#526 How To Stay Calm Under Pressure: Why High Performance Without Nervous System Regulation Is a Leadership Risk
How To Stay Calm Under Pressure: Why High Performance Without Nervous System Regulation Is a Leadership Risk
Article by Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Pressure has become one of the defining realities of modern leadership.
Executives are expected to make faster decisions, manage increasing uncertainty, navigate geopolitical instability, lead distributed teams and sustain performance in permanently accelerated environments. For many leaders, pressure is no longer an exception. It has become the operating model.
Yet one uncomfortable question remains largely unanswered in business leadership:
What happens when sustained pressure becomes biologically unsustainable?
In this week’s Leadership Podcast and Videocast, Claire Hayek joins Niels Brabandt to explore one of the most overlooked leadership capabilities of modern business: how to remain calm, effective and high-performing under pressure without breaking psychologically, emotionally or physically.
The discussion challenges one of leadership’s most persistent myths.
Many executives believe pressure simply becomes easier through repetition. High performers frequently frame stress as part of the game, assuming exposure naturally builds resilience. According to Claire Hayek, both scientific evidence and lived experience suggest a more complicated reality.
The nervous system is not biologically designed for permanent pressure.
Temporary stress responses exist to ensure survival in moments of danger. They were never intended to become permanent organisational conditions. Yet contemporary business culture frequently normalises sustained hypervigilance as professional excellence.
This creates a dangerous misunderstanding.
Leaders may appear to thrive under pressure while, in reality, merely surviving within deeply embedded stress patterns. The consequence frequently emerges elsewhere: burnout, relationship breakdown, impaired decision-making, deteriorating health, reduced emotional regulation or organisational dysfunction.
The leadership cost is substantial.
As Claire Hayek explains, the challenge is not merely resilience.
It is regulation.
This distinction matters enormously for decision-makers.
Leadership under pressure is not primarily about becoming emotionally harder. It is about developing the capacity to regulate physiological and psychological responses in ways that preserve clarity, judgment and sustainable performance.
The encouraging news is this capability can be developed.
Modern neuroscience increasingly supports the concept of neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to rewire behavioural patterns and emotional responses. Pressure responses are therefore not fixed personality traits. They are trainable systems.
This shifts the leadership conversation dramatically.
The question is no longer whether someone is “built” for pressure.
The question becomes whether leaders intentionally develop the skills required to navigate pressure intelligently.
Practical interventions matter more than many executives assume.
Breathing regulation, tactical breathing, sensory grounding, present-moment awareness and deliberate cognitive reframing can significantly influence nervous system regulation even within seconds. The difference between spiralling into overwhelm and restoring composure may begin with a sixty-second reset before a critical meeting.
Importantly, leadership culture also plays a decisive role.
Toxic pressure narratives remain widespread in organisations. Leaders who frame stress as weakness or insist employees must simply endure unsustainable conditions frequently create environments defined by fear rather than performance.
Calm leadership, however, operates differently.
Leaders modelling emotional regulation, positive reinforcement, empathy and self-awareness establish conditions in which performance improves sustainably rather than temporarily.
This creates an important insight for executive leadership:
Organisations do not merely inherit pressure cultures.
They create them.
And leaders cannot expect emotionally regulated teams while operating from dysregulation themselves.
One of the most compelling arguments made during the discussion is profoundly simple: sustainable high performance begins with self-awareness.
Before leaders attempt to transform organisational culture, they must first examine their own behavioural patterns under pressure.
The future of leadership will not belong to those who simply tolerate pressure longest.
It will belong to those who learn to remain calm under fire.
For more evidence-based leadership insights on resilience, executive performance and sustainable leadership under pressure, listen to the latest Leadership Podcast and Videocast with Claire Hayek and Niels Brabandt.
Niels Brabandt
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More on this topic in this week's videocast and podcast with Niels Brabandt: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify
For the videocast’s and podcast’s transcript, read below this article.
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Podcast and Videocast Transcript
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Pressure. You might have heard of that, and yes, you say, well, pressure is part of the game. The question is, how do you act under pressure? How do you lead under pressure, and how do you especially not fall apart under pressure? How do you actually lead people? How can you deal with these situations when you are under pressure? We have an expert on the matter with us here today. Hello and welcome, Claire Hayek.
Claire Hayek
Hello. How are you?
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Very good. How are you doing?
Claire Hayek
I'm good, thank you.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Excellent, and we're getting straight into it. Of course, people often say, let's say high-performing executives say, "Listen, pressure is part of the game. You have to deal with it." And most people say, "When you are just exposed to pressure all the time, you will get used to it sooner or later." In your opinion and with your expertise, is that a sustainable concept just sitting there and saying, "Let's just get through it and you will learn by time"?
Claire Hayek
No.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
That's a pretty straightforward answer for the beginning here.
Claire Hayek
The podcast episode is over.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Yeah. Thank you very much for listening. See you next week.
Claire Hayek
We're done.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
So why not and what would be a better approach?
