Tammy J. Bond shares her frustration after hearing a story from a middle manager dealing with a chaotic environment. The core issue: senior leaders are prioritizing being liked and showing misplaced "compassion" over actual leadership, accountability, and clear expectations. This episode is a fierce examination of how this dynamic demoralizes middle managers, promotes a culture of mediocrity, and actively destroys team trust and performance. Tammy challenges both senior leaders to put on the "boss hat" and middle managers to lead down and courageously speak up.

• Chaos is Contagious, and so is Mediocrity: When leaders above the middle manager avoid difficult decisions (like performance termination), they model that mediocrity is acceptable, frustrating the rest of the high-performing team.

• Friendship is Not a Strategy: Prioritizing feeling liked or showing "compassion" in a performance issue is a destructive leadership failure. Compassion for hurt is necessary; compassion for unacceptable performance is enabling.

• The Cost of Circumvention: When a senior leader oversteps a middle manager (e.g., going directly to the employee or giving them assignments) it shows a break in trust, a lack of respect, and a disconnect that breaks down the entire organizational structure.

• The 90-Day Rule: Leaders must be slow to hire and quick to fire. Performance issues should be addressed and resolved (via performance plan or termination) well within the initial 90-day evaluation period.

Middle managers are often stuck: managing up, communicating down, and balancing two sides with no support. Here's how to navigate the tension:

1. Lead Down and Pull People Closer: When the top is failing, focus your energy on your team. Allow a three-minute "whine 101" for them to voice frustration. Acknowledge, "Heard, understood," and then ask, "And now what?" to shift to solution mode.

2. Courageously Manage Up: Do not suffer in silence. Use curiosity to address boundary violations with your boss. Try framing your question like this:
   "I'm just curious, help me understand what's missing in my management style that's causing you to go around me directly to my staff? Here's what it feels like, and here's how it impacts the team."

3. Know When to Escalate: If the unhealthy and destructive behavior of your superior continues, you have a right to go to HR to have a conversation about the negative impact on the team and your ability to lead.

A word from Tammy: I unapologetically ask bold questions and challenge assumptions to help leaders rethink what they thought was true! If this episode resonates with you and you need help having this conversation with your boss, reshare this episode, tag me in your post, and I will reach out to discuss a role-play strategy.

Celebrating two years and 104 episodes, Tammy J. Bond drops a truth bomb: If your communication sounds like chaos, it's because your nervous system is leading the meeting, not your core leadership. This episode breaks down the concept of the "Calm Cascade"—how your internal regulation sets the emotional thermostat for the entire team. Tammy argues that emotional regulation is not a soft skill, but a crucial leadership strategy. When you walk in "hot," your team burns out and tunes out; the best communicators are always the calmest in the room.

• Regulation is Leadership: Emotional regulation is a strategy. If you can't regulate yourself and your emotions, you cannot motivate a team to speak up or succeed.

• The Thermostat Principle: Your energy sets the temperature. Your team needs you to set the thermostat to a regulated, comfortable temperature—not "frigid cold" or "burning hot."

• Dysregulation = Damage Control: When you are dysregulated, your rational brain (prefrontal cortex) takes a vacation. A dysregulated brain cannot do diplomacy; it can only do damage control.

• Actionable Correction: If you "freak out," quickly correct by saying: "I recognize what I did was wrong, here's how it might have impacted us, and here's what I'm doing differently next time."

• Chaos Short Circuits All Communication: When you are dysregulated, you invite the amygdala hijack—the fear center—leading to regretful blurting, defensiveness, and distractions from team members ("Johnny the Sandthrower").

• Regulated Leaders Create Psychological Safety: Your people will mirror your tone faster than your words. When they feel calm around you, they are more truthful, collaborative, and focused on innovation, not self-protection.

• Trust is Earned by Being Calm: You don't earn trust by talking calm; you earn it by being composed in tense situations. When the leader stays composed, it shifts the energy of the entire room.

• Regulation is Your Lifeline: If you can't regulate, you can't communicate. If you can't communicate, you aren't leading. Regulation is your ultimate responsibility.

• The 90-Second Reset: Before any high-temperature meeting, take 90 seconds to reset your internal thermostat using box breathing (inhale 4, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4).

• The "Grandma Vance" Principle: Be the first one to set your own thermostat every morning to the right temperature for your success.

If you're ready to lead from calm, clarity, and courage, tune in every week. Share this episode with a leader who could benefit from hearing this message.

Tammy brings the hard hitting truth: Chaos might feel like momentum, but it's really just motion without meaning. In this fast-paced episode, she dives into the high cost of allowing stress, drama, and avoidant behaviors to run your workplace. Through personal anecdotes (like the story of "Frank"), Tammy explains why unsustainability is the ultimate price of chaos—affecting everything from turnover rates and sick leave to team productivity. This is a crucial lesson on self-regulation, clarity, and building a workplace where order restores energy and trust.

1. Chaos is Expensive: Chaos lacks sustainability. Leaders who use fear or high-pressure tactics get short-term results, but overall productivity drops, leading to increased turnover, higher sick leave, and loss of revenue.

2. Unregulated Leaders Create Unregulated Teams: You cannot lead people out of stress while you are drowning in it. An unregulated leader models expected chaotic behavior, causing the team to become dysregulated, driving them to spend time job-searching instead of working.

3. Communication in Chaos Becomes Cannibalistic: Fear-fed communication eats results for breakfast. When defensiveness (a form of fear-filled communication) becomes the norm, team members focus on self-preservation, eating away at collaboration, trust, and transformation.

4. Regulation is Not Rigidity: Order restores energy, focus, and trust in your team. Regulation is about your "count-on-ability"—what your team can rely on from your reactions and responses. It's the opposite of being stuck; it's the foundation for agility.

• The Problem with Volatility and Vacancy: Both yelling and retreating are equally damaging. Vacancy (silence/shutting down) tells people they can't trust you, while volatility pushes them away. Leaders must find the regulated middle ground.

• The Key to Performance: "Healthy, actionable steps driving performance is a winning plan every single day."

• Your Self-Check: Ask your team: "What is your count-on-ability factor?" Look at your sick leave and turnover rates—these are chaos-driven numbers.

• Final Quote: "Fear-fed communication eats results for breakfast."

Don't drive Q4 momentum with chaos. Drive it with curiosity and clarity.

I unapologetically ask bold questions and challenge assumptions to help leaders rethink what they thought was true!

DM me the word CHAOS on Instagram @TheTammyBond to get a resource that will help you ask the right questions to solve for the chaos and finish the year strong.