What a Dog Fight Taught Me About Being a Leader (and Healing)

Leadership under pressure is not about perfect decisions. It is about what you do when instinct takes over.

Last night, something ordinary and violent happened in our home. It revealed more about leadership than any framework ever has.

We broke up a dog fight.

Two otherwise loving animals.
120 pounds of live animal bodies.
Teeth. Sound. Force.

If you’ve ever been near one, you know the sound.
It rearranges your system.

We had read what to do.
In the moment, none of it surfaced.

My partner went straight in.
Hands on fur. Pulling.

I tried to assist him, which mostly meant yelling and searching for anything that might interrupt the escalation.

His daughter froze. Completely. Unable to move.

Freeze is real.
So is over-activation.

I don’t know if what I did helped.
I know screaming didn’t.
It added more qi to an already charged field.

Eventually, I grabbed water and doused them.
Eventually, they separated.

Eventually was about five minutes.
It felt like an hour.

This isn’t a story about dogs.

It’s about what happens when something breaks down under pressure.

In leadership, we like to believe we will remember the article.
The training.
The best practice.

Under pressure, focus narrows.
You act from conditioning.

Sometimes that conditioning is useful.
Sometimes it amplifies the chaos.

There is a moral dimension to leadership that doesn’t get named often enough.

When things go sideways, you are deciding:

Act or don’t act.
Escalate or contain.
Protect or withdraw.

You don’t get perfect information.
You also don’t get to opt out.

Freeze is a response.
It’s human.
But in some moments, freeze causes harm.

Yelling is a response.
Also human.
In some moments, it pours fuel on the fire.

Water was imperfect.
But it was action that shifted the system.

This is what I mean when I say everything I do is healing.

Healing is not softness.
It is working with what is actually happening in the moment.

Leadership is similar.

You are constantly deciding between what feels right, what seems best, and what might prevent further damage. Not just for you. For the people around you.

Sometimes you will make mistakes.
Sometimes you will escalate before you regulate.
Sometimes the best strategy will not surface until after the crisis passes.

The practice is not perfection.
The practice is shortening the distance between activation and intentional action.

Last night, I did not choose perfectly.

But I did act.

And sometimes acting imperfectly is the difference between escalation and resolution.

That is not theoretical.

It is embodied.

If this resonates, The Whole Leader Lab is an eight-week, live practice in working with real moments like this. Not the polished version. The activated version.

We practice:

How pressure reveals your habits.
How emotion alters judgment.
How your state affects the entire system around you.
How to respond with intention sooner.

We begin February 27.

Tier 2 pricing, which includes a $500 credit, is in place through 2/13.

Details here

Or IYKYK, register here.