Claire Hayek
Yeah, you know, it's a very—it's a subject that will take way longer than the time we have. However, I'll say this: I myself, I speak from experience. You know, I've managed high-stakes projects. I was born and raised in Lebanon. I was forged under pressure during the war. I chose engineering, high-pressure environment, and then I chose entrepreneurship, triple high-pressure environment.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And besides all of that, I think you did an executive MBA with McGill and HSC Montreal while working full-time.
Claire Hayek
Yes. And while doing that, I started two businesses, simultaneously, one of which is mindful purpose team building. So I know pressure. I thrived under pressure. I know exactly what leadership—what leaders say when they're like, "Oh my God, that's what drives me. What do you mean that's a problem?" And the thing that actually science proves is otherwise. And you can look it up, and I'm not going to go into the details of that. But in a nutshell, it's unsustainable.
Claire Hayek
And it might drive you for a reasonable amount of time. It might motivate you, but it's kind of the fake motivation. So you are building patterns, and your nervous system is getting used to these patterns, thriving under pressure. It's more like survival under pressure until we normalize it. They just become the patterns, the everyday for us, because that's what we do all the time. So they seem that they're normal, but they're not.
Claire Hayek
Your nervous system is not wired and designed biologically to sustain pressure 24/7. The nervous system and the whole body is wired to sustain pressure in case of danger and survival, not, again, 24/7 with a job or high-stakes or sustained pressure environment. So nowadays, the unfortunate reality is that we've normalized it, and this is like, "Oh, this is every day," but it's not.
Claire Hayek
And eventually, it will show up somewhere, whether it shows up in a relationship that doesn't work anymore, in your parenting, suffering, a relationship at work, changing jobs, burnout, hitting a wall, God forbids, a cancer, but something will give. And the reason why we're here talking about this—and thank you for having me, by the way—is that I am trying to kind of have that conversation because nobody trains us for this. They don't talk about this in school, not only not in the executive MBA either. They talk about it differently. You need to take care of yourself. You need to work-life balance.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Resilience. Build resilience. Be resilient.
Claire Hayek
Resilient. Yeah. What does that mean? Right? But what does that mean? And you need to regulate your nervous system. Yes, but how do you do that? Oh, well, you need to meditate. Okay, but I don't have time. It's such a big thing, whereas it doesn't have to be.
Claire Hayek
And this is what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the little things that we could do and just being self-aware of it and changing those patterns because we can, because the brain is neuroplastic, meaning that we can rewire it and change those patterns. So now the brain, the body, the nervous system, everything is working for us and not against us.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Yeah. So what is it when you're expected to that? What is it that people can actually do to handle pressure better? And also, if I might spoil here a bit, according to my information, there is going to be a book. It's not out yet as of what I heard, but I think there is a book coming as well from you about this topic. Can you give us an insight and maybe a bit of early sneak peek, maybe?
Claire Hayek
Yes, absolutely. The book is called Calm Under Fire, and basically, the leadership skill no one taught you. That's the subtitle. And it's coming out later, basically in September. You will have all the information on clairehayek.com/book. And on that URL as well, you could join the early readers club. And I would love to have you.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Yeah. So they don't have to wait till September 2026. They can get earlier access when they go to clairehayek.com/book. It is. Okay. Excellent.
Claire Hayek
Exactly. You just sign up, name, email, title, boom, done.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And when someone else says, "I'm now listening to this podcast," can you give me some quick hints right now? If someone's listening right now saying, "Look, I'm now on my way to work. I'm already stressed on the way to work," what are things I can do pretty much right now or today that I can implement to handle pressure better?
Claire Hayek
God, so much. So here's a simple one. Breathe. Breathe. We forget to breathe. Sometimes we're just like, "Yeah, okay, that's simple. Okay, great. Wow."
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Well, tactical breathing is a big—there's huge challenges with it. It's
Claire Hayek
huge.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Tactical breathing is something that even Navy SEALs do when they are in war zones because otherwise, they're going to lose the control over the situation. So it is nothing that esoterical or anything. There's strong scientific backing for the concept.
Claire Hayek
Exactly. Take a deep breath, pause. Maybe just as you are driving, if you are driving listening to this, maybe turn off the noise, the radio, whatever you're listening to, music, etc., and just listen to your thoughts. Be aware, be self-aware, even if you do it for 60 seconds. But the breath really helps. The breath, first thing, breathe. Take two, three inhales and a long exhale just to kind of bring down the nervous system, regulate the nervous system, and just kind of observe things around you.
Claire Hayek
Bring your attention to the present moment instead of driving and being completely blindfolded in a way, kind of sleepwalking through the whole thing. Right? Be aware of what you're doing. Oh, watch the car in front of you. Oh, look at the tree on the right side. Oh, what about the windshield? Oh, there's a little thing on the windshield. I didn't know. It's simple. It's silly. But what we're doing is we're bringing our sensory involved in the whole experience, which brings us to the present moment, which slows down our nervous system, which regulates us, which calms us down instantly. And then now we're a bit self-aware. We're a bit more present.
Claire Hayek
The thing that matters the most is being aware of what your thoughts are. What are you telling yourself? What is that dialogue saying? Is it serving you? And one thing, if you're in a specific state and you're feeling whether rushed, frustrated, overwhelmed, self-doubting, spiraling down, whatever it is, watch the thoughts and make a constant effort, a consistent effort to change the dialogue.
