Imagine this. You’re stepping onto the podium in front of an orchestra at Carnegie Hall for a high-stakes performance. You’ve spent weeks preparing the score, rehearsing every cue in your head. The concert hall is packed. The lights dim. The musicians lift their instruments. The audience leans in, breath held.

You raise your baton, give the first cue… and realize they’re playing a completely different piece than what you prepared.

What was supposed to be familiar and well-rehearsed has changed without warning. No heads-up. No new sheet music. Just a brand-new composition unfolding in real-time, and you’re expected to conduct it anyway.

The show must go on, after all.

That’s what leadership feels like in today’s Tech and GovCon space. The plan has changed mid-performance. The stakes haven’t. With AI accelerating change, policies and tariffs in constant flux, and deep cuts to both federal and contractor teams, leaders are expected to respond faster, think sharper, and hold everything together while the ground shifts beneath them.

Teams are stretched thin. Priorities change daily. While the external demands keep multiplying, the internal structures we once relied on, clear roles, predictable timelines, and linear processes, are starting to collapse under the weight of complexity.

In the middle of it all, leaders are expected to stay calm, make sound decisions, and carry on, even when the music keeps changing.

You’re still expected to deliver. To guide. To keep the whole thing from unraveling even while navigating brittle systems, anxious teams, nonlinear feedback loops, and changes that often make no sense at all. There’s no rehearsal. No score to follow. No roadmap. And no break between movements. Just you, your judgment, and a room full of people waiting for your next move.

Welcome to the age of BANI.

Brittle. Anxious. Nonlinear. Incomprehensible. Feel familiar?

The first time I heard the term, I felt a wave of relief followed immediately by dread.

“That’s exactly what’s going on,” I thought.

“Oh shit,” came next.

The term BANI was introduced by futurist and anthropologist Jamais Cascio. In the face of mounting global crises such as climate change, pandemics, social unrest, and geopolitical instability, he argued that older frameworks like VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) no longer captured the full depth of what we’re up against. The world wasn’t just volatile or uncertain anymore. It had become brittle, anxious, nonlinear, and often downright incomprehensible. BANI was his way of naming this new reality, a more accurate map for navigating the chaos.

The acronym may be trendy, but the experience is anything but theoretical. I’ve seen it up close, working with senior leaders in federal agencies and tech organizations who are doing everything “right” on paper yet still feel like they’re being asked to perform at their peak when they don’t even know what piece they are supposed to be playing.

In these high-pressure environments, the leadership rulebook we once trusted doesn’t hold up. Control-based thinking collapses under brittle systems. Confidence erodes in anxious cultures. Linear solutions don’t apply to nonlinear problems. And in incomprehensible moments, clarity feels out of reach.

So what now? If deliberate practice is one answer to closing the knowing-doing gap (as I explored here), then our next move as leaders must be learning how to lead through BANI, not avoid it.

I’ll say that again.

As leaders, we must build the skills needed to lead others through BANI, not around it. That means shedding outdated habits, strengthening our adaptability, and rethinking how we show up under pressure, especially when the page in front of us is blank.

When the System Is Brittle, Resilience Beats Control

Brittle systems crack under pressure. Working across the federal and commercial sectors, I’ve watched well-intentioned leaders tighten controls the moment complexity spikes. But the tighter the grip, the more fragile the system becomes. One change request, one system outage, one policy shift, and the whole thing snaps.

In a brittle environment, control is a liability. What leaders need instead is psychological flexibility. The ability to shift strategies, perspectives, and mindsets on the fly without losing their grounding.

I recently worked with a leader scaling a tech modernization program who struggled with this exact tension. She is brilliant, precise, and used to building clean, structured human systems. But she was also visibly frustrated when those systems didn’t respond as expected. Through coaching, we explored how she could shift from “builder mode” to “conductor mode.” Stepping back, scanning the room, adjusting tempo, and responding in real time. That shift not only helped her; it calmed her team and gave them space to experiment, problem-solve, and speak up.

Resilience isn’t passive. It’s active recalibration in the face of change. And in brittle systems, it’s the only thing that keeps the music going.

When Teams Are Anxious, Clarity and Care Go Hand-in-Hand

Anxiety thrives in the absence of clarity. In Tech and GovCon teams, people are expected to move fast, respond to ambiguous requirements, and deliver outcomes with limited resources, often while watching the environment shift beneath their feet.

The default reaction to anxiety is to speed up. More check-ins. More metrics. More dashboards. But anxious teams don’t need speed. They need space.

