Even though it’s only Tuesday morning, I’ve already met with two leaders this week who reported feeling ‘out of control’ — that is, feeling like the plans they’d made were slightly off-track, colleagues were creating unnecessary dustups that take time to address, and the overall direction of the organization was changing without strategic thought.

For most of us, control feels important — it gives us a sense of certainty and predictability. Lack of control feels like a threat to our well-being. Control allows us to know more easily what to do next. Control often equals clarity. And clarity can lead to smarter action and greater momentum.

But with AI encroaching on the work, matrixed organizations, and the pull to drive results faster, control can feel elusive, out of reach. And so the question becomes: how do I find control in times of rapid change and … chaos?

One key can be stepping back into yourself — a process of reminding yourself who you are, where your purpose lies, what you bring, and what you’re capable of. None of this will change the circumstance, but it can absolutely change your response to it.

To be clear: these are tools for navigating chaos you don’t control, not a substitute for fixing chaos you do. If the dysfunction is structural — an unclear strategy, a broken decision process — no amount of personal calm replaces the work of addressing that directly. But most of us don’t get to choose when we’re handed a moment like this, and these six moves will help you meet it well.

Here are six moves for regaining that sense of control and greater calm when things are changing fast and feel overwhelming.

1. Breathe. You know this one. Plenty of research shows that slow, controlled breathing shifts you out of a threat response and into a state where you can actually think — measurably reducing anxiety, anger, and confusion. One early study on breathing and business decision-making found that management students who spent two minutes on slow, exhale-emphasized breathing before a demanding 30-minute decision task scored roughly 50% higher than a control group, with no added stress, while the control group’s stress climbed (De Couck et al., 2019) — a promising finding, though it’s a single study worth treating as suggestive rather than settled. Several other breathing patterns show similar calming effects, including box breathing, though the evidence on box breathing specifically is still early and mixed. Here’s a 30-second version that no one in the boardroom will even notice you doing: https://www.healthline.com/health/box-breathing

2. Choose curiosity and listening. By asking a few powerful, open-ended questions, you’ll do three things: you’ll learn something that helps you identify the bigger picture or root cause of an issue; you’ll express interest and calm, which is comforting to people; and you’ll give yourself space to move from a reactive state (often driven by fear) to a responsive one (leveraging broader, more intentional thinking).

3. Pan out and elevate. Ask yourself what patterns you’re seeing and what the big picture looks like. This helps you climb out of the ‘muck of the moment.’ Consider what the road looks like up ahead. We have a tendency to deal with what’s right in front of us, to relieve the immediate discomfort — and that isn’t always the optimal move.

4. Choose the leadership the moment needs. Consider what role you’re best suited to play right now: does the moment call for a Director (calling the shots, being decisive), a Coach (helping people decipher what’s really going on), or a Listener (trusting that people have the capacity to solve their own challenges)? None of these is a default — choosing Listener when the moment actually calls for a Director is its own kind of misstep. Being deliberate about which role fits keeps ownership of the issue where it belongs, and allows you to contribute in positive ways without taking on responsibility that isn’t yours.

5. Go to your own experience and strengths. Despite the funk this situation brings, you’ve almost certainly faced very challenging moments before, and you have unique strengths to bring to this one. Start by reminding yourself of what matters most to you and what you’re genuinely good at — a reconnection with your core values and capabilities, not just a replay of past wins. There’s real research behind this: briefly reflecting on your core values under pressure has been shown, across a reasonably well-supported line of research, to lower stress hormones and improve problem-solving in high-pressure moments (Creswell et al., 2005; Creswell et al., 2013) — though like most psychology findings, the effect varies some by context, so treat it as a genuinely useful tool rather than a guarantee. Tapping into your track record helps too, especially when the situation in front of you resembles ones you’ve navigated before — that’s consistent with research on how experienced decision-makers, from firefighters to ICU nurses, make good calls under pressure by drawing on pattern recognition built from experience (Klein). The caveat: that kind of gut-level pattern-matching works best in familiar territory; in truly new terrain, it’s worth pairing your instinct with a gut check from someone else. When we feel stuck, we get tunnel vision and our options feel narrower. When we instead remind ourselves what we’re capable of, more ideas flow and we feel more confident in the decision we make.

6. Identify next steps and an owner. Even if you’re not certain of the long-term solution, it helps to have action in place. Even baby steps create learning and positive momentum. Assign an owner for those actions to avoid the ‘pointing fingers’ phenomenon that shows up in stressful times. It doesn’t have to be the permanent owner of the plan — just someone responsible for the next step(s) and for reporting back on a clear timeline.

You’ll notice a pattern here: each of these moves points you toward a stronger sense of calm, certainty, and possibility. During heavy times, you can be the person who carries a sense that things will be okay — not because you’re pretending the hard part away, but because you’ve got a systematic approach to tough times and you know you’re capable of handling the muck of the moment.

Need help sorting through the chaos? Reach out: ascantland@upsideleadership.co or (U.S.) 720.231.3472.

Sources

De Couck, M., Caers, R., Musch, L., Fliegauf, J., Giangreco, A., & Gidron, Y. (2019). How breathing can help you make better decisions: Two studies on the effects of breathing patterns on heart rate variability and decision-making in business cases. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 139, 1–9.

Creswell, J.D., Welch, W.T., Taylor, S.E., Sherman, D.K., Gruenewald, T.L., & Mann, T. (2005). Affirmation of personal values buffers neuroendocrine and psychological stress responses. Psychological Science, 16(11), 846–851.

Creswell, J.D., Dutcher, J.M., Klein, W.M.P., Harris, P.R., & Levine, J.M. (2013). Self-affirmation improves problem-solving under stress. PLOS ONE, 8(5), e62593.

Klein, G. (1998). Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions. MIT Press.