Promoting Calm Leadership

“If I move too slowly, I could loose momentum. If I move too quickly, I could make mistakes.” This is a sentiment I’ve heard from more than one CEO in coaching sessions. And it captures one of the hardest disciplines in leadership: strategic patience. We live in a world that prizes speed—quarterly results, instant feedback, immediate impact. The pressure to act quickly, to “do something,” can feel overwhelming. Yet, the most effective leaders often know that the real power lies not in speed, but in timing. Strategic patience is not inaction. It is the discipline of holding steady, resisting the temptation for premature moves, and waiting for the moment when action will have its greatest effect. It is the art of slowing down in order to go faster and have more impact later. Through my work with CEOs, here are some lessons I’ve observed: 1. Timing is strategy. A brilliant idea launched too early can fail just as easily as a weak idea. Strategic patience is about sensing when the market, the culture, or the organization is ready. 2. The long game matters more than quick wins. Leaders face enormous pressure for immediate results, but sustainable value comes from playing the long game. Patience allows a leader to invest in compounding growth rather than chasing applause. 3. Slowing down creates speed later. Taking time to align teams, clarify purpose, and build trust may feel slow at first—but it leads to faster execution and fewer setbacks in the long run. 4. Emotional steadiness is a strategy. Strategic patience requires leaders to manage their own anxiety, investor demands, and team restlessness. Calm leadership creates confidence, especially in uncertain times. 5. Some things can’t be rushed. Culture change, leadership transitions, and trust-building don’t happen overnight. The leader’s role is to create the right conditions and then let things unfold. 6. Patience is not procrastination. There’s a fine line between waiting wisely and avoiding tough calls. The most self-aware CEOs learn to distinguish between the two. 7. Patience builds resilience. The more a leader practices holding steady through uncertainty, the more confidence they build in themselves—and in their teams. At its heart, strategic patience is about trust & wisdom. It’s easy to mistake patience for passivity. But in truth, it is an active form of leadership. It demands courage—the courage to hold the line when others push for haste, the courage to let go of control, and the courage to believe in the long-term vision even when the short-term is noisy. In CEO coaching, I often see leaders discover that their biggest breakthroughs come not from doing more, but from learning when not to act. Strategic patience, practiced well, becomes a quiet but powerful advantage. Where in your leadership are you being invited to practice patience—not as a delay, but as a strategy? Because sometimes, the boldest move a leader can make is to wait.

What’s the #1 thing teams borrow from their leader? Not strategy. Not intelligence. Not vision. It’s their emotional state. A client came to me last year in the middle of a high-stakes transition. He was brilliant — strategic, visionary, results-driven. But under pressure? His team felt his stress. Meetings were rushed, feedback was sharp, and people walked on eggshells. He didn’t realize that his own fight-or-flight response was setting the emotional tone for everyone else. When leaders are reactive, teams shrink. When leaders regulate, teams expand. This is the hidden superpower of great leaders: emotional regulation. It’s not about suppressing emotion. It’s about choosing your response instead of being hijacked by it. Here are 5 practical ways to start: 1️⃣ Notice your triggers. Ask: What just set me off? 2️⃣ Name the feeling. Anger, fear, frustration—naming lowers intensity. 3️⃣ Pause before acting. Breathe. Contain. Don’t fire off the email just yet. 4️⃣ Reframe the situation. Is it a crisis or just a challenge? 5️⃣ Model composure. Calm is contagious. So is chaos. Back to my client: within months of practicing these shifts, his team noticed the difference. Meetings became less tense, creativity went up, and deadlines stopped feeling like fire drills. Same team. Same pressures. Different energy. That’s the ripple effect of a regulated leader. You don’t just change yourself. You change the system. You create a holding environment for your team — a space where innovation, problem-solving, and resilience can thrive. If you’re leading through change and want to master the art of calm, contained leadership — I’d love to help you build that capacity.

