Under Pressure, Which Leader Are You? Six Crisis-Response Styles and How to Stretch Beyond Yours

Every leader has a go-to move when pressure spikes, and Miller (Brunswick Group) and Keller (Harvard Business School) argue that knowing yours is the first step toward responding well. Each of the six styles brings a real strength and a predictable blind spot.

The Lighthouse

Core Tendency: Stays remarkably calm and focused on the big picture during stressful school situations, keeping anxiety from spreading to staff.

Potential Pitfalls/Risks: Can seem distant or unfeeling, leaving anxious staff feeling like their immediate concerns are being ignored.

Adaptive Leadership Strategies:

• Explain your approach clearly: "I'm intentionally keeping a steady head so we can think clearly together, not because I don't feel the urgency."
• Encourage staff to share their concerns, validating their feelings to build trust and psychological safety.
• Share small, immediate action steps to show progress and keep things moving forward.

The Alchemist

Core Tendency: Views challenges and crises as chances to innovate, taking broken routines as opportunities for fresh ideas.

Potential Pitfalls/Risks: Can exhaust and confuse staff by introducing constant, rapid changes before current routines have settled.

Adaptive Leadership Strategies:

• Tie new ideas directly to your main goal (the specific problem you're solving).
• Balance periods of change with time to adjust and consolidate gains ("push and pause").
• Partner directly with teachers and teams to implement changes together rather than handing down directives.

The Firefighter

Core Tendency: Thrives on high energy, stepping in quickly to solve issues and driving immediate action.

Potential Pitfalls/Risks: May react too quickly, making hasty calls that increase confusion and burn out staff by treating every issue as an emergency.

Adaptive Leadership Strategies:

• Take a brief pause before acting to collect your thoughts and clarify your goals.
• Involve other administrators and/or your teacher leadership team/s early to share responsibility and reduce personal strain.
• Hold quick debriefs after incidents to assess what worked well and what could be improved.

The Stoic

Core Tendency: Becomes hyper-analytical and turns inward under pressure, focusing heavily on data and logic to keep emotions in check.

Potential Pitfalls/Risks: Can seem distant or unapproachable, leading to decisions that make logical sense but miss the human element.

Adaptive Leadership Strategies:

• Acknowledge feelings in yourself and others during hard conversations, rather than setting them aside completely.
• Build relational trust by recognizing when things are tough for staff and validate their experience.
• Talk through stressful moments with a trusted peer or mentor to process your thoughts and gain perspective.

The Diplomat

Core Tendency: Responds to pressure by prioritizing dialogue, defusing interpersonal tension, building consensus, and preserving staff culture.

Potential Pitfalls/Risks: May avoid tough conversations or delay necessary decisions in an effort to keep peace and satisfy everyone.

Adaptive Leadership Strategies:

• Address underlying issues directly, helping clear the air respectfully without placing blame.
• Ask team members to play "devil's advocate" to test ideas and surface different viewpoints safely.
• Set clear direction and next steps after gathering input from your team.

The Container

Core Tendency: Tries to absorb stress personally, relying on high effort and tight control to keep things running smoothly.

Potential Pitfalls/Risks: Isolates faculty and staff, creates feelings of exclusion, and faces severe personal burnout by attempting to carry the entire building on their back.

Adaptive Leadership Strategies:

• Delegate decision-making and share responsibility across your administrative and teacher leadership team.
• Schedule regular breaks to clear your mind and maintain perspective.
• Model sustainable habits by taking time for rest and self-care in your daily work.

The authors close with advice that applies to every style: stretch toward a response that isn't your default, check in real time whether your approach is working, share the cognitive load, build a leadership team with a mix of styles, talk openly about stress, and cultivate trusted peers or mentors who can help you see your patterns and widen your options.

Read the full article: "Six Ways Leaders Harness Stress" by Jon Miller and Drew Keller, Harvard Business Review, July-August 2026. (Subscription may be required). A summary appears in the Marshall Memo (June 22, 2026).

Take the Test: Discover Your Leadership Stress Response Type

How does stress shape your decisions? This assessment from the Center for Stress Intelligence helps you name your default pattern under pressure, so you can lead with more intention when the stakes are high.

This is the companion to the article above. The Center for Stress Intelligence is a research-focused organization, incubated in partnership with Brunswick Group, whose stated aim is to help leaders thrive under pressure by understanding, managing, and even harnessing their stress to make better decisions. Its test is built to surface your own Leadership Stress Response Type, one of the six styles described by Miller and Keller.

Take the test: Center for Stress Intelligence, "Take the Test".

Explore the types: Leadership Stress Response Types

The site also offers a page for each of the six types, so after you take the test you can read more about your own pattern and the others you tend to work alongside.

A way to use it with your mentoring partner: Each of you can take the test, then compare results at your next meeting. Talking about how your styles show up, and where a different style might serve a particular situation, can turn a quick assessment into a rich conversation about the pressures of the principalship.