Dr Stavroula Kalogeras, MBA Programme Director at Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University Dubai
Leaders today are not short of information. If anything, they are overwhelmed by it. Dashboards update in real time, forecasts proliferate across functions, and performance metrics are more granular than ever before. Yet despite this abundance of data, decision quality remains inconsistent.
The issue is rarely access to information. It is what happens in the interval between data and decision-when information must be interpreted and converted into meaning. This interval is often treated as procedural. In practice, it is cognitive and organizational, and it is where many leadership failures originate.
This is the space I refer to as the in-between.
The in-between is the transitional condition between data and decision, in which meaning has not yet stabilized. It is neither analysis nor action, but a dynamic interpretive space where signals are still forming coherence. It is the moment where clarity is not given but constructed under pressure.
It is also where many of the most consequential blind spots in decision-making emerge.
The In-Between as a Leadership Environment
The in-between is not unusual. It shows up constantly in leadership work.
It is the moment when signals are visible but don’t quite line up, different interpretations start to compete, and early explanations begin to form but are still easy to dislodge. In that stage, leaders are not just receiving information. They are, whether they realize it or not, shaping how that information will be understood.
The phrase “betwixt and between” captures this state of liminality-neither one condition nor another. But in leadership practice, this is not linguistic. It is operational: a real decision environment where ambiguity must be interpreted without being prematurely resolved.
Sensemaking and Organizational Reality
Karl Weick’s sensemaking theory explains that organizations do not respond to reality directly; they construct it through interpretation. Meaning is not contained in data; it is produced through ongoing social and cognitive processes.
Sensemaking explains why the organization builds its own version of reality through interpretation.
However, while sensemaking describes the organizational process, the in-between describes the leadership experience within it, the point where interpretation is still forming, but decisions cannot be delayed.
It is here that ambiguity is either held long enough to become insight or collapsed prematurely into certainty.
Why Ambiguity Collapses Too Quickly
Ambiguity rarely persists in organizations. Four forces consistently compress it:
- Pressure for coherence
Leaders are expected to deliver clarity quickly, encouraging early convergence on plausible explanations.
- Narrative alignment
Once an interpretation forms, communication systems reinforce it across the organization.
- Hierarchical filtering
Information is progressively simplified as it moves upward, removing nuance.
- Cognitive load
Under pressure, decision-makers rely more heavily on familiar mental models.
Together, these forces narrow the in-between before it has fully revealed its informational value.
When More Data Produces Less Understanding
More data does not automatically improve decisions. Interpretation is what creates meaning. And in practice, it’s selective in ways people don’t always notice at the time.
As data increases, organizations often become more confident in their conclusions while becoming less sensitive to what lies outside them.
This is especially visible in weak signals:
- changes in customer behavior not yet reflected in metrics
- friction in operational execution
- informal feedback outside formal reporting structures
- gaps between reported and observed performance
These signals matter precisely because they are not yet stabilized into dominant interpretations. In the in-between, they remain visible; once meaning stabilizes, they are often excluded.
Case Vignette: When the In-Between Is Collapsed Too Early
A global industrial services firm implemented a unified digital platform across its regional maintenance operations as part of a broader standardization effort. Early implementation metrics were positive: login activity was high, and system usage dashboards indicated broad adoption across business units. In executive reporting, the rollout was quickly framed as a successful transition.
At the leadership level, the interpretation stabilized early: adoption had been achieved.
However, operational signals suggested a more uneven reality. In several regions, field teams continued to rely on spreadsheets and local tracking tools to manage last-minute job changes not easily accommodated by the system. Some updates were entered into the platform retrospectively to satisfy reporting requirements rather than to support real-time coordination. Meanwhile, support tickets increased in volume but were largely categorized as routine onboarding issues rather than indicators of structural friction.
Individually, these signals did not contradict the aggregate adoption metrics. Collectively, they indicated a divergence between reported usage and embedded operational practice.
Because the dominant interpretation had already stabilized, these discrepancies were treated as localized inefficiencies rather than systemic evidence. They were not incorporated into senior-level reassessment.
Over time, confidence in the platform increased at the center, while workarounds expanded at the periphery. When performance impacts eventually became visible in delivery delays and reporting inconsistencies, they appeared abrupt in formal metrics. In practice, they had accumulated gradually within an interpretive space that had already been closed.
This illustrates the in-between: not a lack of data, but a failure of interpretation to remain open long enough for weak signals to be integrated into meaning.
Cognitive Fatigue and Interpretation Narrowing
Sensemaking is continuous but vulnerable to cognitive depletion.
Research on decision fatigue shows that repeated judgments reduce evaluative quality and increase reliance on default heuristics (Danziger et al., 2011).
Under cognitive load, leaders become less able to remain in ambiguity. The in-between narrows.
As a result, leaders are more likely to accept the first coherent explanation, rely on established interpretive patterns, and simplify complexity in order to restore efficiency. Ambiguity is no longer explored; it is resolved.
How Organizational Reality Becomes Fixed
Once a dominant interpretation forms, it begins to shape what the organization can see.
Early narratives influence:
- which signals are noticed
- how new information is interpreted
- what is treated as relevant
Over time, interpretation becomes self-reinforcing. Provisional meaning hardens into organizational reality.
At that point, the in-between is no longer really open. It’s already been closed off without anyone explicitly deciding to do it.
The Blind Spot in Leadership
This dynamic is difficult to detect because it feels correct from within.
At the moment of decision, interpretations feel coherent, data feels sufficient, and confidence feels justified.
This internal consistency is what makes premature closure so persistent. It produces certainty even when external alignment is incomplete.
As a result, organizations can be:
- highly data-rich
- highly coordinated
- highly confident
and still systematically misread emerging conditions.
The constraint is not data. It is an interpretation that stabilizes too early.
Implications for Leadership
Leadership under uncertainty is less about accelerating decisions and more about preserving the quality of interpretation.
The key challenge is not whether to act under uncertainty, but whether meaning has been allowed to develop sufficiently before being fixed into action.
This requires distinguishing between:
- coherence: internal consistency of interpretation
- adequacy: alignment with the complexity of signals
Leadership failure often occurs when coherence is mistaken for adequacy.
Conclusion
Most leadership frameworks focus on execution. Yet many failures occur earlier, in the interpretive space where meaning is formed.
Before strategy and before action, there is sensemaking.
Within this process, the in-between is the critical leadership environment, the space where ambiguity is either preserved long enough to become insight or collapsed prematurely into certainty.
Karl Weick’s theory explains why this happens: organizations do not perceive reality directly; they construct it. The in-between is where that construction is most fragile and most consequential.
Better leadership is therefore not about eliminating ambiguity, but about recognizing when interpretation is being prematurely fixed and preserving the space in which better understanding can emerge.
Related Topics:
Where Foresight Begins: The Strategic Power of the In-Between
Mastering the Mindset: Three Habits of Outstanding L&D Professionals
