During the First Gulf War in 1991, no one knew how long the bombing would last.
No one knew what would be hit. No one knew whether the Hussein regime would use chemical weapons again, especially after having used them against civilians in Halabja and other villages. Rumors moved faster than verified information. Fear arrived before the missiles did.
Electricity disappeared almost immediately
.
Thank God I had bought four kerosene lamps and batteries for the radio. The batteries were not for flashlights. They were for information. In the dark, information becomes light.
My mother prepared small emergency bags in case evacuation became necessary. I filled every container in the house with water. I rationed what was used. I reused what I could.
The war could not be stopped.
But uncertainty inside the house could be reduced.
At the time, I did not call it leadership. I called it survival.
Years later, I understood something different: what we were really managing was uncertainty.
Not knowing destabilizes the mind long before reality does. When information disappears, imagination fills the gap. When structure disappears, fear expands.
I see the same pattern in organizations.
A merger is announced.
A leader resigns.
Funding is cut.
A new technology platform is introduced.
The event itself is disruptive. But what unsettles people most is not the change. It is the silence that follows.
Will my position be eliminated?
Will I be seen as incompetent if I ask a basic question?
What if I cannot learn this system fast enough?
Where do I go for answers?
Uncertainty erodes confidence quietly.
During the war, geopolitics was beyond control. Water containers, light sources, and communication were not. Those small acts created predictability. Predictability created calm.
Leadership, I learned, is not about eliminating crisis.
It is about reducing uncertainty.
Preparation is not panic. It is care.
Clear information is not weakness. It is stability.
Visible structure is not bureaucracy. It is reassurance.
When the lights go out, people look for the lamp.
In workplaces, they look for clarity.
And perhaps the real question is this:
Before the next disruption arrives, have we filled the containers?