LEADERSHIP FAILS WHEN TRIGGERS TAKE CONTROL Leadership is rarely tested in calm waters. It's revealed when the pressure to decide meets the impulse to react. It’s easy to send a quick text, email, or Teams message while triggered. It’s even easier to overreact in person, in a meeting, during conflict, or when feeling challenged. It's harder, yet far more powerful, to pause. Because in that pause, leadership lives. According to Harvard Business Review, 58% of employees have lost trust in a leader due to emotionally reactive behavior. And 70% admit they withhold ideas or feedback after witnessing it. One reactive response can damage what took years to build: → Respect → Trust → Integrity Because when emotion overrides intention, perception becomes reality. And once trust is fractured, logic rarely repairs it. Because when your brain perceives threat such as criticism, conflict, or loss of control, the amygdala floods your system with cortisol and adrenaline within 1/20th of a second. Your prefrontal cortex, the center for logic, empathy, and composure, temporarily goes offline for up to 18 minutes. You are no longer responding. You are reacting from survival. That is why emotional regulation is critical. Here are the high performance strategies I teach my clients to stay composed under pressure: → NAME IT TO NEUTRALIZE IT First, create awareness. Labeling emotions reduces amygdala activity by up to 40%. When you name what you feel such as frustration, fear, or disappointment, your brain begins to calm. → BREATH REGULATION BEFORE DIALOGUE Next, calm the body before engaging the mind. Use slow, extended exhales to activate the vagus nerve and signal safety to your body, restoring clarity. → PAUSE BEFORE YOU RESPOND Whether in writing or in person, create space before reacting. A single breath in conversation or a three-minute delay before hitting send gives your brain time to regain clarity and your leadership time to stay intact. → SEPARATE STATE FROM STRATEGY Now, shift from reaction to leadership. Regulate your internal state first, then make strategic choices with clarity. → DEBRIEF THE TRIGGER Finally, reflect. Once calm returns, ask what value was challenged. Triggers often reveal needs for respect, control, or recognition. Great leaders feel the trigger but choose the response. They are emotionally disciplined. Your ability to regulate determines your capacity to lead through pressure without losing presence, trust, or integrity. The next time emotion surges, remember that one reactive moment can destroy what took years to earn. Pause, then choose leadership over impulse. I’m curious… ~What trigger do you need to master? #business #leadership #success 📸 Saint-Tropez, France

Anxiety spreads fast. And according to the BANI model, we’re now in an age of chronic anxiety. An age where anxiety persists at a low grade hum, draining happiness, energy, and productivity. But, “calm” is the antidote to anxiety. And you can spread it just as fast. Here are 5 simple tactics: 1. Over-Communicate, Don’t Over-Spin Anxiety loves silence. If you go mute, your people fill the gaps with worst-case scenarios. Be clear, be honest, and share what you know (and what you don’t). 2. Give Your Team the Wheel Anxiety skyrockets when folks feel powerless. Hand them some decisions—schedules, minor priorities, problem-solving. People relax when they have a vote. 3. Make It Safe to Speak Up When fear grips the room, silence follows. You need open dialogue, not lip-biting. Normalize screw-ups as learning moments. Admit your own worries. 4. Be Real, But Point to the Light at the End of the Tunnel No one buys sugar-coated nonsense. Acknowledge the dumpster fire, then show a path forward. Truth + roadmap = calm. The antidote to panic is clarity. 5. Invest in Mental Fuel Anxiety drains the tank. Burned out teams don’t innovate—they bail. Encourage breaks, push mental health resources. Show them it’s okay to unplug or talk it out.  ___ TAKEAWAY Leaders aren’t psychiatrists, and we can’t change the world overnight, but we can make it better. Tackle the “A” in BANI by spreading calm:  - over-communicate - grant agency - foster safety - tell the truth - prioritize well-being. Remember: Anxiety spreads fast; but so does calm. How do YOU think leaders can foster calm? Let me know in the comments below. ___ Find this interesting?  ⏩ Discuss it at next week’s team meeting (tag your colleagues in the comments). ♻️ Repost it to add value to your own LinkedIn followers. 👉  Follow me, Kevin Kruse, for more posts like this one. ___ P.S. Remember VUCA? That acronym was invented in 1987–when Reagan was President and five years before MySpace was even invented. Well there is a new acronym in town… BANI—Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, and Incomprehensible, according to futurist Jamais Cascio. This post focused on the A in BANI—Anxiety.  ___ #Leadershipdevelopment #Leadership #Futurecasters

