Navy SEAL Commander Rorke T. Denver: “The best advice I ever got in Navy SEAL training is simple: calm is contagious.”
While introducing his story, Rorke revealed, “We can supplant any word for ‘calm’ and it still applies to every leadership situation: chaos is contagious, panic is contagious, stupid is contagious.”
His final training exercise as a Navy SEAL involved planning, organizing, and executing a mission as a team. Toward the end, they were running out of time and floundering. And the student who taken on the role of ranking officer in this exercise was screaming his head off “like the Tasmanian devil.”
In the middle of the chaos, the trainer halted the exercise to share some sage leadership advice with the trainees:
“As leaders, as captains, as officers, if you keep your head, they’ll keep their head. If you keep it together, they’ll keep it together. And if you lose it, they’ll lose it.”
Essentially, others mirror our behavior simply by virtue of our title or position (ex: supervisor, manager, team lead, mentor, parent).
In psychology it’s called “social cognitive theory.” In other words, people observe the actions and behaviors of those they respect in order to shape and mold their own actions and behaviors.
SEALs know the importance of calm to bring out the best in themselves and others. And because of the power of mirroring, they intentionally create calm.
How?
- Focus on the mission at hand
- Identify stress/panic triggers
- Recognize when emotions escalate
- Stay cognizant of the ripple effect of emotions on others
- Pause and breathe (research shows that it takes 4 seconds to get into a calm zone)
- Laugh… it reinforces the belief that it’ll all be OK
Whether we’re at a crossroads or in a crisis, our reactions are powerful and contagious. React purposefully.