Series – Legitimacy Under Uncertainty

Leadership frequently involves navigating uncertainty, disagreement, and unpredictable human behaviour. When anxiety rises, attempts to manage or control others can feel like the safest response.

This series examines how anxiety can reshape leadership behaviour in subtle ways. Control may appear as organisation, planning, or careful management, yet it can also restrict the openness necessary for leadership to function effectively.

By recognising these patterns, leaders can begin to see how anxiety influences how they relate to uncertainty and authority.

Introduction

What is recognised as leadership today reflects a particular view, one that has narrowed over time and now leaves limited room for anything that sits outside of it. Leadership is commonly understood through organisational lenses, associated with role, hierarchy, and formal authority. Within this frame, leadership appears as something held by those in position, expressed through control, direction, and decision-making power.

Yet leadership did not originate there.

Leadership is a human capacity, expressed in how people organise themselves, shape direction, and take responsibility for what matters in the systems they are part of. It exists wherever life is lived. Within families, communities, civic life, and culture. It is not granted by role, nor confined to institutions.

The dominance of organisational leadership models emerged through real conditions. Industrialisation, bureaucratic systems, and the need to coordinate at scale required structure, consistency, and control. Leadership became formalised, tied to position, and reinforced through hierarchy. These models proved effective for managing complexity within organisations, and over time, they stabilised into what is now widely recognised as leadership.

But this stabilisation came with a consequence. Leadership did not become more defined. It became more selective.

As leadership became increasingly associated with formal authority, other expressions of leadership became less visible. Forms of leadership that are relational, distributed, and embedded in everyday life did not disappear, but they were no longer recognised as leadership at all. They fell outside the dominant frame.

This is where the narrowing begins to matter.

When leadership is defined primarily through organisational structures, people outside those structures can struggle to recognise themselves as leaders. Responsibility is still being taken. Direction is still being shaped. Influence is still being exercised. But without alignment to the dominant paradigm, it becomes harder to see, and harder to claim.

What has been inherited, then, is not leadership itself, but a reduced way of seeing it. A lens that legitimises certain expressions while rendering others invisible. It is through this lens that leadership is interpreted, and it is through this lens that many women come to assess themselves in relation to it.

This is where questions of legitimacy begin to take hold. Not because leadership is absent, but because what is being lived is no longer fully recognised within the paradigm that defines it.

Understanding the Pattern Before It Feels Personal

When leadership is defined too narrowly, it changes what people notice and recognise as leadership.

In moments where something is not yet clear, where decisions are still forming, or where multiple perspectives need to be held, meaning is assigned quickly. What is happening is interpreted through what leadership is expected to look like. Clarity is equated with certainty. Direction is equated with having the answer. Authority is equated with decisiveness.

When those signals are not immediately present, the moment can begin to be read differently.

Uncertainty can register as a lack of direction. Deliberation can register as hesitation. Working something through can register as a loss of authority.

The moment begins to be read through what leadership is expected to look like.

From there, people begin responding in line with that initial reading, and the interaction takes shape around it. What is said, what is held back, what is questioned, and what is assumed all start to move in relation to that initial reading. Conversations close earlier than they need to. Clarity is replaced by assumption. Shared understanding gives way to alignment around something that has not been fully examined.

Repeated over time, this does not remain a single moment. It becomes patterned. Certain dynamics begin to repeat. Certain ways of responding become familiar. Roles appear to stabilise, not because they have been explicitly agreed to, but because they have been consistently interpreted in the same way.

Situations that require working things through, asking questions, or holding multiple perspectives are no longer experienced as part of leadership. They begin to feel like something has gone off track. A decision that is still forming can feel like a lack of clarity. A conversation that needs to remain open can feel like it should already be resolved. The absence of a clear answer can feel like it should have been known.

What is being asked in the moment remains the same, to engage, question, and work toward shared understanding, yet it begins to be read through what leadership is expected to look like, rather than what the moment actually requires.

