Why “I Don't Know… but I'll Find Out” Is a Leadership Superpower

There is an interesting assumption we sometimes make about confidence.

We associate it with certainty.

The confident person is the one who knows the answer. The one who responds without hesitation. The one who sounds sure.

But confidence and certainty are not the same thing.

In fact, sometimes the more confident response is simply:

“I don't know... but I'll find out and come back to you.”

That sentence does something important.

It acknowledges the limits of what you know without diminishing your credibility. It replaces the need to appear knowledgeable with a willingness to become knowledgeable.

And there is a significant difference between the two.

Confidence doesn't require certainty

Certainty says: “I already know.”

Confidence can say: “I don't know yet.”

That yet matters.

Because confidence is not necessarily about having every answer available immediately. It can be about trusting yourself enough to acknowledge what you don't know, being curious enough to investigate it, and taking responsibility for finding the answer.

That requires a different kind of confidence.

Not pretending to have every answer.

Not needing to prove you're right.

Not confusing confidence with certainty.

There have been many occasions throughout my career when people have come to me because they believed I would probably know the answer to their question.

Sometimes I did.

Sometimes I didn't.

What mattered was that they also knew that, if I didn't know, I would go away, find out and come back to them.

Over time, that becomes part of trust.

Not “Amanda always knows the answer.”

But “If Amanda doesn't know, she'll tell me — and she'll find out.”

There is far less pressure in the second version. And, I would argue, far more integrity.

What happens when leaders feel they have to know?

Now consider what happens when a leader believes that credibility depends upon always having an answer.

A question is asked.

They aren't sure.

But instead of saying so, they offer the answer they think is probably right.

Perhaps it is.

Perhaps it isn't.

The immediate discomfort of admitting uncertainty has disappeared, but something else has taken its place: an answer has been given with greater certainty than the leader actually possesses.

That can have consequences.

If the answer proves to be wrong, the issue isn't simply that the leader didn't know something. None of us knows everything.

The issue is that they presented uncertainty as certainty.

And that distinction matters.

The effect reaches beyond the individual answer

There is another consequence that interests me even more.

What does a leader's relationship with uncertainty teach everyone else?

If leaders are expected to know everything, what happens when somebody else doesn't know?

Do people ask questions?

Do they challenge an assumption?

Do they say, “I'm not sure”?

Or do they learn that competence means appearing certain?

A team in which everybody feels they need to have the answer is very different from a team in which people are able to explore the question.

The first can reward the appearance of performance, whether that is supported by competence or not.

The second creates space for curiosity.

And curiosity matters because some of the most useful conversations begin not with an answer, but with somebody noticing that there is something they don't yet understand.

“I'll find out” carries a responsibility

There is, however, an important second half to “I don't know.”

It is very easy to say:

“I'll find out and come back to you.”

The value lies in actually coming back.

You may return with the answer.

You may return to say that you haven't found the answer yet.

You may even return to explain that there isn't a straightforward answer and that you need to explore it further.

But you return.

Because once “I'll find out” has been added to “I don't know,” a small promise has been made.

And small promises matter.

Every time we do what we said we would do, we give people another reason to trust us. Every time we quietly allow one of those commitments to disappear from the to-do list, we risk teaching people something different.

Eventually, they may stop asking.

Leadership isn't a performance of knowing

I don't believe leadership credibility comes from being the person with all the answers.

I think it comes, in part, from how we respond when we don't have them.

Can we acknowledge the gap without becoming defensive?

Can we remain curious rather than reaching for certainty?

Can we listen to somebody who may know more than we do?

Can we change our position when new information warrants it?

And, when we say we'll find something out, can people trust us to come back to them?

There is something quietly powerful about being comfortable enough with your own capability to say:

“I don't know.”

And something more powerful still about adding:

“But I'll find out.”

So perhaps the question isn't:

Do you know the answer?

Perhaps it is:

What do you do when you don't?