Nathan Furr, Program Director of the Executive Management Programme at INSEAD, is hosting an inspiring masterclass focused on leadership in an era shaped by uncertainty and artificial intelligence.

Great leaders are courageous in the face of uncertainty. But few us are given tools for navigating the unknown and so we miss our leadership potential.  In this session we explore the findings from dozens of interviews and empirical research on the tools to develop uncertainty ability, or the ability to face uncertainty with courage and resilience so we can discover the possibilities hidden within it.

We will explore four categories of tools for building your uncertainty ability:

• Reframe uncertainty from something frightening to the source of possibility
• Prime by understanding your natural uncertainty strengths and weaknesses
• Do by applying the tools used by innovators to learn and adapt in the fog of the unknown
• Sustain yourself when things go differently than expected.

Preserving Original Judgement in the Age of AI

For the past decade, organizations have invested massively in intelligent decision-support infrastructure promising ever-better decisions. Yet a paradox is emerging: as organizations gain more “intelligence,” their leaders are being trained out of the very capacity that creates competitive advantage—original judgment. By original judgment we mean the uniquely human capacity to see beyond the dominant narrative and make choices that represent your values under conditions of uncertainty. Original judgement is the foundation of competitive advantage and in this session we will explore how leaders can preserve it in the age of AI.

Specifically, we will explore how to develop two interlocking capacities that shape the leaders’ ability to produce original thinking that sets new precedents:

• breadth of perception (noticing weak signals and adjacent patterns beyond the obvious)
• and independence of interpretation (forming your own view rather than inheriting or deferring to the model’s or the group’s).

These aren’t personality traits or flashes of genius; they’re observable mechanisms that explain why some leaders consistently spot inflection points, challenge frames, and act with conviction while others, equally intelligent, default to compliance.