Summary: Stress doesn’t create new problems at work; it latches onto what leaders have been dragging around quietly for decades and cranks the volume up to eleven. When uncertainty hits (hello hybrid chaos, layoffs, AI anxiety, economic whiplash), people don’t suddenly become wiser, calmer, or more collaborative. That’s the corporate fairy tale. What actually happens is far more predictable and far more human. Read on for a better way to tackle stress.
Dear Dr. Sylvia,
This year has been full of “oops” moments so far, and I go home from work wondering how I can ever get anything into the completed file.
This is a daily occurrence. I keep replaying from my old playbook, and I feel like I am spinning my wheels.
I know I have an avoider pattern, and while I try to change it to an initiator, I keep eating too much sugary food and doom-scrolling to avoid what I should be doing for success.
I would like some words of wisdom to help me shift into a better mindset before I burn out completely.
Signed,
Simply Tired
Stress Reveals Patterns, It Doesn’t Invent Them
Dear Simply Tired,
You are not alone in running to your phone and scrolling when there are more important tasks at hand. Also, many people eat or drink to, as I like to say, “Feed the hungry ghost inside.”
But the most common thing people do is revert to their oldest relational software.
Fight.
Flight.
Freeze.
Fix.
Patterns to Observe
The Persecutor/Bully gets louder.
Micromanagement suddenly masquerades as “alignment,” “quality control,” or my personal favorite, “just being thorough.”
The Avoider disappears.
Hard conversations are postponed, delayed, or buried under meetings about meetings, until they turn into grievances, lawsuits, or quiet quitting.
The Drama King or Queen hijacks the room.
Emotional intensity floods the space because chaos feels strangely familiar, and familiarity feels safe, even when it’s destructive.
The Splitter disrupts the status quo.
Pitting people against each other and then sitting back to watch the boxing match.
Trust evaporates. And leaders scratch their heads, wondering why engagement scores tanked “out of nowhere.”
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t out of nowhere.
It was always there, waiting for stress to flip the switch.
Why the Workplace Feels Like Family (Whether You Like It or Not)
At work, we don’t just bring skills and resumes.
We bring relational blueprints:
- Bosses unconsciously step into parental roles
- Colleagues feel like siblings competing for attention or approval
- Performance reviews feel suspiciously like childhood report cards
- Authority triggers old power struggles we swore we’d outgrown
Under calm conditions, these patterns stay mostly hidden.
Under stress, they take over the meeting.
That’s why stress amplifies dysfunction.
It pulls leadership behavior straight from the nervous system—not the org chart.
The Nervous System Is the Real Leadership Operating System
Here’s the uncomfortable truth most leadership models skip:
You cannot stabilize culture with a dysregulated nervous system.
When leaders are operating in chronic fight-or-flight, no amount of strategy decks, values statements, or team-building exercises will fix what’s happening underneath.
Stress lives in the body first.
Behavior is just the aftershock.
That’s why calm is contagious.
And so is cortisol.
If the leader is tense, reactive, or emotionally armored, the culture will mirror it—every time.
What Should Leaders Do Differently in 2026?
No more hustle.
Also, no more KPIs.
Especially not another engagement survey where everyone lies.
Here’s what actually works.
Regulate Before You Relate
This is non-negotiable.
Before a leader can influence others, they must stabilize themselves. Daily practices that calm the body—breathwork, movement, pauses between meetings, nervous-system resets—are no longer “nice to have.”
They are leadership essentials.
Why?
Because a regulated leader listens instead of reacting, responds instead of exploding, and creates safety instead of tension.
And safety, not pressure, is what unlocks performance.
Make Patterns Discussable, Not Personal
This single shift changes everything.
Stop asking:
“What’s wrong with you?”
Start asking:
“What pattern just showed up here?”
That question removes shame and invites curiosity.
It turns conflict into data instead of drama.
When teams can name patterns (controlling, avoiding, rescuing, and dramatizing), they stop attacking people and start addressing behavior.
I’ve seen that one sentence save more teams than any performance review ever written.
Lead From All Three Intelligences: Head, Heart, and Gut
Most organizations overvalue one and ignore the other two, but each one is vital:
- Head intelligence gives strategy, logic, and analysis
- Heart intelligence builds trust, connection, and morale
- Gut intelligence detects danger, timing, and truth before the dashboard does
When leaders ignore heart and gut, decisions look smart—and fail spectacularly.
When leaders integrate all three, something powerful happens.
They stop leading from fear and start leading from alignment.
Why Present Leadership Is About Completion, Not Correction
This is the part no one teaches in business school.
Leadership maturity isn’t about fixing people.
It’s about completing old emotional loops so they no longer hijack the present.
Unfinished patterns from earlier life—around authority, safety, recognition, conflict—don’t disappear when someone gets promoted.
They get promoted, too.
Until leaders complete those loops, stress will continue to run the company behind their backs.
But when leaders do the inner work, reactivity decreases, trust stabilizes, and culture becomes resilient instead of fragile.
And suddenly, leadership feels lighter—not because the work is easier, but because the baggage is gone.
The Bottom Line
Stress isn’t your enemy.
It’s your spotlight.
It reveals where old patterns still hold sway—and where leadership is ready to evolve.
The most effective leaders won’t be the loudest, fastest, or busiest.
They’ll be the most regulated, aware, and integrated.
Because when leaders stabilize their inner system, culture stops being fragile… and becomes unshakeable.
And that’s the kind of leadership that doesn’t just survive uncertainty. It transforms it.
To your success,
Sylvia Lafair
P.S. Watch for our upcoming 7-Day Stressed to Regulated Leadership Challenge. It takes just a few minutes each day to participate for an instant stress reset. PLUS, we are giving away fun prizes for everyone who completes the challenge!
