In the Chaos, Look for the Calmest Person in the Room. That’s Your Leader.

In moments of crisis, the loudest voice rarely holds the most wisdom. True leadership isn't defined by frantic energy or commanding volume. It's defined by presence. In chaos, look for the calmest person in the room. That's your leader.

Lead Yourself First

To lead a team, a business, or an organisation, the first thing you have to do is lead yourself. This is where most people fall down.

By leading yourself, I mean showing up calm, focused, energized, and healthy. Strategy, delegation, decision-making, are all important skills, but they're downstream from your internal state. When you're dysregulated, every task becomes harder. When you're grounded, everything flows more effectively.

The hard truth? You cannot lead others well if you haven't learned to lead yourself first.

We Are Energy, and Energy Is Contagious

As humans, we don't just communicate through words. We transmit our internal states to everyone around us. When a leader has mastered their own emotional regulation, they become a psychological anchor for their team. Their composure creates space for clear thinking, creative problem-solving, and empathetic listening when it matters most.

We cast shadows wherever we go. The question is: what kind of shadow are you casting?

When you walk into a room dysregulated, anxious, reactive, scattered, your team feels it. When you show up grounded and calm, they feel that too. Co-regulation isn't optional. It's happening whether we're aware of it or not.

The Calm Second Chicken: A Lesson from Parenting

This principle isn't just true in leadership. It's fundamental to parenting.

Years ago, I took an online course with David Coleman, and he introduced me to the concept of being the "calm second chicken." He was talking about our role in helping our children regulate their emotions, but the parallel to leadership is striking.

There are fascinating experiments with chickens and perceived danger. When chickens sense a threat, they can experience "tonic immobilization", they literally freeze, stuck in place for up to a minute.

Here's where it gets interesting: If a second chicken appears during that frozen minute, and that chicken seems calm and unafraid, the first chicken unfreezes in seconds. The calm chicken's presence acts as reassurance. But if the second chicken also appears frightened, both birds can remain immobilized for up to five minutes. Fear compounds fear.

While humans aren't chickens, children read their parents' reactions the same way. If they perceive we're terrified, upset, or panicked, it amplifies their own feelings. Our dysregulation compounds theirs.

This doesn't mean we deny our emotions or pretend everything is fine when it isn't. But it does mean that our ability to contain and regulate our own feelings, to project calm assurance even in uncertainty, gives our children (and our teams) what they need most: the confidence that they're not alone with their feelings.

The Leadership Imperative: Regulate Yourself First

Whether you're leading a team through organisational change or helping a child navigate disappointment, the principle remains the same: you cannot give what you don't have.

If you want your team to stay focused under pressure, you must cultivate that focus in yourself first. If you want your children to learn emotional resilience, you must model it. Your internal state is the foundation upon which others build their own regulation.

The calmest person in the room isn't calm because they don't feel the pressure. They're calm because they've done the work to regulate themselves despite it.

The Honest Truth: We've All Been There

As a leader or a parent, I think we can all identify with scenarios where we've reacted in a way we're not proud of. And if we're honest, we know it happened because we weren't grounded.

So ask yourself: How are you sleeping? How is your diet? Are you moving and exercising? Are you making time for rest and recovery? How are you taking care of yourself?

A lot of people will say, "I don't have time for that."

That's like Rory McIlroy saying, "I don't have time for all that. I'm too busy trying to win The Masters."

The very things you think you don't have time for are the things that make everything else possible. Sleep, movement, nourishment, connection, stillness, these aren't indulgences. They're not rewards you earn after you've handled everything else. They're the foundation that allows you to handle everything else.

What This Looks Like in Practice

• Pause before reacting. Even three or four deep conscious breaths can shift your nervous system from reactive to responsive.

• Name what you're feeling (to yourself first). "I'm feeling anxious about this deadline" creates distance from the emotion.

• Ask yourself: What does this moment need from me? Often, it's not solutions. It's presence.

• Tend to your own regulation daily. Sleep, movement, connection, boundaries, these aren't luxuries. They're the infrastructure of leadership.

• Track your patterns. Notice when you're most dysregulated. What preceded it? What would support you differently?

The Ripple Effect

The most underestimated leadership skill isn't strategy or charisma. It's self-regulation. Because when you show up calm, grounded, and present, you give everyone around you permission to do the same.

You become the calm second chicken.

And in doing so, you create the conditions for others to unfreeze, to think clearly, to move forward, even in chaos.

What kind of energy are you bringing into the room today?