⏳ Read Time: 3 min
📌 What’s inside:
🚦 Why your pace becomes your team’s pace
🧠 The science behind emotional contagion
🛠 Five simple ways to set a healthier tempo this week
📖 Anecdote: The Tempo Problem
One clip in particular repeatedly showed up in our text messages and DMs with coaches this week.
Best we can tell, Mike Elko doesn’t read this newsletter (yet). But he became the billboard advertisement for last week’s newsletter on why the influence of the messenger matters more than the message.
Watch any team for five minutes and you can see it:
If the leader is frantic, everyone is frantic.
If the leader is calm, everyone settles.
If the leader is consistently urgent, the team responds with urgency.
Leaders create the emotional tempo of the environment.
And whether they realize it or not, everyone else plays to their beat.
The mistake many coaches make is assuming their team is undisciplined, unfocused, or unmotivated — when really, the group is simply mirroring their pace.
Teams are slow to follow instructions. But, they’re quick to follow emotional cues. It’s human nature.
That means your tone, energy, presence, and pace are all contagious. They’re even more contagious than your words.
It’s why the idea that “You Are The Culture” is so vital for coaches establishing any culture on their team.
Before your team listens to you, they feel you.
📊 Research Insight: Why Emotions Spread
Psychologists call this emotional contagion — the rapid, unconscious transfer of mood and intensity from one person to another.
Research shows that:
Groups synchronize their emotional state to the most expressive person in the room (Barsade, 2002)
Leaders’ emotional regulation predicts team composure under stress (Gross & Thompson, 2007)
Calm leadership increases accuracy, decision-making, and confidence in high-pressure environments
In short:
Your internal world becomes your team’s external world.
Remember the Leadership Control Panel?
This is why Leading Yourself First is such an important idea. Do you have a handle on the internal work you need to be the leader worth following?
If you rush, they rush.
If you tighten up, they tighten up.
If you stay steady, they settle and execute.
🛠️ Putting It All Together:
💡 5 Ways to Set the Right Pace This Week
Think Before You Speak.
Take a breath. 10 seconds of calm from you at the right time can save 10 minutes of chaos for your team.
Think About Your Tone Before You Raise Standards.
In other words, consider your presence, how you come off, and show up before you simply start raising the volume.
Narrate Emotional Control Outloud.
It’s ok to say things like: “Let’s take a second to breathe”, or “Let’s not rush, let’s focus on execution”, or even “Let’s clear our minds of everything except the next play.”
Walk, Don’t Sprint.
What we mean is consider your body language. How you are physically will show up in your team’s psyche. Does yours free up your team? Or make them tighten?
Reset With a Phrase.
Pick a grounding cue you use consistently for yourself.
“Breathe.” “Eyes Up.” “Next Play.” Bonus points if it’s paired with an action.
Consistency builds trust in your leadership, and your leadership fuels performance.
🏁 Conclusion: Own Your Tempo
You don’t have to be perfect.
You just have to be intentional.
Your team will reflect your emotional rhythm — for better or worse.
Lead the tempo you want them to play with.
Want More Than a 3-Minute Newsletter To Help You Do This?
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You Are The Culture is the first chapter of our self-leadership system for coaches called Lead Yourself First. We’ve released two chapters so far. The first is below. The second PowerBook: Know Your Voice, Coach From Identity, you’ll get with an implementation guide as soon as you pre-order our book for $10!
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