Why VUCA No Longer Describes Our World — and Why 6PUNDITS™ Does

Shehzaad Shams
Nov 30
5 min read

Ah yes — VUCA.

That vintage relic first coined by Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus back in 1985, later adopted by the U.S. Army War College as the new compass for navigating post–Cold War turbulence.

The four horsemen of modern management: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity.

Four decades later, it is still printed on slide decks, recited solemnly in leadership workshops, and worshipped with the same energy one reserves for a Nokia 3310 — charming, durable, wildly outdated.

Let’s be honest: VUCA today feels like using a paper map inside a driverless car. A helpful relic, yes, but only if you enjoy getting lost with confidence.

Meanwhile, the world has moved on.

Not politely.

Not slowly.

And definitely not in four neat letters.

Welcome to 6PUNDITS™ — the Eclectic Leadership Movement’s more honest, humorous, and human vocabulary for the world we actually live in.

But before we get there, let’s look at why VUCA is retiring itself faster than corporate dress codes.

The World Today: Not Just Volatile — Saturated

VUCA once described the extraordinary. Now it barely captures the daily news cycle.

To understand just how insufficient the old framework is, consider these quick snapshots:

The UN predicts the global population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050, with 90% of growth concentrated in regions that already face resource strain.
Nine out of ten children worldwide breathe toxic air (UNICEF, 2023).
Inequality is widening — with the richest 1% owning nearly half of the world’s wealth (Oxfam, 2024).
Political polarisation is at a 30-year high in multiple democracies.
Patriarchal structures remain deeply embedded, with women holding just 5% of CEO roles globally (Fortune Global 500).

This is no longer volatility. This is architecture.

It’s not ambiguity. It’s a blueprint for dysfunction.

We haven’t simply entered a complex world — we’ve normalised it, industrialised it, franchised it.

If VUCA was meant to capture turbulence, then let’s be fair: turbulence is now the operating system.

So why are we still relying on an acronym designed for geopolitical uncertainty in the 1980s?

VUCA isn’t wrong. It’s simply incomplete — like describing the ocean as “wet”.

Where VUCA Stops, Real Life Begins

VUCA gives you a mood.

It doesn’t give you a map.

It describes the weather but tells you nothing about the climate.

It name-drops uncertainty but doesn’t explain the structures producing it.

It gestures vaguely at complexity but refuses to acknowledge that inequality and power imbalances aren’t ambiguous at all.

In other words:

VUCA is a symptom sheet.

6PUNDITS™ is the diagnosis and the operating manual.

Let’s break it down.

Introducing 6PUNDITS™: The Real Forces of Leadership Today

In the Eclectic Leadership Movement, we propose that true leadership emerges not from conceptual frameworks but from lived realities.

Our world is shaped by the Six Ps, and our response requires the adaptive intelligences contained in UNDITS.

Here’s the full picture:

THE SIX FORCES (6P)

Here are the actual, non-negotiable forces shaping leaders, organisations, societies — and your inbox.

1. Population

We are adding roughly 80 million more humans a year.

Cities expanding faster than leadership models can keep up. Youth bulges demanding dignity and work.

This isn’t “volatility”. It’s demographics, mathematics, and inevitability.

2. Pollution

Not just of the environment — though London air now regularly breaches WHO limits —

but pollution of information, attention, time, values.

Digital pollution might be the most intoxicating: misinformation spreads 6 times faster on social platforms than truth.

This is not ambiguity. This is engineered chaos.

3. Politics

From elections decided by algorithms to global institutions stretched thin, politics is now more unpredictable than weather.

Political instability has increased 40% in the last two decades, according to the Global Peace Index.

This isn’t uncertainty. It’s the new gravitational field.

4. Patriarchy

Still woven into institutions, job markets, inheritance laws, language, religion, and even leadership theory.

The world cannot talk about leadership without talking about power — and who historically has had the right to exercise it.

This is not complexity. It’s a system.

5. Prophecy

The belief systems that promise us linear progress, endless innovation, limitless growth — despite ecological and economic reality saying otherwise.

Prophecy shapes expectations: of comfort, of stability, of advancement.

It’s the myth of certainty in a world that has none.

6. Poverty

Over 700 million people still live in extreme poverty.

But poverty isn’t only financial — it’s also social, cognitive, emotional, linguistic.

You cannot lead effectively without understanding scarcity in all its forms.

This is not ambiguity. It’s structure, history, inheritance.

THE FIVE RESPONSES (UNDITS)

These are the adaptive intelligences leaders actually use:

1. Undefined Uncertainty

The ability to act without full clarity.

To make decisions with incomplete information.

To embrace uncertainty as a creative medium.

2. Natural Intelligence

The original intelligence: intuition, cultural fluency, empathy, embodied experience.

Leadership that listens before it speaks.

3. Design Thinking

Improvisation + iteration + intention.

Where survival learns to transform itself into strategy.

4. Ingenuity

Making meaning with limited means.

Frugal innovation. Lateral thinking.

What some call resilience; we call brilliance.

5. Tenacity & Service

Leadership not as dominance, but as stewardship.

Purpose as fuel.

Service as structure.

Tenacity as an inner engine.

Why 6PUNDITS™ Matters More Than VUCA Ever Did

VUCA tells you the world is shaky.

6PUNDITS™ tells you why — and what you can actually do about it.

VUCA tells you to brace yourself.

6PUNDITS™ teaches you to dance with the storm without losing your rhythm or your humanity.

VUCA gives you fear vocabulary.

6PUNDITS™ gives you leadership vocabulary.

VUCA says: “Be agile.”

6PUNDITS™ says:

You’re already improvising. Now make it intentional.

Most importantly:

VUCA is a military metaphor.

6PUNDITS™ is a human metaphor.

It’s rooted in communities, leaders, educators, entrepreneurs, youth, systems, culture, and language.

It doesn’t simplify the world — it names it honestly.

And when you name the world accurately, you lead it better.

If You’re Still Using VUCA in 2025…

You’re not wrong.

You’re just reading yesterday’s map while driving on today’s terrain.

Nothing in VUCA addresses inequality.

Nothing in VUCA addresses patriarchy.

Nothing in VUCA addresses human ingenuity, tenacity, or intelligence.

Nothing in VUCA speaks to the ethical obligations of leadership.

6PUNDITS™ does.

Because the world has changed.

Because leadership has changed.

Because you have changed.

Here’s the truth:

We don’t need better leaders.

We need leaders with better lenses.

If you’re tired of frameworks that don’t match your reality…

If you feel leadership theory has been trapped in Western boardrooms and needs to be re-rooted in human experience…

If you believe leadership should be multilingual, multidisciplinary, multicultural, and morally grounded…

Then the Eclectic Leadership Movement is your home.

Join us as we:

Build the world’s first decolonised leadership lexicon
Train leaders to think across linguistics, psychology, politics, and indigenous wisdom
Equip organisations with frameworks grounded in lived complexity
Amplify voices and experiences long ignored in mainstream leadership discourse
Develop new systems, metaphors, and models that honour reality, not romanticism

The world doesn’t need leaders who can survive ambiguity.

It needs leaders who can translate it, transform it, and teach others through it.

If that speaks to you —

if you feel something shift in your chest reading this —

if you know leadership must evolve…

Then:

Join the Eclectic Leadership Movement.

Lead with clarity, connection, and confluence.

Lead the world that actually exists — not the one VUCA imagined.

Joining the movement is as easy as subscribing to the newsletter.

Do it now. www.rononiti.org

Shehzaad Shams