There is a feeling I have been sitting with the past few weeks that I think a lot of leaders are carrying right now but are not naming.
It is not dread exactly. It is more like a low hum. A readiness to run that never quite resolves into running. The Iran war, rising oil prices, the inflation that economists say will hit harder later in the year, none of it has landed as a crisis on my doorstep. But the body doesn’t wait for crisis. It responds to uncertainty the same way it responds to danger. And that sustained state of readiness is expensive. It costs energy. It costs clarity. It costs the kind of presence that leading well actually requires.
I have felt it in myself. And I suspect, if you are honest, you have felt it too.
The inner game of leadership under pressure
There is a difference between the external challenges a leader faces and the internal ones. The external challenges such as rising costs, uncertain demand, and supply chain disruption are real and require real responses. But the internal challenge, the one that tends to go unaddressed, is what happens to a leader’s sense of self when the environment stops cooperating.
Most leaders have built their confidence on a foundation of competence. They know their industry. They understand their numbers. They have navigated difficult periods before and come out the other side. Their identity as a leader is closely tied to their ability to read a situation and respond effectively.
Uncertainty attacks that foundation directly. When you cannot read the situation clearly, when variables outside your control are moving faster than your ability to process them, the psychological experience is not just stress. It is a quiet erosion of identity. Who am I as a leader if I can’t tell my team what’s coming?
This is the question that doesn’t get asked in board meetings or strategy sessions. But it is the question that keeps leaders up at night.
Steadiness is not the same as certainty
The most important shift a leader can make in a moment like this is to stop trying to perform certainty and start practising steadiness instead.
Certainty is about having the answers. Steadiness is about being grounded enough that your team can function even in the absence of answers. These are very different things. And your team, if you pay attention, is not actually asking you for certainty. They are asking for steadiness.
They want to know that someone is present, that the organisation is not in freefall, that it is safe to keep doing their work.
You can offer that without pretending to know how the next six months will unfold.
Steadiness begins on the inside. It requires a leader to separate what they can control from what they cannot and to invest their energy accordingly.
Malaysia’s economists have been clear that the immediate impact of the Iran war remains moderate, with domestic supply chains resilient for now.
The uncertainty is real, but it is gradual, not catastrophic. That distinction matters. A slow-moving challenge can be navigated. It requires patience and adaptability, not panic.
The things that are actually in your control
In a period of external volatility, the most productive thing a leader can do is return, deliberately and repeatedly, to the things within their sphere of influence.
Your team’s psychological safety. The quality of your communication such as being honest about what you don’t know while being clear about what you do. Your own energy levels and what you’re doing to protect them. The decisions you’ve been deferring that don’t actually require certainty to be made. The conversations you’ve been avoiding that would clear the air.
None of these require the geopolitical situation to resolve. All of them are available to you right now.
There is also something worth saying about the body. Sustained uncertainty produces a cortisol response that compounds over time. Leaders who are running on adrenaline and discipline alone will hit a wall, and they will hit it at the worst possible moment. Sleep, movement, genuine rest are not indulgences in a difficult period. They are operational necessities. You cannot think clearly, make sound decisions, or hold your team steady if you are running on empty.
What your team actually needs from you right now
Your team is watching you more closely than you think. Not to check whether you have the answers (they know you don’t), the same way you know they don’t. They are watching to see whether you are okay.
Whether it is safe to be honest about their own uncertainties. Whether the culture of the organisation can hold under pressure.
The most powerful thing you can do for your team right now is model what functional uncertainty looks like.
Acknowledge what is hard. Be transparent about what you’re monitoring and what decisions are on hold and why. Celebrate small wins loudly. Keep the focus on what the team can affect. Create space for honest conversations that don’t require everyone to pretend they feel fine.
This is not soft leadership. This is the hardest kind of leadership there is.
A final thought
Malaysia is, by most accounts, better positioned than many of its regional neighbours to weather this period. Bank Negara has raised its 2026 growth forecast to between 4% and 5%, and the Governor has said Malaysia enters this period from a position of strength.
That is not a reason to be complacent but it is a reason to resist catastrophising and to give yourself permission to lead from a grounded place rather than a frightened one.
The external situation will change. It always does. What you’re building right now, in yourself, in your team, in the habits and culture of your organisation, will outlast the crisis.
That is worth protecting.
If this resonates and you’d like to continue the conversation in person, I host small, casual dinners in KL every quarter, a Looking Glass dinner, for leaders and friends who want good conversation over a good meal. A table of people willing to be honest about what this period is actually like.
If you’re interested, drop me an email at info@bestevents-asia.com and I’ll share the details.