The Art of Leading through Chaos and Disruption

I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a country rich in resources and talent but shackled by many decades of socioeconomic decline. This decline has been fueled by the destructive forces of fascism, military dictatorships, and socialism.

In a 2014 report, The Economist aptly described Argentina’s plight as a “consistent race to the abyss,” highlighting a history of governments that can best be characterized as sectarian kleptocracies, thriving on waste and deepening social divisions.

Between the military coup of 1962 and the return of democracy in 1983, my family endured the relentless economic instability and societal chaos inflicted by pillaging autocrats and inept, plundering democracies. A common phrase in Argentina, “We live at the bottom of the ocean,” encapsulates the pervasive despair of a population trapped in cycles of mismanagement and division.

Under the military dictatorships from 1975 to 1983, the country was polarized into those who saw the glass half-full (supporters of the regime) and those who saw it half-empty (its opponents). Young people, intellectuals, and university students were cast as enemies of the state, targeted in a campaign to erase dissent.

• Amid this turbulence, I resolved not to let these constraints define my identity or future. I continued as a student, navigating curfews, searches, and document inspections, but I never stopped seeking a way out.
• Deep down, I knew I could aspire for more—a life that was full, independent, and meaningful. In the midst of chaos and confusion, I envisioned myself as a citizen of the world, meeting people of diverse backgrounds and making a positive impact wherever I went.

This vision became my guiding light, even without a specific plan. I longed for a breakthrough—a complete departure from the violence, economic decay, intellectual erosion, and stagnation of my homeland. I yearned for a life filled with possibility, growth, and the freedom to chart my own course.

Through my journey as a professional tennis coach, a mental toughness training expert, and ultimately a Leadership Performance Strategist for business leaders, I have focused on understanding how individuals and organizations navigate turmoil, harness their "deep survival" skills to thrive under pressure, and improve their chances of success.

I share with you my observations and lessons learned over four decades of leadership consulting - a blend of science applied to human performance and a history of positive results - centered on three key factors:

1. The Breakthrough Mindset (seeing the glass as full and a half to innovate)
2. Adaptability (understanding how to move from fog to focus)
3. Resilience (the trained skill to bounce back from setbacks)

From these three pillars, a framework a flexible, creative, versatile, situational and resilient type of leader emerges. Such leader embraces lifelong training as professional athletes do, using a systematic approach, and will be willing to test their character under increasing levels of pressure. Training increases capacity to avoid problems and design solutions. Better thinking, better leadership.

A Framework for Navigating Chaos and Disruption

This framework integrates psychological insights, the science of habit formation, and practical strategies for effective change, offering a pathway to resilience and success amid socio-economic challenges. It summarizes my worldview and my experiences with international leaders in a vast number of industries:

1. Lead Change Towards a Compelling Vision

• Humans are Future Designers: Our brains require a compelling vision of the future to adapt and thrive, as noted by Viktor Frankl in Man's Search for Meaning. A clear and motivating "moving towards" goal provides a stronger drive than a "moving away" situation.
• Explain The Why Over the How and What: Understanding the deeper reasons for change creates more robust and self-sustaining motivation than focusing solely on methods or details.
• Living the Vision Today: Visualizing and acting as though the desired future is already happening helps physiologically and mentally adapt to change.
• Awareness of Costs: Effective change demands clarity about the emotional and practical costs involved and readiness to navigate them.

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2. Understand Thinking Patterns and Competing Commitments

• Increase Cognitive Awareness: We interpret the world through our thinking patterns. Understanding personal biases and preferences is essential for building bridges of communication and understanding with others.
• Identify Competing Commitments: Resistance to change often stems from fears of loss or a perception that benefits do not outweigh costs. Acknowledging and addressing these beliefs is crucial for progress.
• Coaching for Change: The best coach acts as a guide and motivator, helping individuals recognize their potential and become their own agents of transformation.