Claire Hayek
For instance, "I am going to be late. I'm running late. Oh my God, I'm running late. I'm going to be late." Just pause and say, "I'm going to be right on time. As a matter of fact, I'm going to show up five minutes early," even if maybe somewhere inside you you know you're going to be late. Just do it because the change is the whole thing, and it calms you down. Maybe you will make it on time. I swear to God, I've tried this so many times, and maybe I wasn't five minutes late because I'm always late. Maybe I wasn't five minutes late, but I was on time. And then you kind of slow down time, and you look at your watch and you go, "Oh my God, I have plenty of time," and you have eight minutes. It works.
Claire Hayek
That's just one trick, but it doesn't matter if it's time. It could be something else. Oh, I'm going to totally—I'm not going to do well on this presentation. Oh, I'm going to kill it. I'm going to be so good, and everybody's going to be listening to me. And there's a reason for this. Basically, what you tell yourself is exactly what you're filtering in your experience.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
We can self-regulate our own thoughts, our own minds on certain matters. I have an additional question here because let's face it, we are not always working in a—not everyone listening to this will work in a perfect work environment.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
What do you say when some people say, "Look, my leader says some people are made for it, some people are not made for it, some people are cut out for this, some people are not"? You can either handle the stress or you're going to break under the stress. It's all your choice.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
How to deal with leaders who are a bit on the side of the toxic trade leadership path and they say, "Look, you handle it or you break, your problem, never my problem"? How do I deal with people who almost deliberately misuse their position of power and put me under pressure even in completely unreasonable ways?
Claire Hayek
So if I'm talking to the person being spoken to that way, what I would say is you got to believe me and look at the science and the research. You can wire in the pattern of handling pressure, and this is what this book is all about. And there's a lot of methods, and there's a lot of ways to do it, and it's literally a system that you can build within yourself. But the only thing you could do is control yourself. I hate the word control. Regulate yourself. Be aware of yourself and literally change your pattern and how you react so it serves you. You can do it. That's scientifically proven.
Claire Hayek
Now, the difference is, do you want to do it or not? Do you feel the pain of not doing it? Do you want to be better? Do you want to play at the level you were built for, or do you want to continue to play small? And this is not putting people down. It's just making people aware that we are all talented. We all have that level of playing at that high level. We're all capable. It's just that we don't choose. You have to choose that for yourself.
Claire Hayek
Now, for the boss or the leader saying this stuff, you know what? Maybe that person developed that resilience to pressure because they wired that pattern, that survival pattern for years and a lot of experience. So it doesn't mean that they're really handling pressure very well. They just know how to manage it, but it's not really—that's not calm under fire. That is not calm under fire. And however, what I say to them is make sure that you model that calm authority, that positive reinforcement, that encouragement, that empathy. And when you do it in yourself and you regulate yourself, the rest will follow. The other people will be inspired and will model what you are modeling. If you're modeling toxicity, well, that's what you're going to get.
Claire Hayek
It's very important that leaders, most often that I talk to, C-suite, CEOs, COs, etc., they always say, "The problem is my team is this and my team is that." And the first question I ask, and I say, "What about you? Have you thought of it? Have you been observing yourself? Have you been self-aware? Have you done any work on yourself?" And this is not therapy I'm talking about. Being self-aware, making sure that you are wiring in those good, positive reinforcement, empowering patterns in yourself because all you could do is perfect yourself. And once you do, everybody else will be inspired to do the same. But you cannot force it on people.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Yeah. And I think this is a really good point here. When now people, as the final question of this interview, when now people say, "Hey, I think this is exactly the message we need," either we need someone who helps us with training or coaching or a keynote speaker for our event.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And some people might wonder, "How can we actually get Claire to our events or to help my business, my company?" So my final question for the interview is, how can people get in touch with you?
Claire Hayek
Very easy. My name is Claire Hayek. My website is clairehayek.com. Just go on the website and contact me. You can just reach out. Pretty much, my work involves either keynotes or the pressure-proof leadership system, which I installed literally in organizations. I'm sorry?
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
It's trademarked by yourself. I saw that. It's your own trademark, the pressure-proof leadership.
Claire Hayek
Yes, pressure-proof leadership. And it's literally a system. This is not a workshop we install. It's a system that we install. So we're changing behavior, and it's typically in the C-suite level, and then that trickles down to the organization. And that's the best way you can do it because I'll tell you one thing.
Claire Hayek
One-day workshop is not going to change patterns. And this is why I call it a system because this is an everyday practice, and it just comes naturally. And you don't have to stop and do 30-minute meditation. I'm talking about quick resets, 60 seconds before a meeting. And that's how it works, and that's why it works.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Brilliant. I think these are the perfect final words. You see, this is the way how you can change things. And Claire is the person to talk to. And remember, Calm Under Fire, the leadership skill no one taught you, is the book you need to read. Claire, at the end of this podcast and videocast, there's only one thing left for me to say. Thank you very much for your time.
Claire Hayek
Thank you.