Letters on Leadership #55: Calm Breeds Calm*

*And Chaos Breeds Chaos.

It is a lesson our governmental leaders, health officials, school and business leaders, coaches, parents and us, the American people, would do well to remember.

We are all a sum of our experiences and serving as a United States Marine Corps officer is one of my life’s most significant experiences. The Marine Corps and more specifically, the Marines with whom I was privileged to serve; superiors, peers, and subordinates alike, all taught me so many life lessons. None more important than “calm breeds calm and chaos breeds chaos.”

As a Marine Corps officer, as you and your unit prepare for upcoming battles, a training staff (senior Marine Corps Officers and enlisted personnel) from a parent unit, continuously add adversity to all training missions. You are first given a mission to accomplish and information about the enemy. As soon as that training begins however, the training staff immediately changes the information and scenario. They change the enemy’s location, increase their size and capabilities, they knock out your communication capabilities, “kill” you or other leaders on your team. Nothing goes according to plan. Nothing. To still be successful, as a leader, you must stay focused on accomplishing the mission despite these changes in what you had expected, your “normal.” Constant change, a lack of information, a determined enemy, the unknown: all cause great frustration, fear and anger. These are natural human emotions and whenever we face adversity, we all experience them. As leaders, the key to our success is staying mission focused rather than emotionally driven when we do so.

Mission focused leaders, when we feel these natural human emotions, take one deep breath and think (“think” is the key word) “how do I respond to this natural human emotion in a way that will best help my team accomplish the mission?” Calm breeds calm. Emotionally driven individuals feel anger, frustration or fear and they scream and yell. They react. No deep breath. No thinking. Chaos breeds chaos.

As an example, I believe that when a full accounting of the Coronavirus and our reaction to it (a near complete shutdown of the economy) is done, our reaction to it will have caused much greater damage than the virus itself. Current data surrounding the inefficiency of online learning, unemployment levels not seen since The Great Depression, a spike in hunger, a deterioration of mental health, and a significant increase in physical and emotional abuse is proving this to be the case. Our governmental officials (Republican and Democrat alike), the health care professionals who advise them and our media; their complete lack of leadership has created chaos. That chaos has bred more chaos. We should not add to it.

We do not control the government (except by voting, which I hope we all do this November) or the media. We do, however, control ourselves. I believe we need to do a better job of doing so. In March, at the outbreak of the Coronavirus, a friend and fellow business owner told me that “there will be 10 million deaths,” and “any business that relies on in person needs a new strategy for the next 1-2 years, even when this is over." I have heard other individuals talk about the virus as, “Armageddon.” Parents’ discussions surrounding the pandemic have led their children to have nightmares about it. Our reaction to the Coronavirus is causing PTSD in our children, a segment of our society that is affected by it less than they are the flu. This is not to say that the Coronavirus isn’t bad, harmful or potentially dangerous. There just is not any reason to make a challenging situation worse. On any battlefield. Chaos breeds chaos. In our society, schools, athletic teams, businesses and yes, in our own homes.

Instead, when we feel natural human emotions that are created by a determined enemy, the unknown, change, or a fight with a coworker or teammate (or most importantly, our spouse), let’s take a deep breath and think, “how do I respond to this emotion that will help my team best accomplish its mission?”

Our country, our schools, our businesses, our athletic teams, our coworkers, teammates and most importantly, our families deserve it.

Take a deep breath. Calm breeds calm.

ATTACK!

Eric Kapitulik

The Program, Founder and CEO

"Letters on Leadership" are published periodically by The Program, a leadership development and team building company that works with the nation's leading corporations as well as professional and collegiate athletic teams.

For information on developing better leaders and more cohesive teams at your organization, visit https://www.theprogram.org/corporate.