Your Chaos Becomes Their Culture

I Was Asked What My Superpower Was. Someone Else Answered Before I Could.

And in that moment, I was reminded why one of the most powerful tools in leadership has absolutely nothing to do with authority, experience, or a title.

Recently, I was sitting in on a roundtable discussion about biosolids and the impact they have on operations. You know how these conversations go. One minute we’re talking about material management and operational challenges, and the next we’ve somehow found ourselves down an entirely different rabbit hole.

Someone at the table asked a question that had absolutely nothing to do with biosolids.

What’s your superpower? In leadership, she said. What makes you different?

We were supposed to go around the table and answer.

Before I could even open my mouth, a young man sitting next to me, someone I’ve had the opportunity to work with on and off for about five years, spoke up.

“Crystal’s superpower is staying calm.”

He went on to explain that he’d actually asked me once if I ever got excited about anything because my ability to bring an entire crew back down to earth when the craziest things were happening was mind-blowing to him.

I laughed, but his answer stuck with me.

Not because I needed the compliment.

Because he had just described something I’ve spent years trying to teach leaders, often without ever putting it into those exact words.

Calm isn’t a personality trait. It’s a leadership tool. And when you learn how to use it, you can change the trajectory of an entire team.

I’ve spent more than 25 years in an industry where things rarely go exactly as planned.

Equipment breaks. People make mistakes. Regulations change. Deadlines don’t move. Personalities clash. And sometimes, the shit hits the fan before you’ve even finished your first cup of coffee.

I’ve seen leaders react to those moments with anger, frustration, blame, and volume.

I’ve also seen what happens to the people around them.

They become defensive. They shut down. They second-guess themselves. They stop communicating. And eventually, they stop making decisions because they’re more afraid of their leader’s reaction than they are concerned about solving the actual problem.

Think about that for a second. The person who’s supposed to be leading the solution can actually become a bigger obstacle than the problem itself.

Now imagine the opposite.

Something goes wrong. Everyone is looking around, waiting for the reaction. The leader walks in, evaluates what’s happening, asks a few questions, establishes priorities, and starts moving toward a solution.

No theatrics. No unnecessary blame. No emotional explosion. Just direction.

The problem hasn’t magically disappeared. The expectations haven’t changed. Accountability hasn’t gone anywhere. But the environment has changed. People can think again. And THAT is where leadership starts getting powerful.

I've never wanted to be the smartest person in the room. I’ve wanted to build a room full of people who don’t need me to be. One of the accomplishments I’m most proud of throughout my career isn’t a project, a compliance turnaround, or an operational improvement.

It’s watching people who started as equipment operators grow into senior leadership positions in just a few years. And I firmly believe my ability to stay calm has played a significant role in making that possible.

Because here’s something we don’t talk about enough in leadership development:

You cannot build confident decision-makers in an environment where people are afraid to make decisions.

If every mistake is met with an emotional reaction, people learn to hide mistakes.

If every question is met with impatience, people stop asking questions.

If every challenging situation results in the leader taking over, people never develop the confidence to handle those situations themselves.

So what happens when you respond differently? You create space for people to think.

Instead of immediately telling an operator what they did wrong, you ask what they were seeing, what they were trying to accomplish, and what they might do differently next time.

Instead of taking control of every difficult situation, you walk them through the process of evaluating risks, weighing options, and making decisions.

Instead of making them feel small for not knowing something, you give them the tools to become capable of knowing it.

You still hold them accountable. You still correct unsafe behavior. You still have difficult conversations.

But you do it without stripping away their confidence or dignity. Over time, something incredible starts happening. They stop looking to you for every answer. They begin anticipating problems. They start bringing solutions instead of just reporting problems.

They begin coaching the people around them. And eventually, the operator who once needed someone to guide them through a difficult day becomes the leader guiding an entire team through one. That’s not just developing employees. That’s developing leaders.

I want to be very clear about something. Being calm doesn’t mean being passive.

It doesn’t mean accepting poor performance, tolerating unsafe practices, avoiding confrontation, or pretending everything is fine when it isn’t.

And it certainly doesn’t mean you don’t feel frustration.

It means you’ve learned that your emotions don’t get to make operational decisions for you.

There are absolutely times when immediate action is necessary. There are moments when you have to be firm, direct, and unwavering.

But there is a tremendous difference between responding with urgency and reacting with emotion.

You can be firm without being intimidating.

You can demand excellence without creating fear.

You can hold someone accountable without humiliating them.

And you can walk into absolute chaos without becoming part of it.

That takes discipline.

That takes self-awareness.

And sometimes, that takes more strength than raising your voice ever would.

That roundtable conversation made me think about how often we underestimate the influence we have on the people around us.

That young man probably had no idea how much his comment would mean to me.

But what I heard wasn’t simply that I stay calm. What I heard was that, after working together over several years, he had noticed how my behavior affected the entire crew.

And that matters.

Because people learn leadership by watching leadership.

They watch what we do when the equipment goes down.

They watch how we treat someone who makes a mistake.

They watch how we handle pressure, conflict, criticism, and unexpected challenges.

And whether we realize it or not, we’re teaching them what leadership looks like in every single one of those moments.

That’s why I believe some of the greatest leadership development happens nowhere near a classroom or conference room. It happens in the field. During the difficult conversations.

During the unexpected failures. During the moments when everyone is waiting to see what happens next.

The most important thing a leader brings into those moments isn’t always the answer. Sometimes it’s the ability to create an environment where everyone else can help find it.

And when you consistently do that, you don’t just build better operations.

You build people who are capable of leading them.

So, what's my superpower? Apparently, it’s staying calm.

But after thinking about that conversation, I’d like to believe there’s something even bigger behind it. It’s the ability to help people find confidence in situations that once overwhelmed them.

To help an operator recognize that their experience, judgment, and perspective have value.

To challenge people without breaking them down.

To build a culture where accountability and respect can exist in the same conversation.

And to watch someone grow into a leadership position they may never have imagined themselves capable of holding. Because at the end of the day, my success as a leader isn’t measured by how many people depend on me.

It’s measured by how many people I’ve helped become capable of leading without me.

So maybe the real superpower isn’t simply staying calm when everything around you is falling apart. Maybe it’s teaching enough people to do the same that, eventually, the entire culture changes.

Calm is contagious. Chaos is contagious.

And every single day, whether we intend to or not, we’re teaching our teams which one to spread.