Another leader I worked with, this time on a mission-critical program within a federal agency, realized his team was spiraling from constant context switching and unclear priorities. Instead of pushing harder, he introduced short weekly “reality checks.” These weren’t status meetings. They were quiet, intentional spaces where team members could name what was reallygetting in their way: confusion, burnout, even fear of failure. At first, people were hesitant. But over time, these conversations became the one place everyone could exhale. The simple act of making space for honesty helped the team reset their focus, support one another, and move forward with more clarity and confidence.

In anxious systems, clarity is a form of care. And care is a strategy, not only a soft skill.

When Work Is Nonlinear, Leaders Need to Think Like Improvisers

In a nonlinear world, A doesn’t lead to B. Projects evolve, stakeholders shift, timelines change mid-flight. You may think you’re halfway through something, only to realize the goalpost just moved again. It’s disorienting. Traditional project management tools (and skills) aren’t built for this kind of chaos.

This is where the skill of sensemaking becomes core to leadership. It’s not about having the answers. It’s about helping people name the complexity, spot patterns, and decide what matters most in the moment.

One of the most powerful tools I’ve seen in these situations is metaphor. At a small tech startup I was coaching, the team adopted the image of a “red sports car” to describe their work. They talked about what happened when they hit the gas, how it felt to slam on the brakes, the thrill of nimble steering, and the risks of that quick response when going too fast. They noticed the noise the car made when something wasn’t right and what broke down when it didn’t get regular service.

A clever analogy, sure. But it became more than that for them. It became a shared mental model. Something they could all point to when things got messy. It gave them language for tension, uncertainty, and misalignment and a way to navigate it together without blame or defensiveness.

In nonlinear environments, the ability to improvise, narrate, and connect the dots is more valuable than ever. It’s not about being certain. It’s about making meaning in real-time.

When the World Feels Incomprehensible, Presence Anchors

Some problems defy logic. Requirements don’t make sense. Policies contradict each other. Decisions are made five layers up without context. You stare at the complexity and feel the creeping sense that nothing here is meant to be understood.

That’s the “I” in BANI. Incomprehensibile. And in these moments, what teams need most is a calm, grounded presence.

This doesn’t mean pretending to have answers. It means staying in the room. Listening. Naming what you do know. And showing others how to stay steady when everything around them feels absurd.

As a musician, I know this moment well. It’s the silence between movements, the breath before the next note, the pause before the swirl begins again. Sometimes, it lasts just a second or two. But in that space, everything hangs in the balance. The audience is waiting. Anticipating. Leaning into what comes next.

That moment…quiet, still, full of tension and possibility, is my favorite part of any performance.

And it’s exactly the moment we’re in now.

Before the next wave hits, before the tempo picks up again, how leaders show up in this pause, this uncertain space, shapes everything that comes next.

Leadership as a Musical Practice

I’ve said it before: leadership is more like music than math. It’s about listening deeply, responding skillfully, and practicing the hard parts. Not just when it’s quiet but when the whole system is shaking.

In a BANI world, we don’t need leaders who are educated. We need leaders who are practiced. Leaders who’ve built the muscle to adapt, the presence to steady others, and the mindset to stay grounded even when the page in front of them is blank.

Now is the time to build those skills. This is the crucible of modern leadership development. We’re not preaparing for it, we are in it right now. The pace isn’t slowing down. The pressure isn’t easing. The future will demand even more of us. More complexity. More contradiction. More courage.

There is no going back to “normal.” This is the new normal.

And this isn’t optional work. In a world shaped by brittleness, anxiety, nonlinearity and incomprehensability, your ability to stay present, respond in real time, and lead through ambiguity isn’t a bonus, it’s a necessity. These are skills we must practice purposefully every single day. Not just when it’s easy. Not just when we feel ready. But especially when we don’t.

The world doesn’t need perfect leaders. It needs practiced ones.

So show up. Start building your skills. And commit to the kind of leadership that doesn’t just survive change but shapes it.

I’ve watched teams come alive when their leaders stop performing, slow down, and start listening. I’ve seen rigid systems begin to bend, just enough, when someone decides to trade control for connection.

And I’ve felt it myself. That moment when the chaos starts to feel less terrifying. Not because the world made sense again, but because I chose to stay present in the noise. It’s hard. Gut-wrenching, even.

And it’s generative.

Paving the way for creativity, clarity, and connection that wouldn’t have been possible in the safety of certainty. When we stop resisting the discomfort and start working with it, something shifts. We begin to hear the rhythm inside the noise. From there, we can begin to lead.

That’s what leadership looks like in BANI conditions.

We don’t need perfect performances. We need practiced presence.

And we need it now.