I recently thought about two managers I had at some point in my career. They both led the same team and dealt with the same daily executive chaos, but the mood for the entire team was vastly different.
Manager One was a couple of years into the job, but every time our leadership changed their mind on priorities (which was often), she’d come straight from the executive meeting, sigh heavily and then dump the news on us like we were in a crisis. She did often mention that her leadership secret is being transparent, but in reality she was just exposing the entire team to the unprocessed anxiety. After that we would often feel slow, defensive, and focused on rumors instead of work.
Manager Two faced the same challenges from leadership. But when he walked into our stand-up, he looked calm. He would give us heads up that priorities have changed, but at the same time made sure we knew what the new focus was. He shielded off the team’s work from leadership chaos. And to be fair he didn’t deny the pressure existed, but focused not to carry the executive's pressure into our room.
When Manager One was in charge, we got used to everything feeling like an emergency, so you couldn't tell when things were actually serious. Manager Two reserved his urgency, so when he deliberately raised the level, we knew the stakes were real and we instantly responded.
Why you can't just vent down
Your job as a manager is to deliver emotional stability. You are the emotional thermostat for your team and you must control when to dial the pressure down and when to dial it up.
The common mistake (what Manager One was doing) is confusing transparency with emotional dumping.
When you are stressed by pressure from above, your instinct is to share that stress. But if you walk into a meeting anxious, your team will notice and the energy will immediately shift. They will stop focusing on the task and start focusing on you. They’ll use their mental energy to watch your mood and figure out if they are safe. And distraction like that slows down performance.
When you show constant frustration, you teach your team that chaos is normal. That kind of environment is not suitable for most people and undermines psychological safety.
Crucially, if your baseline state is stress, you lose your power to create true urgency.
And this has nothing to do about being fake. Leadership requires professional maturity. You must regulate your emotional state before expressing it.
Separating venting from processing
The shift you need happens when you separate Venting from Processing.
Venting is the raw, toxic release of frustration, done for immediate emotional relief. When you vent downward, you force your team to absorb that energy. You turn your employees into your therapist, and they don't get paid enough for that.
Processing is the intentional work of turning an emotional response into an objective problem. It means asking yourself: What can I control? What is the core, actionable fact?
Your raw reaction belongs in a private space like with a peer or a journal. Your filtered, framed message belongs to the team.
Process the heat upstairs so you can deliver a cool, firm command downstairs.
How to implement this for yourself
The good news is you can build your skills of being a good emotional filter. All it takes is a simple framework and consistent practice. The key is replacing the instinct to vent with a specific sequence of actions. Here is the simple framework to start with.
Step #1: Pause for a moment
When your stress spikes, like after reading a tense email, difficult meeting or any disruptive request, DO NOT immediately transition from the trigger (the bad news) to the exposure (your team). Take a strategic break for a moment (make yourself a coffee or tea, or take a bathroom break, or get some fresh air). This quick physical hack will interrupt your body’s stress response, lower your heart rate and will make you feel and sound less volatile.
Step #2: Filter the message
Before you deliver this message you have to separate your feelings from the facts.
Answer yourself two questions:
Drop: What is the raw, toxic feeling I want to offload right now?
Deliver: What is the essential, objective information the team needs to act on?
The Deliver statement is for your team. The toxic feeling stays with you.
And I suggest writing your answers down at the beginning until this process becomes a conditioned mental habit.
Step #3: Set the tone
Your final move is to verbally and visibly signal control. Stay calm, think about your posture, then deliver a calming opening statement.
This statement needs to immediately acknowledge the change, affirm what remains stable on the team's side, and clearly define the next immediate step.
For example, you might say, "I know the priorities shifted, but here is what is staying exactly the same on our side. Our focus now is only on solving X."
The goal is to communicate: I see the chaos, I have contained it, and here is our next step.
The bottom line
Being able to control your emotions is a core management skill. And it's not pretending to be something you're not, but you’re choosing to process your stress privately to protect your team's focus.
That simple choice is the core of behavior change, and it’s the difference between a stressed-out team and a high-performing one.
And that’s all for today.
See you next Tuesday.