This becomes particularly visible in how questions are brought into a conversation. Questions that seek clarity, test assumptions, or challenge direction are essential to how leadership operates in complex environments. They open the field. They surface what is not yet visible. They allow decisions to be shaped with greater accuracy and shared understanding.

Yet within narrowed leadership paradigms, these same questions can be read differently. Instead of being recognised as leadership in action, they can be interpreted as disruption. As slowing things down. As resistance. As a lack of alignment. The person asking them can be experienced as difficult, overly critical, or pushing beyond what is appropriate, particularly when those questions challenge established direction or authority.

Over time, this begins to shape how and whether those questions are asked at all.

The issue is not that the capacity to question disappears. It is that the relational cost of asking begins to rise. Questions are softened, delayed, or left unspoken. Lines of inquiry that would bring clarity are not followed through. Conversations that could remain open close earlier than they need to.

The shift begins to move beyond the interaction and into how someone relates to themselves as a leader, shaping how they experience themselves while leading.

Attention moves away from what the situation requires and towards how one is being perceived within it. The question is no longer only what needs to be understood, challenged, or decided, but whether it is acceptable to raise it, how it will be received, and what it might signal about one’s position or credibility.

This is where the pattern becomes personal.

What is being lived remains within the reality of leadership, yet it no longer feels that way. The tension is not recognised as a limitation of the paradigm, but is absorbed as a question of self. Capability, authority, and belonging begin to come into focus, not because they have objectively shifted, but because the conditions for expressing leadership have narrowed.

From this point, attention is no longer primarily on engaging with what the situation is asking for, but on managing how one is perceived while doing it.

From here, leadership begins to change form. It becomes more measured, more contained, and more carefully managed. What could have been explored remains unspoken. What could have been clarified is assumed. What could have been shared is held back.

Women’s Leadership Across Time, Place, and Authority

In many historical societies, leadership was not confined to formal roles or institutional authority. It was exercised through family structures, land ownership, alliances, and the management of lineage. Women played a central role within these systems. They influenced decisions that shaped succession, negotiated relationships between families, and upheld the conditions that sustained wealth, stability, and social standing.

This leadership was not always visible in the way modern leadership is recognised, yet it carried significant consequence. Decisions about marriage, inheritance, loyalty, and protection were not peripheral. They determined the direction and survival of entire systems. Women were often responsible for maintaining these structures, navigating competing interests, and managing both internal and external relationships.

This did not exist without complexity or shadow. The same conditions that required care, loyalty, and protection also demanded strategy, control, and, at times, sacrifice. Leadership in these contexts was not idealised. It required judgment in situations where outcomes carried real cost, and where decisions were made in relation to power, continuity, and survival.

In many Indigenous cultures, leadership was not fixed in a single individual or role, but distributed according to context, knowledge, and responsibility. Authority often moved depending on what was required and who held the relevant expertise.

For example, among many Australian Aboriginal groups, decision-making was organised through Elders and knowledge holders, with authority grounded in cultural law, kinship systems, and connection to Country. Leadership was not simply positional. It was tied to responsibility for maintaining law, caring for land, and ensuring continuity across generations. Women, in particular, held authority in areas such as kinship structures, cultural knowledge, and the transmission of practices related to land, family, and ceremony, shaping how communities sustained themselves over time.

Similar patterns appear in other Indigenous contexts. In Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) societies, for instance, Clan Mothers held significant authority, including the power to appoint and remove male chiefs, ensuring leadership remained accountable to the wellbeing of the people and the continuity of the community (Mann, 2000; Allen, 1986).

In these systems, leadership was embedded in life itself. It was expressed in how people related to each other, to place, and to what needed to be sustained over time.

Women have long been positioned within systems of power, even when that power was not formally recognised as leadership. In European monarchies, figures such as Catherine de’ Medici exercised significant political influence through lineage, succession, and alliance. Her authority was not initially granted through role, but expanded through circumstance, requiring her to stabilise a kingdom amid religious and political conflict. Her leadership was strategic, relational, and at times ruthless, shaped by the demands of preserving power and continuity.