If you want your people to stay calm under pressure, you have to show them how. We talk a lot about resilience...but when the heat’s on, most leaders are just using their game face to mask the internal turmoil. They look composed, but their team can feel the tension. Because no matter how much you try to control it, pressure leaks. True leadership resilience - the kind that earns trust and keeps people steady - comes from Grace Under Pressure. It’s not about pretending you’re fine. It’s about being fine. Deep down. When it counts most. So how do you get there? Here are two things that helped me become truly unflappable: 🔹 Hack 1: Bring perspective forward In the moment, every obstacle feels like a disaster. But ask yourself: “Will this matter in a week?” 9/10, the answer is no. And when you pull that longer-range perspective into the present, the panic subsides almost immediately. 🔹 Hack 2: Loosen your grip on job security The size of your fear response is linked to the threat it poses to your security: “What if this costs me my job?” But when you stop clinging to the role, you unlock clarity. Your scarcity mentality is subdued, leaving you free to be more creative and decisive. I trained myself to believe that if I ever lost my job, it would only be so that I was freed up to pursue the next - much better - opportunity. That mindset gave me calm, courage, and freedom. And paradoxically, it made me the kind of leader no one wanted to lose. So if you want to lead your team through chaos? ✔️ Learn to stay calm - on the inside ✔️ Get your fear in check ✔️ Lose the scarcity mindset ✔️ Use perspective to stop you from overreacting Grace Under Pressure doesn’t come naturally, it’s built over time. And the sooner you start training for it, the stronger your leadership becomes. Because when your team is staring down the fire, they don’t need you to give it any more oxygen...they need your composure to extinguish it.

You don’t rise by reacting faster. You rise by responding wiser. Here’s how to lead with calm: 1) Practice slow breathing → A few deep breaths reset your nervous system faster than a new to-do list. 2) Control your inputs → What you consume fuels your mindset. Guard your attention like your time. 3) Label your emotions → Naming what you feel turns chaos into something you can work with. 4) Use a prioritization filter → Ask: “Will this matter in a week? A month? A quarter?” 5) Time-block for calm → Reserve buffer zones in your calendar to decompress and regain clarity. 6) Say, “Let me get back to you.” → It buys you time and sets a standard for thoughtful decisions. 7) Write it down, get it out → Your brain’s not a storage unit. Externalize the overload. 8) Lean on your team → Calm leaders don’t carry everything; they collaborate intentionally. 9) Ruthlessly cut non-essentials → Just because it’s urgent doesn’t mean it’s important. 10) Build a reset ritual → A simple habit like a walk or deep stretch can shift your whole state. 11) Break problems into chunks → Overwhelm shrinks when big tasks become small steps. 12) Celebrate clarity, not speed → Fast decisions feel good. Wise decisions last longer. 13) Review your week, not just your day → Zooming out gives perspective on what truly moves the needle. 14) Challenge false urgency → Ask: “Whose timeline is this, and does it align with mine?” 15) Set micro-goals → Tiny wins build momentum and reduce the pressure to do it all at once. The most powerful leaders aren’t the ones who move the fastest. They’re the ones who stay calm, clear, and consistent when others panic. Don’t just chase deadlines. Lead with depth. Because urgency fades, but presence lasts.

"I can’t afford to show my team how I really feel." I hear this a lot from leaders - especially those who care deeply about their people. They believe that showing stress, uncertainty, or doubt would only make things worse. So they keep it in. They stay “strong.” They put on the armor. But here’s the paradox: 🦾 When you armor up to protect your team, you often end up doing the opposite. - You block trust. - You create distance. - You make it harder for others to speak up or be real themselves. 🧠 There’s a psychological concept for this: Affective Presence. It’s the emotional atmosphere we bring into the room - the way people feel around us, regardless of what we say. Even if you don’t talk about your anxiety, your team still senses it. Humans are wired that way. And when leaders hide what’s real, it creates tension and confusion, not safety. 💡 What to do about it - NAME IT: “This is tough, and I feel pressure too, but we’ll get through it together” When leaders name what they’re feeling in a calm and grounded way: tension releases. Connection builds. People relax and they engage. 🧠 This is Co-Regulation - a key ingredient of psychological safety. When the leader brings openness and calm, the team feels more secure. And safety is the foundation of high performance and inclusive leadership. So next time you feel like hiding your stress to protect your team, consider this: 👉 Your honesty might be the very thing that unlocks their performance. P.S. Have you ever experienced a leader whose calm honesty made you feel safer? I’d love to hear what kind of affective presence has shaped your experience at work. --------------------------------- 👋 New here? Welcome! I'm Susanna. I help organizations with high-performing, inclusive leadership and culture by fostering psychological safety.

