What Behavioral Science Says About Leading Under Pressure

For a lot of people, work feels especially chaotic right now.. Projects start and don't finish. Layoffs happen, then reorgs, then new strategies, and through all of it, managers are expected to have the answers. Caroline Webb spent 25 years coaching leaders through exactly this kind of turbulence. She's a behavioral scientist, a former economist and the author of the new book Leadership Intelligence: Science-Backed Strategies for Mastering 21 Everyday Management Challenges. This week she joins Jessi to talk about what the science of the human brain tells us about leading through uncertainty.

In this episode, Jessi and Caroline discuss:

Why the current moment hits a stress trifecta — demanding, uncontrollable and unpleasant — and what that does to your team's brains

The "know-be-do" framework: how to lead people through uncertainty when facts are in short supply

Why naming how you feel is one of the most powerful things a leader can do and what affect labeling actually does in the brain

What "measured authenticity" means, and why "terrified" is not a word you want your manager to use

How to be honest with your team when you know more than you can say

Why letting projects die quietly is one of the most demoralizing things a manager can do, and what to do instead

What Astro (Google X's moonshot factory) does when it kills a project, and why it works

The "when-then" method for taking the sting out of worst-case scenarios before they happen

"Compassionate clarity": what it means in practice when layoff season arrives

Why walking people out of the building immediately is almost never necessary and what a seasoned CHRO said about it