In contrast, Elizabeth I held formal authority as monarch, yet still had to navigate expectations tied to gender, marriage, and legitimacy. Her decision not to marry was a political act that allowed her to retain control over the direction of the state. Mary, Queen of Scots demonstrates how fragile that authority could be when those same systems became unstable, with her leadership continually shaped and constrained by alliance, religion, and perception.

Alongside these structures, leadership also existed in forms not organised through monarchy or formal hierarchy. In many Indigenous and community-based systems, authority was distributed and situational, grounded in knowledge, responsibility, and relationship to place. Leadership was exercised through participation in decision-making, stewardship of land, and the transmission of cultural knowledge across generations. Women contributed through maintaining kinship systems, mediating relationships, and sustaining the conditions that allowed communities to endure.

Across these contexts, leadership did not take a single form. It moved between structure and relationship, between authority and participation, between visibility and invisibility. What remained consistent was not how leadership appeared, but that it was exercised.

Locating Leadership Within Present Conditions

In modern society, leadership is most commonly recognised through role, hierarchy, and structure. It is shaped by institutions that reward particular expressions of authority, often tied to position, visibility, and control. These patterns did not emerge arbitrarily. They were formed through historical conditions that shaped how leadership was exercised and legitimised, including military structures, industrialisation, and religious systems that defined roles along gendered lines.

Men, for the most part, were positioned within systems that required leadership through command, scale, and control. Women were positioned within systems that required leadership through continuity, relational coordination, and the sustaining of life and community. These were not equal in how they were recognised, but they were both forms of leadership.

Leadership has always been exercised by both men and women, but not always in ways that have been equally visible, equally legitimised, or equally rewarded. The capacity itself is not determined by gender. The recognition of it often is.

This distinction matters.

Across time and place, leadership has been exercised within the conditions people were part of. Those conditions have shaped what was possible, what was recognised, and what carried consequence. They influenced how leadership appeared, but they did not determine whether leadership was present.

The same dynamic holds now.

Organisations, families, communities, and broader social and political systems continue to shape what is legitimised and what is constrained. These systems influence how leadership is expressed and how it is received. They do not define whether it exists.

Within organisations, leadership is often associated with formal authority and decision-making power. Yet the shaping of direction does not sit exclusively with those in role. It occurs in how priorities are interpreted, how trade-offs are navigated, how conversations are opened or closed, and how meaning is formed in situations that are still unfolding.

Within families, leadership is exercised continuously, though rarely named as such. It appears in how responsibility is taken up, how decisions are made that affect stability and direction, and how relationships are managed over time.

Within communities and civic life, leadership is present in how people contribute to what is sustained, how difference is navigated, and how collective direction is shaped.

Across these contexts, the structures differ. The constraints are not the same. The level of visibility varies.

What remains consistent is the capacity itself.

Leadership is expressed in how an individual engages with what is in front of them. In how they interpret, respond, and take responsibility within the conditions they are part of. It is exercised in what is brought into the space, what is questioned, what is allowed to remain open, and what is moved forward.

The structures do not remove this capacity. They shape how it is recognised, how it is received, and how it is rewarded. The question is not whether leadership is present. It is whether it is being seen for what it is.

Inhabiting Leadership

Throughout this article, we have been working with the understanding that leadership is interpreted through particular paradigms and schools of thought. These exist independently of the individual and have been shaped in response to the conditions they emerged from. Mechanical, industrial, and military systems required coordination, scale, predictability, and control. Leadership within these environments needed to organise people, direct action, and maintain stability under pressure.

These conditions, along with the organisational environments they continue to inform, shape how leadership is understood, what is recognised, and how it is exercised today. They also shape how individuals interpret themselves in relation to leadership, influencing how they assess their role, their contribution, and their legitimacy while they are leading.

This is not abstract.It can be seen clearly in how women have operated within real systems of power, constraint, and consequence across time.

