Leadership isn’t fixed. Like the brain, it can be rewired.
For 30 years, I've studied what makes leaders effective in complexity—first as a neuroscientist researching brain plasticity, then as a three-time CEO leading organizations I didn't initially understand. What I discovered challenges everything we're taught about leadership: Strategic not-knowing creates competitive advantage.
About Sherry
Why Leaders Struggle
Organizations reward expertise and decisiveness. Boards want confidence. Stakeholders demand quick decisions. Teams look for certainty.
So leaders perform certainty they don’t feel.
They decide faster than warranted. They project confidence that isn’t there. They hide doubt, avoid questions that might expose gaps, and surround themselves with people who confirm their views.
This is how brilliant leaders miss breakthrough opportunities—and how entire organizations become brittle.
In complex systems where cause and effect are non-linear and yesterday’s solutions become today’s constraints, the most dangerous moment in leadership is when you think you already know what you’re seeing.
Strategic Not-Knowing as a Leadership Practice
Strategic not-knowing is the disciplined capacity to pause judgment, stay curious, and create space for learning before action.
It’s not confusion. Not indecision. Not reckless ignorance.
It’s how you develop leadership plasticity—the capacity to expand and rewire how you lead in response to complexity.
Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
Role: Scientific Director
Challenge: No medical training or experience in genetic disease
The Beginner’s Question: “Could methods from neuroscience and otter disciplines to study ion channels apply to CF research?”
The Result: Cross-disciplinary collaborations that contributed to a basic defect in disease and advance understanding and treatment of the disease.
Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (RAPS)
Role: CEO for 20 years
Challenge: Limited health product regulatory knowledge
The Practice: Spent 90 days observing before interpreting. Discovered regulatory professionals had tremendous value they didn’t know how to harness.
The Result: $2.5M to ~$15M. 3,000 to 20,000+ members. Team pioneered online learning. Created 20-year partnership with Kellogg School of Management. Organization gained global recognition and influence.
American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA)
Role: CEO
Challenge: Learning about occupational therapy while guiding organization reinvention while managing disruption during COVID-19
The Approach: Applied strategic not-knowing when no playbook existed.
The Result: Successful enterprise-wide transformation and COVID transition maintaining all services.
The Pattern Across Three Decades:
Leading outside expertise isn’t a liability. It’s how you unlock perspectives specialists miss.
Not-knowing isn’t a gap in leadership. It’s a place from which leadership begins.
I hold a PhD in Neuroscience from Purdue University, where I studied brain development and neuroplasticity. Before the brain was popular in leadership development, I understood this fundamental truth:
Brains don’t grow through certainty. They grow through challenge, novelty, and productive confusion.
Organizations follow the same principles.
I’m a Fellow of the American Society of Association Executives (FASAE), Certified Association Executive (CAE), and Certified Reinvention Professional (CRP)—credentials that reflect three decades leading organizations I didn’t initially understand. I also completed executive management training at the Kellogg School of Management and am a certified executive and leadership coach.
I’ve delivered 350+ global presentations on leadership, transformation, and strategic thinking across North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America
My work has been published in a wide range of professional publications.