Never Fully Prepared: Navigating Leadership and Work You CAN’T Master

How to thrive when tasks are never truly done, guidance is limited, and curiosity becomes the greatest tool?

I’m sharing this story with my client’s permission, hoping it may help others navigate complex, uncertain spaces. For more, see my article on Adaptive Capacity.

My client is a young data scientist. Early in her career, she realised that being a data scientist isn’t just about finishing work—it’s about making sense of complexity.

Data science is like navigating a vast ocean. AI is the vessel—fast and powerful—but data scientists are the navigators. They ask new questions, explore unexpected connections, and notice what doesn’t fit. This investigative work develops over time, especially when guidance is limited, and requests often arrive second- or third-hand.

She hit common early-career challenges: missing data, unclear expectations, and work that never felt “done.” Efficiency alone wasn’t enough; quality was hard to judge, and mistakes were frequent. Asking for help was hard—her code often ran over 300 lines, and messages like “Can you look at this?” sometimes disappeared into the void.

At first, she explored cautiously. Over time, she learned to build a larger support network intentionally—not because she didn’t want to do the work herself, but because she worried about bothering others or drawing attention to gaps in her knowledge. In this field, you may never know enough, and recognising when to reach out is key.

Her adaptive capacity is never finished, but she’s starting to recognise inflection points: when a new dataset is needed, a question should be reframed, a piece of code rewritten, or a quick message sent to her leader. She has learned to develop a mental timer—giving space for a reply, but knowing when to reach out to someone else. She also starts reviewing her final report with fresh eyes, sensing when something might be off. These small moments of awareness mark growth in a changing environment.

Leadership in these contexts is about creating the conditions for people to do their best, even when things are constantly changing. Conditions vary: access to stakeholders, opportunities to explore, and the safety to experiment and learn from uncertainty.

Here are some reflection questions for data leaders:

1.    How are your teams rewarded—for speed and output, or for learning and insight?
2.    How do you create space for people to explore and be curious, and what happens when that space isn’t there?
3.    How are you helping your data scientists ask new questions and uncover hidden connections in complex data?

Key takeaway: In complex environments, your ability to notice inflection points, intentionally build support networks, and rely on your own curiosity and capability—not just your leader—may matter more than any single task you complete on time. How to thrive when tasks are never truly done, guidance is limited, and curiosity becomes your greatest tool.