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3. Facilitate the Gradual Adaptation to Change

• Gradual Progress: Change often involves small, manageable steps, similar to rehearsal, play, and exploration, which lay the foundation for sustainable growth.
• Respect the Stages of Mourning: The process of letting go of the past mirrors the psychological stages of mourning, requiring time and adaptation.
• Exceeding Perceived Limits: As change occurs, perceived limitations give way to new capabilities, often exceeding expectations by a significant margin.
• Train the Power of Habits: Recognizing and altering the habit loop (cues, triggers, and routines) is key to reshaping behavior and solidifying positive changes.

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4. Identify and Provoke Opportunities for Breakthrough

• Beyond Incremental Change: Breakthroughs represent rapid, transformative shifts that disrupt gradual progress, offering new perspectives and possibilities.
• Benefit from Understanding Disruption: Breaking habitual patterns can lead to deeper insights and uncover underlying motivations or compensations.
• Gain New Efficiency: Breakthroughs often reveal faster and more effective approaches to achieving goals.

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5. Embody Your New Identity and Future Breakthrough Design

• A Higher Perspective: Successful change results in a new identity, a broader understanding of past limitations, and an eagerness to design future advancements.
• Designing Future Breakthroughs: With intentional effort, new thinking, feelings, and behaviors can be trained and sustained, similar to an athlete’s disciplined regimen.

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6. Replication and Acceleration

• Scaling Success: Replicating effective patterns learned through prior changes accelerates subsequent progress and solidifies positive habits.
• Belief in Continuous Growth: Studies highlight that adults often underestimate their capacity for change over long periods. Recognizing and embracing this potential is key to lifelong evolution.
• Living Proof: Examples of continued growth and adaptation, even into advanced age, demonstrate the power of maintaining a future-focused mindset.

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The Critical Importance of Building Resilience

The metaphors of winning in sports apply to winning in business. What's behind the metaphors is our ability to respond to life's challenges, understanding what we can control, what we need to avoid, and what we must oppose to defend what cannot be undone.

The term that defines peak performers in sports and business in their handling and resolution of challenges is Resilience.

Resilience is the ability of systems—whether economic, environmental, or social—to adapt and recover in the face of external changes and disruptions.

• Resilience enables a system to bounce back from a crisis.
• Resilience is a complex quality found in systems as diverse as finance and ecology.
• Systems can remain robust when expected stresses hit. However, they are vulnerable to new attacks.

As systems grow increasingly interconnected, resilience emerges as a critical concept to ensure continuity amidst uncertainty. Resilient systems balance efficiency and adaptability by maintaining diversity, fostering cooperation, and utilizing feedback mechanisms to anticipate and respond to shifts.

• Resilience exists in positive systems – like the body’s immune system – and in negative ones – like terror networks. You can learn from both.
• Diversity increases resilience and is often found in “clusters,” like cities.
• Resilient systems work in networks and can cooperate or not as needed.

This balance requires strategic looseness: being connected but not overly so, valuing diversity without overcomplicating, and knowing when to integrate or detach from other systems. Leadership plays a vital role in fostering resilience by bridging hierarchies and engaging stakeholders to adapt dynamically.

• Supportive communities produce resilient individuals.
• You can make yourself more resilient through practices such as peak performance training and meditation.
• “Translational leaders” work with existing hierarchies to increase communication and aligned function among all levels of a system.

Whether addressing global ecosystems, organizations, or individuals, resilience thrives on purpose, flexibility, and the capacity to transform challenges into opportunities for growth.

• Resilient systems continually reinvent themselves in a flexible “adhocracy,” a social structure that allows constant change within a set of “fixed values and purposes.”

Source: Adapted from “Resilience - Why Things Bounce Back” by Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy - Free Press,?2012?

Resilience and Adaptability as Anchors in Chaos

Since I immigrated to the United States and through my many years of consulting work in Europe, I have been fascinated by the lessons passed on by individuals defending Democracy against fascism, autocracies and totalitarian regimes.

