About assholes, uncertainty, and doctors

It’s better to have an asshole as a boss than an idiot.

At least you know where the asshole is coming from. But you have no clue what an idiot will do next.

I laughed when a very good friend of mine told me that… but damn, he was right.

This applies to a lot of situations. Economists say uncertainty is worse than bad news.

Uncertainty is a killer. If left unchecked, it destroys everything in its path.

Humans crave predictability. Without it, fear takes over, stress spikes, and engagement drops.

That said, sometimes you simply can’t provide certainty. The future is unknown. Things are in flux.

But uncertain times are when your leadership matters most.

And who knows a lot about uncertainty? Who deals with it every single day? Doctors.

My mom is a retired pediatrician, and I learned a lot about leadership from her. Doctors often face life-and-death situations. Most of us in tech will never deal with anything remotely close to that. So maybe there’s something we can learn from them.

When dealing with uncertainty, we can act like doctors and provide regular updates—just like a medical report.

Even when doctors don’t have all the answers, they still communicate what they do know. They say, “Here’s what we’ve seen so far. Here’s what we’re watching. We’ll update you again tomorrow.”

Leaders should do the same. A simple, “I don’t have an update today, but I’ll share more next week,” is powerful because silence is a terrible communicator.

If you don’t give people a message, they’ll create their own. And the story they make up in their heads is usually way worse than reality.

So in uncertain times, be transparent. Be proactive. And most importantly, be present—like a doctor.