiosity, and the courage to get our hands dirty.
The first truth that unsettles us is this: what worked yesterday does not guarantee success today. The repertoire of strategies, resources, and certainties that allowed us to overcome past challenges loses part of its value when the system changes, because people change, networks of interdependence change, and the ramifications of the problem are not the same. Our natural tendency is to seek security: decide quickly, repeat patterns that worked, rely on the memory of experience. This reduces anxiety in the moment, but increases the risk of error, because it pushes us toward responses that may not fit the present.
The tightrope metaphor helps illuminate another dimension: there is no fixed destination and no point at which we can conclude, “now I know.” Being on the rope is not a temporary state that is resolved once we acquire more knowledge. It is a permanent condition that requires continuous balance. We must therefore learn to feel comfortable in this vulnerable position, not as resignation, but as a practice of attention and openness.
Reading the context is, therefore, the central competence. And when I say “reading,” I do not mean collecting cold indicators, but perceiving interdependencies, the quality of connections between people, the density of linkages among problems. This requires active curiosity: asking, observing, listening. It also requires the courage to enter into the problem, to entangle ourselves in its knots. To get our hands dirty, to eat a bit of the dirt, instead of merely scraping the surface and stitching together quick solutions. We often fail not because we lack the will to decide, but because we have not first done the collective sense-making work that makes a decision appropriate.
There is also a widespread temptation to confuse agility with speed. Mature agility is stopping when necessary, in order to experiment on a small scale, to talk with the people involved, and to gain clarity about dimensions and ramifications. This active pause is not inaction, but an investment that reduces the likelihood of rushed and poorly aligned decisions. Making sense together, by sharing observations, testing assumptions, and building shared interpretations, transforms dispersed information into usefully shared understanding.
Leading in complexity requires, at the same time, humanity and method. Humanity, because responses emerge in relationships: empathy, honesty, willingness to admit uncertainty. And method, because curiosity without discipline leads to dispersion. We need practices that make our reading of the system reliable: structured conversations, small prototypes, indicators that show us relevant variations, and routines of collective reflection.
And there is one final decisive distinction: more than the complexity we feel, what complicates our lives and organizations is the complexity we generate. Excessively rigid processes, confused communication, decisions made in silos, rules that do not evolve. All of this creates layers of internal complexity that make the system less legible and less agile. Reducing the complexity we generate means clarifying connections, simplifying flows, and taking responsibility for the clarity of interactions. The less disorderly the space between us and others becomes, the less biased our perception of risk will be and the more appropriate our decisions will be.
Therefore, when we face a new challenge, instead of rushing to apply a solution, it is worth remembering three practical attitudes: 1) pause to understand, creating time and space to ask and to listen; 2) entangle ourselves in the problem, entering reality, testing and experimenting on a small scale; 3) make sense collectively, converging interpretations before scaling decisions.
Leading in complexity is, therefore, a discipline of presence and humility. A practice that requires less display of control and more willingness for relationship, testing, and adaptation. It is not about relinquishing authority, but about exercising it honestly: acknowledging limits, articulating clarity, and caring for the connections that make the system understandable. Only then does the tightrope cease to be an unbearable risk and become the place from which we can walk responsibly.
Duarte Afonso Silva, Development Manager Executive Education at CATÓLICA-LISBON