Steer Into The Skid: Leading Through The Moment We're In

A blog by Ali Lalieu

August 2026

I was inspired by a recent The Curiosity Shop podcast to write this blog.

Futurist Amy Webb who studies AI and technology reminds us that leaders have hit a huge piece of dangerous ice.

If you’re like me and never learned to drive in icy winters, your instincts for driving in ice are likely dangerous! Your instinct will be to slam on the brake, your hands will want to wrench the wheel away from the slide.

Both of those instincts, on ice, are deadly!

What actually works is counterintuitive: keep light pressure on the gas, keep your foot near the brake, and steer into the skid, not away from it.

You don't fight the ice. You work with it, awake, aware, present, and responsive to what's happening under the tires in real time. This takes practiced nervous system management/calm in the moment!

And that's where many leaders are right now with AI, geopolitical tension, changing markets.

They've hit a massive patch of ice, and it's tempting to either freeze, slam the brakes on change,  or yank the wheel hard in the opposite direction. Both will lead to a crash.

What this moment actually calls for is something much harder: pausing, breathing, staying awake at the wheel, hands steady, practicing agility (physical, mental & emotional in real time), and making sure it isn't just the leader's hands on that wheel.

It's everyone's.

The Wheel Is Awareness

The steering wheel itself is self-awareness.

The ability to notice the nuance of the ice as it changes under you: to pause/respond instead of react, to feel a decision starting to skid and adjust before you overcorrect.

Self-awareness is the foundation because everything else, courage, accountability, curiosity, collapses without it.

You cannot steer into a slide you refuse to notice you're in.

Accountability Isn't the Brake Pedal - It's the Portal

When something starts to slide, the instinct is to slam on blame. Find who caused it. Punish the swerve. But punitive accountability is exactly like slamming the brake on ice, it feels like control, and it's actually what causes the spinout.

Accountability done well is not punitive or shaming. It's a portal to learning and growth.

The most accountable leaders and teams I work with are also the most generous ones. They hold each other to high standards because they bring high accountability and high generosity; bound together by curiosity.

Curiosity Is Care

In the podcast, Brené Brown and Aiko Bethea remind us that curiosity is an act of care, a form of generosity. And it requires real emotional agility, the willingness to stay open when your nervous system wants to shut the conversation down.

Every act of curiosity in a hard conversation is also an act of connection.

It's how people come to experience you as a leader, not as someone who has all the answers, but as someone who stays present, open, and willing to listen to connect.

When you're navigating ice, connection-level listening is what tells you the road is changing before your hands feel it in the wheel.

It's your early-warning system.

Everyone's Hands on the Wheel

Here's what I’ve learned matters most for 2026.

This isn't a moment where one leader can steer for everyone else.

The ice is too big, moving too fast, for any single set of hands.

We need every person in the organization aware, awake, and steering the wheel alongside us.

But that only happens when leaders lean into courage. Without it, the skills of self-awareness, generous accountability and curiosity, we end up doing the opposite of what the moment demands. We centralize control, punish uncertainty, and quietly push people's hands off the wheel right when we need all of them on it.

And in the world right now, a lot of organizations are doing exactly that: steering hard, fast, and alone, straight into the ice.

The leaders who get through this well won't be the ones who react fastest.

They'll be the ones who pause, stay awake, alert, their foot near the brake instead of on it, steering courageously into the slide instead of away from it, and building enough trust that everyone else feels brave enough to keep their hands on the wheel too.

Cheers,

Ali x