Within family structures, women negotiated lineage, inheritance, and alliance, shaping the direction and survival of entire systems. Within monarchies, women such as Catherine de’ Medici exercised authority through strategy, influence, and control, navigating conditions that demanded both precision and, at times, ruthlessness to maintain stability. Within Indigenous systems, women held authority through kinship, cultural knowledge, and responsibility to land and community, shaping continuity across generations.

These were not marginal roles. They carried consequence. They required judgment. They shaped outcomes far beyond the individual. And they did not occur in ideal conditions. They occurred within structures that defined what was visible, what was permitted, and what was recognised as legitimate.

That variation matters.

Because it shows that leadership has never taken a single form. It has moved across structure and relationship, across visibility and invisibility, across authority that is granted and authority that is exercised without recognition.

What this begins to open is not a rejection of leadership as it is currently understood, but the possibility of relating to it differently.

The paradigms that shape leadership today have function. They have enabled coordination at scale, decision-making under pressure, and the organisation of complex systems. But they are not complete. They do not fully account for the range of ways leadership is exercised, nor do they consistently recognise the forms of authority women have held and continue to hold across different conditions.

A broader view becomes necessary. As a shift in how leadership is recognised, related to, and inhabited.

Because the examples traced here do not point to a single way of leading. They point to a capacity that has been exercised across very different structures. Within families, within communities, within cultural systems, and within formal power structures where authority was both granted and contested. What they reveal is not a fixed model, but a range of ways of engaging with responsibility, influence, and consequence.

That matters now.

Because within current systems, women continue to navigate expectations that do not always align. At times, leadership can be shaped by the pressure to soften in order to be accepted, or to harden in order to be taken seriously. Neither holds.

Both are responses. Neither reflects leadership that is grounded. The question is not how to fit within those expectations. It is how to locate leadership from within, and to stand in it as legitimate. Not granted. Not negotiated.Recognised and inhabited.

This is not a shift in role. It is a shift in how leadership is held.

It draws on what has always been present, but not always named. The capacity to relate to what matters, to hold responsibility, to shape direction, and to remain with what is required, even when conditions are uncertain or contested.

When that is inhabited, expression becomes more direct. Authority is no longer something to prove or protect. It is something that organises how one speaks, acts, and engages with others. Questions are not softened to maintain position, nor sharpened to assert control. They are asked in service of what needs to be seen, understood, and moved.

This is where another way of leading begins to take shape. As a broader paradigm that can hold what has previously sat outside of recognition. One that allows women to locate themselves within leadership as it is actually being exercised, rather than as it has been narrowly defined.

And from there, the question shifts. Not whether you fit within the model. But what becomes possible when leadership is no longer something you are trying to align to, and is instead something you are willing to inhabit.

Series 3 - Legitimacy and Care

In the next series, the focus shifts to care.

Many leaders experience a growing sense that everything matters. Attention is pulled in multiple directions. Responsibility expands beyond what can be held clearly. The question moves from navigating uncertainty to understanding what happens when care itself begins to lose structure.

Care is widely valued in leadership, yet when it is not grounded in a clear structure of what matters, it can begin to organise attention in ways that scatter focus, increase involvement, and reduce effectiveness. The pressure to respond, to step in, or to hold everything together can quietly shape how decisions are made and how responsibility is carried.

This series explores the relationship between legitimacy and care, and how an unstructured relationship with care can lead to leaders becoming responsible for more than is theirs to hold.

It asks a different question. What happens when care is grounded in a clear sense of what genuinely matters? Because leadership is not strengthened by caring about everything. It becomes clearer when care has structure.

If this article has shifted how you see leadership, you can follow me on Engenesis and LinkedIn for the next articles in this series, where we continue to explore how leadership is recognised, legitimised, and inhabited in real conditions.

You’re also invited to connect with me directly if this conversation resonates with your own experience of leadership.

Jeanette Mundy works at the intersection of identity, leadership, and legitimacy. She is the co-founder of RelateAble.Global, where she supports individuals and organisations to recognise and inhabit leadership with clarity, self-trust, and coherence under pressure.