Managing Your Wake: The Neuroscience of Team Energy

Your biggest impact as a leader isn't your strategy - it's the emotional wake you leave behind.

(Want to learn about one of the highest ROI investments I've made in my career? Scroll down to the bottom of this email.)

What You’ll Learn

• The 'Emotional Wake' framework: A powerful model for understanding the invisible ripple effect of your leadership presence and why you are 100% responsible for it.

• The 'First Team' Principle: Why your company's success depends on your executives abandoning loyalty to their departments when they enter the boardroom.

• The art of self-differentiation: How to take ownership of your emotional impact in a way that is authentic and doesn't require faking positivity.

The Story

I recently received a speaking request from a healthcare company on a topic that sits at the very heart of my work: our responsibility for the energy we contribute to our relationships, both at work and at home.

As I prepared my talk, I kept coming back to a scene I've witnessed countless times: a boardroom of brilliant executives, each a master of their domain, sitting in a heavy, unproductive silence. On paper, they are a team. In reality, they are a collection of departmental ambassadors, each carefully guarding their turf, their resources, and their priorities.

The core of my message to them was this: "If you want to lead this company together, the first thing you must do is leave your loyalty to your own department at the door. In this room, your 'first team' is not the one you manage; it's the one you are a part of right now."

But this structural shift is only the beginning. The real work is more subtle. It’s about understanding the personal contribution you make to the room's energy, moment by moment.

The Insight

This isn't about the Emotional Debt I've written about before - the cost of conversations you avoid. This is about your Emotional Contribution - the active energy you bring into every single interaction. The most effective way to understand this is through the framework of your "Emotional Wake."

Think of your leadership presence as a boat moving through water. It leaves a wake—a ripple effect of your mood, words, and actions. That wake is either calm and orderly, making it easy for others to follow, or turbulent and chaotic, throwing them off course.

You are 100% responsible for your wake. You cannot blame the "choppy waters" of a stressful quarter; your job is to steer with intention.

At any given point during the day, we have a choice to get swept up in the emotions of the team or in the turmoil of our own emotions. But it isn't just that; it is ultimately a choice. Because at every point, we are co-responsible for the emotional stability and energy of the system that we're part of. This applies just as much to our teams as it does to our families. And in fact, our societies.

This responsibility is a choice, rooted in the hard science of co-regulation. Our brains are built to unconsciously sync with the nervous systems of those around us. As neuroscientist Dr. Daniel Siegel explains, we are constantly “shaping each other’s minds.” Your internal state is never private; it’s a direct input into the collective nervous system of your team.

So, if your mood is contagious, how do you lead authentically on a bad day without infecting the room?

The answer is a skill psychologist David Schnarch called self-differentiation. It’s the ability to hold onto your own emotional state while remaining responsibly connected to the group—to feel a storm internally without creating a turbulent wake for everyone else. It’s the difference between polluting the room with your feelings and reporting on them for context.

• An undifferentiated leader feels stressed and creates a wake of stress, infecting the room.

• A differentiated leader feels stressed, acknowledges it, and chooses their wake. They might say, "I'm feeling the pressure on this timeline, which is why it's critical we stay focused. Let's start with the single most important variable."

One is a reaction. The other is leadership. It is the mature ability to distinguish between, "I feel down," and, "I must pull everyone else down with me."

Your Quick Win

I’m writing this after a morning with my kids that felt like a violent tornado tearing through my sanity. In those moments, the temptation is to get swept up, scream at my little ones (they don’t know better!) and let that chaotic energy become my wake for the rest of the day.

You see: I'm not making this up. Life will put us in these situations whether we are getting the kids ready for the day or the C-level ready for a board meeting.

The practice below is the tool I use to manage my own wake when the waters get choppy.

Managing Your Wake: A 3-Minute Pre-Meeting Briefing

1. Identify Your Current (1 minute): Check in with yourself honestly. What is your internal emotional state right now? Name it. "I am feeling impatient." "I am worried about this launch." This is not for judgment, but for awareness.

2. Chart the Course (1 minute): What is the ideal outcome of this meeting? Based on that, what kind of emotional wake will help the team get there? Be specific. "We need a wake of calm, clarity, and confidence to make this decision well."

3. Steer Intentionally (1 minute): Choose one or two specific behaviors that will create your desired wake. This is your tactical plan. "To create a wake of clarity, I will start the meeting by stating the single problem we are here to solve. To create a wake of confidence, I will make sure to listen fully before I speak."

(Also, I had a quiet cup of coffee with my wife after dropping the kids at Kita.)

This small, private act of preparation is the most leveraged thing you can do to shift the dynamic of your entire team. It’s how you stop being a passenger in your team's culture and start being the one who steers.

A Special Recommendation: The Coach Behind the Curtain

Before you go, I want to share one of the best investments I’ve made in my career.

For the last four years, I've worked with my writing coach, Rachel. It is, by far, the longest-standing coaching relationship I’ve ever had. Many of you have told me you enjoy the clarity and voice of this newsletter, and Rachel’s guidance has been an indispensable part of developing it.

Several friends, clients, and even my wife have since started working with her, because her work goes far beyond simple editing. She uses writing as a vehicle for personal development, helping you uncover and articulate your most valuable ideas.

If you enjoyed the earlier issue featuring Dr. Matthew Jones, author of The Co-Founder Effect, or if you follow the work of YouTube creator Ali Abdaal, you’re already familiar with the quality of her impact. Rachel was a key collaborator on Matthew’s book and was also involved in Ali's New York Times bestseller.

In her own words, here's how she describes her work:

You can see a range of the wonderful writers she’s worked with on her testimonial page, learn more about her, or visit her newsletter archive for exercises and essays on writing.

If you’ve been thinking about taking your writing and thinking to the next level, I couldn't give a stronger recommendation. Just reply to this email, and I will personally connect you.