My interest has two perspectives: one, looking backwards, to understand how Argentina could endure such degree of destruction, return to its democratic roots and reorganize as a more equitable, productive society. Two, looking forward, to confirm that liberal democracies must defend their constitutional structures, at the risk of being taken over by interest groups with autocratic designs.

Functioning democracies might soon face complex disruptions at a systemic level, impacting their capacity to conduct business internationally, innovate and grow. Surviving those disruptions will require from leaders a sharper strategic mindset - and it will demand courage to uphold Human Rights and the rule of law as corporate citizens.

Business leaders navigating today’s complex disruptions can learn from the survival strategies of individuals under oppressive regimes, which highlight the critical roles of resilience and adaptability.

• Building resilience through robust networks fosters collaboration and mutual support, enabling organizations to share resources and adapt collectively during crises.
• Flexibility is equally vital; leaders must prepare for various scenarios and embrace agility to pivot as circumstances change. These skills are the foundation for enduring challenges and seizing opportunities amidst chaos.

Ethical Grounding and Empowering Agency

Ethical principles and a focus on sustainable practices are central to maintaining organizational strength in turbulent times.

• Survivors of oppresive regimes often draw power from aligning actions with deeply held values, underscoring the importance of corporate responsibility and long-term vision in business.
• Simultaneously, empowering employees at all levels to take meaningful actions as corporate citizens fosters a sense of control and contribution, enhancing morale and engagement even in the most unpredictable situations.

Leadership in the Era of Disruption

Leadership during upheaval demands clear communication, emotional fortitude, and a commitment to learning from history.

• Transparent messaging helps counter misinformation and aligns teams around shared goals. Data, facts, scientific research and evidence matter when teams must make crucial decisions.
• Mental wellness programs and cultural resilience initiatives strengthen emotional capacity, enabling organizations to endure prolonged stress.
• Documenting crisis responses and learning from historical trauma helps leaders build organizational memory and capacity for adaptive decision-making, creating a resilient blueprint for navigating future disruptions.

Great Leaders are Better Thinkers aiming to be even Better Thinkers

Navigating the chaos and disruption we face today in business and society can feel overwhelming, but resilience is the core skill that helps individuals and organizations not just survive but thrive.

As a leader, it’s about staying adaptable, keeping your team grounded in a big, inspiring vision, and building a culture that values flexibility, collaboration, and doing what’s right.

Learning from those who’ve survived tough situations—even oppressive regimes—can teach us how to become mentally tough solution designers. Thriving in uncertainty means leaning into your support network, being upfront and transparent in your communication, and empowering your team to step up and make a difference, even in small ways, with a focus on “how we can be to be better together.”

Resilience isn’t about quick fixes. It’s about gradually shifting how you think, breaking free from limiting beliefs, and taking intentional steps forward. The real magic happens when you disrupt old patterns—those Breakthrough moments that spark fresh ideas and new ways of doing things. Resilient leaders are curious, always learning, and laser-focused on growth, even when the going gets tough. I assist my clients in becoming creative, solutions designers who can navigate from fog to focus and succeed.

At the heart of it, resilience—whether in your business or personal life—is about staying dynamic, staying true to your purpose, and constantly reinventing yourself. When you mix diverse perspectives, smart connections, and flexible leadership, you turn challenges into opportunities. And that’s how you come out stronger, smarter, and more innovative, no matter what the world throws at you.

We lead by example, embodying the democratic values that help free societies thrive. We must always know who we are, why we do what we do, for whom and why it matters.

Your Next Steps:

• Learn more about Leadership Performance Strategies for you and your teams
• Invite Carlos Salum to give a Keynote Presentation or Facilitate a Workshop
• Read "The Glass is Full and a Half" book
• Register for the launch of "From Fog to Focus" book by Carlos Salum