Leading Through Invisible Risks and Anxious Times

One thing I keep learning: growth doesn’t mean problems go away—it means the issues change shape.

This week felt like a mix of optimism and unease. Talent is growing, opportunities are opening, but so are anxieties: about AI, about risk, about whether we’re even looking at the right signals.

Here are three reflections from what I’ve been reading and living lately.

🌍 1. Risk is getting harder to see

Leaders are used to worrying about the visible: runway, revenue, churn. But the invisible risks—the ones we don’t have dashboards for—are the ones that bite hardest.

MIT Sloan warns that many leaders are “flying blind,” especially with AI adoption and geopolitics reshaping supply chains. The real problem isn’t lack of data—it’s lack of frameworks to interpret it.

🧠 My takeaway: protecting your team doesn’t mean predicting everything—it means being honest about what you can’t see yet.

💡 Tool to try: Build a “risk log” alongside your project log. Every week, ask: What risk are we ignoring because it feels too far away?

🎭 2. Culture isn’t immune to anxiety

You can’t lead in today’s climate without acknowledging how uncertainty weighs on people.

As HBR points out, culture is shaped less by all-hands speeches and more by small, daily interactions: how you respond to questions, how transparent you are about challenges, and whether people feel safe raising concerns.

🧠 For me, the hardest part is resisting the urge to “solve” every fear. Sometimes the best leadership is saying: “Yes, it’s uncertain. And here’s what we’re focusing on anyway.”

💡 TED rec: Ed Newton-Rex – How AI models steal creative work (and what to do about it). It’s about AI, but it’s also about dignity and trust—the same things that hold teams together.

💡 3. Innovation can’t be forced (but it can be nudged)

Pushing harder doesn’t always create breakthroughs. Forbes argues that innovation often happens when leaders design the right conditions: room to experiment, protection for small bets, and patience for ideas that look strange at first.

It reminded me of a line from Public Books on “dark academia”: creativity often comes not from pressure, but from the freedom to play—even in serious settings.

🧠 My takeaway: innovation is less about demanding answers, more about asking better questions.

💡 Quick practice: Next time someone brings you an idea, instead of asking “Does this scale?”, try “What’s the smallest way we can test this?”

🧭 Try this with your team

Run a risk & resilience workshop (30 minutes):

1. Ask each person: What’s one small risk you see us ignoring?
2. Write them all down—no debate yet.
3. Vote on the top 2.
4. Design one slight “nudge” for resilience (backup supplier, second opinion, alternate channel).

You’ll surface blind spots without sliding into paranoia.

🔎 Stuff worth clicking

• 📄 Bloomberg: The AI pioneer trying to save AI from Big Tech
• 🧠 Fast Company: 10 advanced ChatGPT tips
• 📝 Gabriel Weinberg: AI surveillance should be banned – sharp take on where the line should be drawn.

👀 Up next

Next week: what I’ve learned about momentum vs motivation—and why they’re not the same thing when leading teams through uncertainty.

—Rami