Partnering Leadership 388 Mastering Uncertainty: Lessons from Former Navy SEAL Commander Rich Diviney on Leading Yourself and Your Team When Nothing Goes as Planned
In this timely and compelling episode of Partnering Leadership, Mahan Tavakoli welcomes back Rich Diviney, retired Navy SEAL Commander and bestselling author of The Attributes. This conversation focuses on Rich’s latest book, Mastering Uncertainty, and delivers insights highly relevant to leaders navigating today’s volatile, complex environment.
With more than 20 years of experience in the SEAL teams—including leading training within SEAL Team Six—Rich draws from intense operational settings to explain how high performers build the ability to stay composed, decisive, and effective when the plan breaks down. But this isn’t just about special forces. It’s a conversation about how CEOs and senior leaders can rewire how they think about pressure, performance, and leadership itself.
Rich introduces powerful concepts, including the brain’s need for Duration, Pathway, and Outcome (DPO) to maintain composure in chaos. He breaks down how stress affects decision-making, why “calm is contagious,” and how great teams shift leadership dynamically to the person best positioned to lead in the moment. These lessons are deeply human and directly applicable to organizational leadership.
This episode goes beyond resilience into practical training for leaders who want to move through uncertainty with clarity and help their teams do the same. Whether you're leading a fast-scaling business, a mission-driven nonprofit, or a complex enterprise under stress, this conversation offers actionable perspective and tools for performing when nothing goes as planned.
Actionable Takeaways
- Hear how Rich Diviney defines mastery of uncertainty—and why it starts with managing your own physiological stress response.
- Learn how elite performers prepare for unpredictable environments and why your team can develop that same capability.
- Discover why the brain’s search for Duration, Pathway, and Outcome is the key to clarity in moments of stress.
- Explore the concept of dynamic subordination and how the best teams allow leadership to shift based on proximity to the problem.
- Understand the limits of traditional planning—and why too much planning can become a form of leadership paralysis.
- Gain perspective on why attempts to control more tightly often erode trust, especially in high-stakes or ambiguous situations.
- Examine how the identities leaders carry—consciously or not—shape how they respond under pressure.
- Learn why building trust requires more than competence and consistency—and how character and compassion complete the equation.
- Find out how focusing your team on smaller, achievable horizons (instead of long-range uncertainty) improves decision-making and morale.
- Get practical strategies for applying these tools immediately—both in your own leadership and across your team.
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