When everyone’s yelling, the first person to suggest a next step often ends up in charge.

Panic creates a vacuum. Everybody is busy saying how bad it is, nobody is proposing anything, and the first concrete suggestion gets followed almost gratefully. It does not have to be the best idea in the room, it has to be an idea with a verb in it. In a crisis, authority goes to whoever makes the next five minutes clear.

In the next bit of chaos, say one specific thing out loud: I will do this, can you do that. Keep it to the immediate step rather than the whole fix. If somebody better takes over, you still moved things along.