Enhance the Calm

Brandon Bond , and I worked together at Stanford Healthcare. He was the Director of Emergency Management across all healthcare organizations, and I handled procedural areas and their operations. Here's a story about how Brandon helped me discover one of my main talents during a moment of tension.

Emergency response training exercises are intense. This one was doubly so because of the high-level executives and community leaders involved. Hospitals from Stanford and all over the Bay Area took part, along with local, state, and federal agencies. The goal was to test how well everyone could work together in a mass trauma event.

?The team had been working for hours, and tensions were high. The situation was stressful, and everyone was exhausted. Then, amid all the chaos, Brandon (the "officer in command" of all our teams) stepped up and told me, "You have one job; 'enhance the calm.' So please take a deep breath, make a plan and take it to your team. That's what they need from you right now."

Brandon's direct order surprised me but also made me feel grateful for the clarity of the mission. I took a deep breath and relaxed a bit. It was a breakthrough moment for me. I finally understood my role in the team. As a leader and contributor to many teams throughout my career, not just then.

This simple gesture helped break the tension and allowed our teams to work more effectively under Brandon's leadership. In addition, the experience taught me something important about myself - that I could be a calming influence in difficult situations. From that moment on, I've made it one of my priorities as a servant leader to "enhance the calm."

What is your leadership superpower?