Have you ever watched a carefully made plan unravel in real time and wondered how you’d handle it?
I just got back from ten days in India: board meetings, a quick side trip to the Taj Mahal with my wife Sue, and then a white-knuckle flight home through a conflict zone. Several of my fellow board members weren’t so lucky. Their itineraries took them through Dubai, and when the situation there deteriorated, they found themselves stranded, scrambling for alternative routes home through Oman and back through Asia.
It got me thinking about how often this happens in leadership. You build a careful plan; you execute; and then something outside your control changes everything. The question is never whether that will happen. It will. The question is how you will respond when it does.
The leaders I respect most are not the ones with the best plans. They are the ones who adapt the best when those plans fall apart.
So, here is the real question: Who shows up when things get hard?
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There’s an idea that’s often attributed to Greek philosopher Epictetus: Crisis reveals character, not comfort. Stress has a way of stripping everything else away and showing people exactly who you are.
Think of stress as a mirror. It does not create your character. It reflects it. Whatever is already inside you—the patience or the panic, the steadiness or the sharp edges—stress just brings it to the surface for everyone around you to see.
I was watching an NCAA men’s basketball game recently and saw a head coach, in the heat of the moment, physically grab an assistant coach who had stood up to shout some guidance during the game and shove him back into his seat. Right there on the sideline, in front of his players and a national television audience.
Whatever he wanted to communicate seemingly could have waited for a timeout or a quiet word after the game. Instead, stress made that decision for him.
While most of us will never have our worst moments broadcast on national television, we all have them. A sharp word in a meeting, a decision we made in frustration, a time when we let the pressure get the better of us. I know I have.
The leaders who earn lasting trust are the ones who, even when the plan falls apart, make the people around them feel steady. That is a skill worth building long before the next disruption arrives. And it will arrive.
So, when things go sideways, pause for just a moment and ask yourself: Is this the version of me I want my team to see? What would my mirror show me, and would I like it?
