Communicating during uncertain times.

Two words make most communicators uncomfortable. Two words that get avoided in boardrooms, buried in messaging frameworks, and quietly edited out of leadership updates.

The words are: don't know.

Right now with the cost of living, wars in the Middle East, travel implications and many other factors affecting life as we know it, there is plenty of uncertainty. So how should we best communicate at a time like this...

We've been conditioned to believe that good communication means having the answers. That confidence requires certainty. That if you step in front of your team, your stakeholders, your customers, you'd better have something solid to offer them.

But here's the problem. People aren't looking for certainty right now. They're looking for honesty. And there's a crucial difference between the two.

When leaders communicate during uncertainty by pretending there is none, something quietly breaks. Trust. Because everyone in the room already knows the full picture isn't there, and watching someone perform confidence they don't have is more unsettling than the uncertainty itself.

The communicators who genuinely cut through during turbulent times aren't the ones with all the answers. They're the ones willing to say: here's what we know, here's what we don't, and here's what we're doing about it. That structure, simple as it sounds, is disarmingly powerful. It respects people's intelligence. It signals steadiness without faking certainty. It makes space for the discomfort without drowning in it.

Uncertainty isn't a communication problem to be solved. It's a human condition to be acknowledged.

So try this: next time you're drafting a message in the middle of the fog, resist the urge to fill every gap. Instead, ask yourself three questions:

What do we actually know? What don't we know yet, and when might we? What can people count on, regardless?

Answer those honestly. Say them clearly. Then STOP.

You don't need to have it all figured out to communicate well. You just need to be real about where you are.