“Not ready for senior leadership.” I’ve seen that land on women who keep entire teams afloat. Not for performance. For micro-reactions. We all get triggered; it's part of being human. It doesn’t always look like anger. Sometimes it’s: ⚪️ Speaking faster ⚪️ Over-explaining ⚪️ A clipped “It’s fine” ⚪️ The raised eyebrow you didn’t catch ⚪️ A tight jaw in the weekly update Tiny tells. Big consequences. 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐦 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥. 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐭𝐚𝐱.  Everyone pays it - women pay more. That’s the 𝐝𝐨𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐝. Same behavior. Different headline. He’s “passionate.” She’s “emotional.” He’s “decisive.” She’s “reactive.” He’s “a strong personality.” She’s “not ready.” A director client was called “a live wire” in her 360. An acting CFO I coached braced at ExCom questions. Before we started, the CEO’s label: “She’s difficult.” It’s unfair. It’s also fixable. Years ago my mentor asked the question I now use with clients: “𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮?” Because emotion is data. Reactivity is leakage. Leadership presence is about communicating calmly under pressure, with anyone. 5 steps to emotionally self-regulate (in the room and on calls): 🍀 3-𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐭. Exhale once. Drop shoulders. Then speak. 🍀 𝐒𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 10 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐬. Pace sets perception. 🍀 𝐂𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐫𝐬. Trade explanations for clear asks. 🍀 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐫 𝐛𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫. 5 minutes to decompress before responding. 🍀 𝐀𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫. One peer who flags the micro-signals you miss. Within 8 weeks, that CFO’s feedback shifted from “difficult” to “calm under pressure.” Same standards. New signals. Better decisions. Your competence isn’t the problem. 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐦 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥. 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐭. What do you do to keep your calm when triggered? 💭 —----- 📩 𝐉𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐞𝐩𝐭 12 for the Executive Presence & Visibility Masterclass — link in comments. ♻️ Repost if you’ve learned this the hard way - help someone who’s being taxed for reactivity.

For my newest episode of From Start-Up to Grown-Up, I sat down with the insightful David Ko, CEO of Calm, former CEO of Ripple Health, and author of “Recharge: Boosting Your Mental Battery One Conversation at a Time.” David was an executive at Zynga, the gaming company, and he moved into healthcare after realizing that gamification could be used to help people. David talks about his personal challenges with mental health and gives a lot of practical advice about leadership and especially what leaders can do to help employees stay mentally healthy. Here are three takeaways from our conversation: ➡️ Mental health at work isn't just an HR issue; it's a leadership imperative. Leaders need to openly discuss and destigmatize these conversations. ➡️ Leaders should consistently explain the "why" behind tasks rather than simply adding to their team's workload. Understanding context reduces stress and increases motivation. ➡️ Calm uses simple and powerful rituals, like a quick meditation before meetings, to help everyone get centered. One memorable insight from David: “We’re used to stacking tasks until employees effectively break. But if we proactively manage workloads, we build a healthier, happier, and more resilient workforce.” In this clip, David emphasizes how a proactive approach to workload management prevents burnout, helping leaders foster stronger, more sustainable teams. 👉 Listen to the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/eUZinMqi How do you try to protect yourself or your team from burnout? Please share in the comments so we can all learn together!

In turbulent times, the most powerful thing a leader can offer isn’t control—it’s calm. When the world feels uncertain, teams look to their leaders not just for direction, but for reassurance. In the churn of priorities, org shifts, and “one more change,” what people crave most is connection. This is when authentic leadership can play a major role. Empathy, kindness, and compassion aren’t soft—they’re stabilizers. They help cut through the noise, reduce emotional whiplash, and make it safer for people to do their best work. Top 3 Things Leaders Can Do to Lead with Empathy, Kindness, and Compassion: 1. Listen to understand, not to fix. Create space for people to express stress, ideas, or concerns without rushing in with solutions. Just being heard can be healing. 2. Name the hard stuff. Don’t sugarcoat or spin. Acknowledge what’s difficult. When leaders name what’s real, it builds trust and reduces anxiety. 3. Model calm and clarity. Kindness doesn’t mean saying yes to everything; it means showing up consistently and communicating clearly, even when decisions are tough. So, when things feel chaotic, authentic leadership can be your superpower. #AuthenticLeadership #LeadingThroughChange #EmpathyAtWork #HumanCenteredLeadership #ChangeFatigue #DocSteveMartin