When everything’s chaos, the calmest person becomes the leader whether they asked to or not.

In a mess, everyone is looking for something to steady themselves against, and they settle on whoever is not panicking. That person is not necessarily the most qualified or the most senior, they are just the one whose voice stayed level. Calm reads as information: it tells the room this is survivable. You can end up leading without ever intending to, just by being the one who did not spiral.

When the next thing goes wrong, slow your speech and deal with the first small fixable piece. Others will orient around that. Your hands can still be shaking.