R26.11 Leadership: Fuel Prices & Leading Through Uncertainty

I pulled into a petrol station in St Francis this week, and Caroline and I did a double take at the number on the pump after we filled up her new mommy mobile Land Cruiser: R2545 rand… Yep. Holy crap. R26.11 per litre. She asked me, "What will this do for our staff? For taxi fares. What will this do for our clients? For flight prices?" Made me think, hey. Everything’s going up, and people are already stretched. Man... What felt like a growth discussion the day before started sounding like a survival discussion.

Moments like this are interesting from a leadership perspective. Because petrol prices aren’t really about petrol… they’re about what happens when the external world tightens, and leaders have to respond.

What I’ve noticed over time is that uncertainty like this tends to trigger a predictable pattern. There’s the initial shock, then the blame, and then the fear-driven decisions. “This can’t be happening. It’s government… it’s global markets… it’s oil. We need to cut everything.” But the best leaders don’t stop there. They move quickly to ownership. They recognise that while they can’t control the price at the pump, they can absolutely control their response to it. And that shift, from reaction to ownership, is where leadership begins.

Rassie Erasmus is one of my favourite examples of this. After 2017, there were plenty of reasons to blame. Structures, politics, player pools, expectations. Instead, he did the opposite. He took ownership. He simplified. He aligned. He built clarity. The external pressure didn’t disappear, but the response changed completely. That’s what strong leaders do when uncertainty rises: they look for where they still have control. In a fuel spike, that might be route optimisation, supplier renegotiation, pricing clarity, waste removal, or operational redesign. Same environment, different leadership posture.

Once leaders take ownership, something else becomes possible. Vision. When people panic, their thinking becomes short-term. But great leaders do the opposite. They slow down enough to see further. Nelson Mandela demonstrated this in one of the most uncertain transitions in modern history. Instead of reacting emotionally, he listened, absorbed, and built a picture of the future he wanted to create. 27 years in jail gives you a lot of time to reflect on what the world should look like… the resilience to stick to that vision is quite extraordinary too. That’s what “begin with the end in mind” looks like under pressure. In business, uncertainty often creates opportunity. Competitors retreat, customers change behaviour, and new needs emerge. The leaders who step back and ask, “Where does this take us?” often emerge stronger.

Pressure also forces prioritisation. When everything feels urgent, leaders have to decide what truly matters. This is where Steve Jobs’ return to Apple is such a powerful example. He didn’t try to fix everything. He cut aggressively. He focused on a handful of priorities and built momentum around them. Fuel spikes create the same discipline. Customers, cash flow, communication, and culture suddenly matter more than everything else. Clarity improves performance. Focus stabilises teams.

Another pattern that emerges during uncertainty is the importance of trust and care. When pressure rises, people feel it personally – staff commuting costs increase, customers become cautious, and suppliers tighten. American talk show queen Oprah Winfrey built her platform, influence, and fortune by demonstrating that performance flourishes in environments of care. She made the visitors on her couch, and her audience, the heroes of the story. Remember the “You get a car!” moment? Leaders who adopt a win-win mindset during uncertainty often unlock loyalty and creativity by focusing on their stakeholders' needs. Instead of squeezing harder, they collaborate. They ask how to protect both people and performance. And that’s often where culture becomes a real competitive advantage.

Talking about culture. Ubuntu, as a concept, is huge in this country. “I am because you are.” And man, you don’t have better examples of this than our most decorated Olympian, Tatjana Smith. For her, collaboration became the unlock. Very few uncertainty-driven problems are solved in isolation. Tatjana’s repeated Olympic success wasn’t an individual effort. It was the product of coaching, systems, support, and alignment. She even wore a shirt with the names of the 100 people in her “Village” during that first record-breaking stint in 2021. Businesses facing fuel pressure might share logistics, batch deliveries, redesign routes, or collaborate with suppliers. The shift from “me” to “we” often creates efficiencies that weren’t visible before.

Uncertainty is exhausting. Leaders carry the weight of decisions, communication, and stability. And the best of us recognise that they need perspective before they need action. They pause, zoom out, and choose deliberately. Calm becomes a strategic advantage. Fatigue leads to reactive decisions; clarity leads to intentional ones.

The price on the pump will change again. It always does. But leadership is never about controlling the external environment. It’s about controlling the response. Some leaders see R26.11 and panic. Others see it and take ownership, create vision, prioritise, care for people, listen deeply, collaborate, and reset themselves. Same number. Different leadership.

PG’s Pro Tip:

When the external world tightens, resist the urge to react immediately. Instead, take 15 minutes and work through this sequence: 

1. What can we control right now? 

2. If we navigate this well, what opportunity might emerge? 

3. What are the three priorities that matter most in the next 90 days? 

ChatGPT Prompt 

"Act as a strategic leadership coach. My current external pressure is: [describe situation]. Help me identify what I can control, where opportunity exists, and the top three priorities for the next 90 days to lead through this effectively."

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