The Nervous System Response Nobody Plans For
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Simon Adair has spent his career in environments where getting it wrong wasn't an option, from covert intelligence operations to leading crisis response for one of the world's best-known broadcasters. As the founder of Crisis Pathway Consultancy, he helps leaders bridge the gap between perceived and actual preparedness.
Most crisis management focuses on processes, plans, protocols, and decision trees. What it rarely considers is the nervous system of the person managing the crisis. Leaders often believe they know how they’ll react under pressure.
In reality, responses are far less predictable than the plan assumes. In those moments, the mind defaults to a mix of survival instinct and learned leadership behaviour, which aren’t always aligned.
Having taken part in military operations worldwide, I’ve seen every facet of this and experienced freeze mode myself. What’s remarkable is how unpredictable people’s reactions are. Younger, less experienced people can stay calm and generate brilliant ideas, while confident, alpha personalities can respond in ways that surprise everyone, including themselves.
To understand why, I spoke with Amber Knights, a trauma specialist, psychotherapist, and former Clinical Director at Khiron Clinics. Our conversation centred on what happens to us physically and psychologically during a crisis, and on whether any of these responses can be trained.
One point she made dismantled something I’d believed for years. We tell ourselves, “If that happens, I’d do this.” Amber’s response was blunt: “That sentence is fiction; in the moment, your brain doesn’t necessarily follow the plan you wrote for it.”
Here’s why. When the brain detects a threat, the amygdala helps trigger the survival response, and the prefrontal cortex, responsible for reasoning, planning, impulse control and self-regulation, can become less active. Fight, flight or freeze aren’t character flaws; they’re instinctive protective responses, hardwired long before any leadership training.
This is also why “analysis paralysis” is more complex than it sounds. It isn’t always overthinking, nor is it always fear. Sometimes it’s a defence mechanism doing exactly what it evolved to do. Equally, a leader who makes three decisions in ten minutes isn’t necessarily decisive; they may be moving fast because they feel overwhelmed, not because they’ve assessed the situation. Both responses can impair judgement and may stem from the same root, even if they look different on the surface.
Breathing
For years I’ve relied on a breathing technique, which I’ve found highly effective with the clients I coach. Amber explained the physiology: “Under stress, many people forget to exhale properly; they hold their breath, breathe shallowly, or tense up without realising it. A slow, controlled exhale sends a clear message to the nervous system that there is no imminent danger, helping the rational brain regain control. Exhaling can reduce arousal and influence autonomic regulation, which in turn helps the prefrontal cortex stay engaged, so we think more clearly and regulate our emotions more effectively.”
Contagion
We kept returning to one idea: contagion. Nervous systems are contagious. Stress spreads through a room, as does calm. Amber calls this co-regulation. Your job as a leader isn’t to fake certainty. It’s to be the most regulated person in the room and to be honest about what you don’t yet know.
But staying regulated isn’t the same as staying in control. A leader can appear calm on the outside yet still run a room where nobody feels safe admitting doubt, raising a concern, or saying “I don’t know.” That’s not co-regulation; that’s suppression wearing a calm face. Real co-regulation is about how your presence shapes the room. Do people feel safe enough to voice concerns or admit uncertainty? The best leaders aren’t those who never show doubt, but those who create a space where someone can say, “I think we’ve got this wrong,” without fear of repercussions.
I’ve watched leaders deteriorate physically during a crisis because they believed their condition didn’t matter. It does. It’s the foundation on which everything else rests. If you can’t regulate yourself, you won’t make your best decisions. If you’re not fit to decide, that’s already an escalation.
Amber’s advice was simple, and I agree with it completely: asking for support is a sign of strength, not weakness. Leaders don’t usually end up isolated because support isn’t available. They end up isolated because they believe needing help means they’ve failed.
Training the response, not just the plan
This is the part I feel most strongly about: none of this is fixed. Placing yourself in a controlled, high-pressure situation is one of the most beneficial actions a leader can take. It’s the same principle behind effective scenario planning. When run properly, a scenario exercise doesn’t just test whether the plan works; it shows how people respond under pressure, how their physiological and emotional states shift, and how to practise staying regulated. That practice broadens their capacity to remain effective under stress. You can’t get that from reading a document.
In corporate environments, vulnerabilities surface quickly amid rapid decision-making, high scrutiny, reputational risk, and financial stakes. That is why Crisis Pathway Consultancy works with leading organisations to rehearse crises under realistic pressure, testing both strategy and people before the real event.
Understanding what happens in your mind and body during a crisis isn’t a soft addition to crisis leadership. It’s the foundation on which the rest of it rests, and it’s consistently the part that planning leaves out.
The plan tells you what to do; it rarely tells you who you’ll be when you’re doing it.
Read more from Simon Adair
Simon Adair, Founder of Crisis Pathway Consultancy
Simon Adair is a crisis leadership specialist, executive coach, and founder of Crisis Pathway Consultancy. His career spans the Royal Marines, British Intelligence, British Telecommunications (BT), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), where he led the corporate crisis response. He holds an Executive Master of Business Administration (MBA) and is a Chartered Manager Fellow. Through Crisis Pathway, he partners with organisations to strengthen crisis preparedness, leadership resilience, and organisational readiness.
