By Pamela J. Gallagher

It’s been 18 months since COVID-19 changed everything, and I am exhausted. We have endured tremendous loss as a society: loss of life, finances, jobs, routines, community…and the list goes on. Coping with uncertainty has become “normal.”

In psychology, coping skills are a “set of adaptive tools that we proactively administer to avoid burnout.” In general, people are able to cope with changes best when they are incremental, so what are we to do in a pandemic that brings changes that feel like repeated Band-Aids being ripped off?

Beyond the impact of continuous uncertainty on a personal level, economic theory suggests that uncertainty has a “detrimental effect on economic activity by giving agents the incentive to postpone investment, consumption, and employment decisions until uncertainty is resolved.”

Organizations and individuals are having to learn to deal with ambiguity. As leaders, we strive to make wise decisions on solid information, but that’s hard to come by lately.  So, in the absence of that information, do we adapt or hold on? Do we enact temporary measures, or look to make permanent changes? How do we move through this?

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