03/04/2025

How to Lead Yourself during Disruption

During disruption, leaders must focus on growth, resilience and discernment

At the core of great leadership is self-leadership. As William Penn said, “No man can command another who cannot command himself.”  Commanding ourselves during disruption and uncertainty has become the biggest challenge for leading ourselves and others. It’s easy to give in to the voice in your head that threatens your stability. The path of least resistance is to become impulsive during conflict. The easy road is to blame politics, world events and circumstances as an excuse to limit your efforts.

As I make my way out of post-op (12 weeks past knee replacement surgery), I’m sharing universal principles of self-leadership during times of disruption.  

Manage your impulses

Good decision-making is possible when you’re working from the pre-frontal cortex, not the primal brain. When you’re emotionally compromised and have no more bandwidth, you’ll react compulsively. The same is true if you’re on pain medication. For example, during recovery, I’d see things on TikTok or Amazon and think, "I need to buy that." I bought new coffee mugs and a rebounder. At the moment of the purchase, I felt a little rush of dopamine. When these products arrived (especially the huge rebounder), I thought, what am I doing?

Please select this link to read the complete article from SmartBrief.