Reaction vs. Response: The Leadership Choice That Changes Everything

It’s 2 PM on a Tuesday.

Your inbox is exploding, your next meeting starts in five minutes, and someone just walked into your office with “a quick question” that you know isn’t going to be quick.

You feel that familiar tightness in your chest.

But you don’t yell. You don’t roll your eyes. You force a smile. You push through the conversation, holding it together like a professional.

On the outside, you’re composed. But on the inside, your system is already flooding with cortisol, adrenaline, and a wave of subtle signals that tell your brain: this moment isn’t safe.

Before you can even register what’s happening, your brain has made a split-second calculation: threat or reward?

That instant, faster than conscious thought, kicks off neurochemical chain reactions. Your stress response activates. Your emotional regulation drops. Your capacity to listen, empathize, think clearly, and make grounded decisions begins to wane.

What’s Really Going On in Your Brain?

Neuroleadership is the application of neuroscience to leadership. It helps us understand how the brain drives behavior, relationships, and performance. This isn’t theory. It’s physiology.

Whether you're giving feedback, answering a late-night email, or walking into a high-stakes meeting, your brain is constantly scanning for one thing: Am I safe, or am I under threat?

This response is central to the SCARF model, developed by the NeuroLeadership Institute. SCARF stands for Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness. These are five social experiences that the brain processes as essential to survival. When any of them feel threatened — even slightly — the brain reacts as if you are in danger.

Your limbic system registers the moment as unsafe. Your body responds with a surge of cortisol and adrenaline, preparing you to defend, retreat, or shut down. At the same time, your brain reduces access to your prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for empathy, self-awareness, and thoughtful decision-making.

This is where the work of Daniel Kahneman becomes especially relevant. In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman describes two operating systems of the brain:

• System 1 is fast, automatic, and emotionally reactive. It is excellent for short-term survival, but not ideal for leading people.
• System 2 is slower and more deliberate. It supports reflection, empathy, and sound judgment, which are the cornerstones of effective leadership.

Dr. Daniel Kannehman, System 1 vs Sytem 2 Thinking

Kahneman wrote, “System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control.” That is what takes over when your stress response kicks in and your ability to lead from clarity begins to fade.

The challenge is that many of us spend most of our day operating from System 1, especially under pressure. And when that happens, we are not leading from intention. We are leading from protection. And that type of leadership has repercussions-both for you and the team you lead.

Why "Keeping It Together" Isn’t Enough

It’s tempting to think that staying outwardly calm is the same as emotional intelligence. You didn’t snap, you didn’t send the angry email, you even said “thanks for the feedback.” But composure on the outside doesn’t always reflect regulation on the inside. And that internal state matters.

Over 40% of senior leaders report high levels of stress, and more than half say burnout is actively diminishing their ability to lead well. When emotional regulation is neglected, symptoms like impaired memory, decision fatigue, anxiety, and even depression are common. Chronic stress also increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, weakens the immune system, and disrupts sleep. All of this undermines your health, your leadership, and your ability to make sound decisions.

The cost of that buried stress doesn’t stay hidden. It shows up in the subtle tension in your voice. In how approachable you feel to others. In the countless micro-decisions you make each day, including those that shape your priorities, your relationships, and your health. And when leaders show up with that kind of unspoken tension, people don’t lean in; they pull back.


The Cost of Disengagement, Gallup, 2024 

That matters. Only 32% of employees report being engaged at work. And while not all disengagement stems from leadership, Gallup research shows that 70% of the variance in employee engagement is directly tied to the manager.

Leadership isn’t about pretending you’re fine. It’s about knowing what’s happening inside you, and learning how to work with it instead of against it.

What Can You Actually Do?

Regulation isn't about never getting triggered. It's about noticing sooner and responding with intention. That’s the foundation of The Healthy Leader Operating System™: a brain-based, behaviorally grounded leadership approach designed to support real, lasting change. One of the tools we use is The 3D Methodology: Discover, Design, Dare, originally inspired by Appreciative Inquiry, a strengths-based approach to change developed by organizational scholar David Cooperrider. This quick and practical framework helps leaders recognize what's happening inside them, create aligned responses, and practice those responses in real time. It's designed to help you work with your biology, not against it.

Step 1: Discover — Build Self-Awareness in Real Time

The first step is noticing. But not just in a general sense. We guide leaders to track what's happening cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally. Become a curious witness to your automated reactions. For example, you might not realize you're angry until you hear yourself slamming cabinets a little too loudly. Or maybe you've gone from diligently crossing things off your list to sudden overwhelm. When does that happen? Decide to simply start paying attention to your internal signals. When you start to notice, the trigger points become power points. What you notice, you can work with. What you ignore works on you.

Step 2: Design — Create Your Blueprint

Once you’ve noticed the signal, the next move is to design your response. That means pausing long enough to ask: If my best self were handling this, what would they do? Instead of defaulting to the autopilot response, you map an intentional one.

For example, when someone pops into your office with “Do you have a sec?” your old pattern might be to say yes and then silently resent the interruption. Your designed response could be, “Sure, I can talk, but I only have five minutes,” or “I want to give this my full attention, can we schedule time later today?” Design is about deciding ahead of time so that when the moment comes, you have a script ready. It’s your blueprint for leading with intention instead of protection

Step 3: Dare — Follow Through in Real Life

This is where design becomes practice. We call it daring because it takes courage to follow through. It takes courage to speak up when you usually stay quiet. To show sadness when anger is easier. To set a boundary when you normally overextend. It takes courage to try something new, even when you know it's in your best interests

Keep in mind that daring doesn’t mean doing the "biggest" thing right away; it means simply doing something. It's the act of turning potential energy into kinetic energy through small, real actions. Maybe it’s trying that five-minute boundary. Maybe it’s voicing a concern in a meeting. For your health, maybe it's going from no workouts to 2 minutes of jumping jacks each morning. The ability to shift from zero to something is the key. The action can be tiny, but the shift is profound. Because every time you dare, you’re retraining your brain. You’re teaching yourself that you have more options than fight, flight, or freeze.

Viktor Frankl: Stimulus and Response

The Bottom Line

You will get triggered. System 1 thinking happens faster than System 2. You will have moments where your chest tightens, your brain screams "threat," and you want to react.

But those moments are not failures. They're invitations.

To pause. To reflect. To choose.

To respond.

Psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl put it best:

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Because when you stop reacting and start responding, everything shifts: your clarity improves, your health stabilizes, your team rises, and your culture transforms.

Calm is contagious. So is chaos. Your team is drinking the cocktail you mix. Make it one worth sharing.

If this topic resonates, I invite you to this month’s Healthy Leader Expert Forum, where I’ll be joined by Dr. Jason Jones, organizational psychologist, executive coach, and author. Jason has worked with leaders at Microsoft, American Airlines, Porsche, and AT&T, helping them harness motivation science and brain-based leadership to create cultures of lasting engagement. Together, we’ll explore how leaders can combine emotional agility with motivation to lead themselves and others with greater fulfillment and impact.

📆 Date: Tuesday, September 30th ⏰ Time: 12:30pm ET 📍 Register here: www.thehealthyleadergroupcom/expertforum

Traci Fisher is the CEO of The Healthy Leader Group and creator of the Healthy Leader Operating System™. She helps leaders grow personally and professionally by aligning self-leadership with team performance.

Her work equips leaders to think more critically, make better decisions, and create solutions that fit their unique challenges. The result is healthier leaders, stronger cultures, and better results.