In October 1915, Ernest Shackleton watched his ship sink into the Weddell Sea. The Endurance had been trapped in Antarctic pack ice for ten months before the pressure finally crushed its hull.

Shackleton’s mission was ambitious, to say the least: he wanted to lead the first complete land crossing of Antarctica—all 1,800 miles of it. Shackleton was as prepared a leader as anyone, having been on two expeditions to the region before, one of which he led. He was known for being optimistic, courageous and determined, qualities that would certainly come in handy for what he and his crew would face as they watched their ship vanish into the sea, 1,500 miles from the closest human settlement.

The ship gone, Shackleton was forced to pivot to a new goal: get his crew out alive. He announced it simply—"Ship and stores have gone, so now we'll go home"—and immediately started making decisions. They were imperfect, provisional and made with whatever scraps of information he had. But he did it. Nearly two years later, all 27 crewmembers made it home.

Today’s leaders aren’t stranded in Antarctica, but it’s safe to say these are murky times. Geopolitical shocks, economic shakiness and breakneck advances in AI have left many feeling unmoored, even pessimistic. New data from the executive coaching firm Vistage found that more CEOs expect economic conditions to worsen over the next year than those who expect improvement, a reversal from the relative optimism of this time last year.

In uncertain waters, leaders have to guide their teams with confidence, even when they don’t know the way themselves. Shackleton relied on a combination of his skills, experience and intuition. You have all of those things, plus an additional, powerful helper: ChatGPT.

Create Stabilizing Routines

One of Shackleton’s strengths was creating a sense of stability, even when the circumstances were anything but. As Harvard Business School professor and historian Nancy Koehn put it , “How do you manage the energy of yourself and your team when the stakes suddenly get high…your uncertainty increases, and there's suddenly a new worst-case scenario that people can keep on running as a movie in their heads?"

The answer? Routines. Shackleton had strict rules for his men to keep them from sinking into despair, which included everything from mandatory exercise to forced socialization after dinner. He called it “mental medicine.”

Every Friday, our teams hold Demo Days, where our teams show one another what they’ve been working on. I love this routine because it gives us short-term, tangible goals, in addition to building camaraderie and boosting morale.

If you don’t yet have your own consistent, morale-boosting practices, here’s a prompt that can help:

"My team is navigating uncertainty around [describe situation]. Here is what our current weekly routine looks like: [insert routines]. Identify any gaps where anxiety or doubt might take hold, and suggest three specific rituals or habits that would create more stability and cohesion without adding unnecessary noise."

Separate Need-To-Knows From The Noise

While Shackleton and his crew were stranded on the ice, much of the rest of Europe was engaged in an entirely different struggle: World War I. Shackleton was well aware of the war, but it’s highly unlikely he was busy fretting over it—after all, he had far more immediate problems on his hands.

If there’s one way in which life today is tougher than it was in the early 20th century, it’s that cutting out the noise has become incredibly challenging. What begins as a quick glance at a news alert can quickly spiral into doomscrolling. Every fresh headline becomes an occasion for rethinking your entire strategy—if you let it.

As a leader, your attention is one of your most finite resources, and spending it on information you can't act on risks drowning out what actually matters to your business. Here’s a prompt that can help you separate one from the other:

"Here are five things I'm worried about as a leader right now: [list them]. For each one, tell me whether it represents a real operational risk to a [describe your business], something to monitor but not act on yet, or a distraction I can safely ignore for now. Explain your reasoning for each."

Use the output as the basis for a standing agenda item in your weekly leadership check-in, separating it by “action list” versus “watch list.” Revisit it monthly, monitor it for change and adjust course as needed.

Make A Decision You’ve Been Avoiding

Leaders hold the positions they do because their jobs involve making tough, high-stakes decisions. But even the most seasoned leaders can find themselves frozen when the ground beneath them won't stop shifting. Uncertainty magnifies every decision, making it feel riskier than it actually is—when in reality, the bigger risk is usually the decision you keep avoiding.

At Jotform, I've found that the decisions I avoid the longest are rarely the ones that needed more information. They're the ones that needed more clarity about what I was actually deciding. That's where this prompt helps:

"I've been putting off [describe decision] because of uncertainty around [describe the factor]. Walk me through the realistic cost of deciding now versus waiting 30/60/90 days. What information would actually change my decision, and can I realistically get it in that time?"

Leading through uncertainty looks different now than it did in 1915, and that’s a good thing. There’s more noise today, true, but we also have tools that Shackleton and his crew could only have dreamed of. Use them to your advantage.