Raise your performance, not your voice

Raising your voice doesn’t show you care more, it shows you’ve lost control.

Yelling might feel good for a few seconds. But the damage to a team can last far longer.

An entrepreneur I coached once told me, “I lost it at the team today. They weren’t getting the job done.” She said she felt better for “giving it” to them. Her priority wasn’t solving the problem, it was passing on her fears and anxiety.

A month later, two team members were taking more sick days than usual and had stopped sharing ideas in meetings. Not normal behaviour.

When I asked when did she notice she was exploding on the inside and felt she had to let it out, she traced it back to a supplier collapse.

She’d been stressed, scared for the business' future, and started raising her voice in meetings without realising the harm it was causing. It was out of character for her.

She realised in trying to get rid of her tension, she broke the team's trust. Her team behaved rationally to her projecting her anger at them by recoiling to restore their safety.

Her response: She owned the impact of her actions. Spoke to each team member and set a new standard of behaviour for herself and within the team.

Psychological safety became a benchmark. And her team's performance improved.

She put in place one simple strategy that prevented future outbursts: She counted all the letters of the alphabet in her mind before reacting to things that make her feel anger or fear.

It takes around 20 seconds, enough to let a moment of anger pass and logic to return. Stoic philosophers developed the idea over 2,000 years ago.

Leaders amplify the capacity of a team. Choose to raise your performance, not your voice.