I went to see Marty Supreme at the movies with my husband. We like Timothée Chalamet so thought “why not?”
I got the session time wrong, so we missed the opening. From the moment we sat down, the film felt disorienting. It was chaotic and at times hard to follow. I kept trying to connect what was going on.
About a third of the way through, my husband stood up, apologised quietly, and said he couldn’t sit through it. He’d wait outside.
This isn’t the first time that’s happened.
I stayed and watched the rest of the film.
The next day, while walking, I realised this highlighted something about the difference between us.
I was uncomfortable and didn’t fully understand what was happening in the movie, but I stayed and tried to make sense of it.
I sat with the discomfort and discovered that the character Marty is self-obsessed and pretty unlikeable until he shows real emotion that could signal a different type of future.
My husband’s instinct was to avoid the discomfort and leave.
This same response to sitting in discomfort shows up in workplaces.
Why this matters for leaders
In organisations, people don’t usually get up and leave. They stay. But they stop really engaging.
They resist change. They go quiet. They stick closely to what they already know.
And when leaders notice that happening, the instinct can be to hold people’s feet to the fire because they assume that’s what being a strong leader requires.
Unfortunately, that’s when things can get worse, because the real problem is sequencing.
When this is missed, leaders pay for it later. Work stays stuck. People make poor judgement calls. Issues keep going round and round because they don’t get resolved.
And over time, the unresolved ambiguity lands back on the leader, who ends up carrying more of the risk, the thinking, and the fallout.
But if people don’t yet understand what’s happening, why it’s happening, or the consequences of not sitting with the discomfort, holding their feet to the fire doesn’t help them engage. It gives them something else to avoid.
I’ve learned the hard way that you can’t force someone to sit with discomfort successfully.
What you can do is help them understand it, set clear boundaries around what matters and what doesn’t, and be honest about the consequences of continuing avoidant behaviour.
The choice belongs to them. So do the consequences, especially the personal ones when you need to act to protect the organisation.
What’s going on
This pattern is about how people experience uncertainty. Ambiguity is a normal feature of every work environment. Information is incomplete or shifting, priorities compete, and there isn’t a clear path forward yet.
Tolerance of ambiguity is the capacity to stay engaged in that space long enough to make sense of it and decide how to act. Professor Peter O’Connor’s work shows this capacity isn’t fixed.
It varies depending on the situation and, critically, on how leaders shape the context.
When ambiguity is left unexplained, people are more likely to see it as threatening and try to escape it. When leaders help people understand what’s happening and frame uncertainty as something that can be worked through, people are more likely to stay engaged, learn, and contribute.
In other words, avoidance isn’t a character flaw. It’s often a response to ambiguity that hasn’t been handled well.
Leaders can’t make choices for other people. But they do influence whether those people have enough understanding to make an informed choice.
That’s why sequencing matters so much.
If you turn to consequences before managing the uncertainty, you increase anxiety without increasing understanding.
As Edgar Schein notes, anxiety both inhibits learning and is necessary for it. Your task as the leader is to manage that tension, not pretend it isn’t there.
What effective leaders do before turning up the heat
Before they hold anyone’s feet to the fire, effective leaders help people orient.
They clarify what is genuinely unclear and what is already decided. They explain why the uncertainty exists and what the organisation needs people to stay focused on while it’s being worked through.
They set boundaries around what matters, what’s not up for debate, and what constructive engagement looks like in the meantime.
And they’re explicit about consequences. Not as a threat but as information.
This gives people the chance to make a choice. To engage or opt out and accept what follows.
When leaders do this well, people stop protecting themselves. They start exploring options, testing ideas, and making better judgements. What’s important moves in the right direction.
Before you turn up the heat, it’s worth slowing down long enough to ask and communicate:
- Help people understand what’s unclear.
What is genuinely unclear here, and what is already decided? What are we still working out, and what won’t change? - Provide context and boundaries.
Why does this uncertainty exist? What are we trying to achieve? What matters most while we work through it? - Be explicit about consequences and choice.
What’s expected now? What does constructive engagement look like? And what personal consequences does that choice carry for them?
If this sounds familiar, it’s often useful to talk it through with someone outside the situation.
