Many of us are taught that pressure is a bad thing – and, as a result, we work to avoid it where possible. But five years ago, Third Factor’s CEO Dane Jensen made a different argument. In The Power of Pressure: Why Pressure Isn’t the Problem, It’s the Solution, he contended that the energy under pressure is essential fuel for performing better at work and in life – if harnessed effectively. To research the book, Dane spoke with Navy SEALs, Olympic athletes, executives and parents about their highest-pressure moments. He identified two types of pressure. Peak pressure is a sudden spike, like stepping onstage for a big presentation. Long-haul pressure wears on us for weeks or months. He also introduced the pressure equation: Pressure = Importance × Uncertainty × Volume. Breaking pressure into these three parts makes it easier to anticipate and respond to. To mark the fifth anniversary of The Power of Pressure, Dane shared what nearly 3,800 people have told him about their highest-pressure moments, how his thinking has changed, and what he hopes readers take from the book.

You’ve asked thousands of people the question, “What’s the most pressure you’ve ever been under?” What have they told you?

When I give Power of Pressure keynotes, I often ask people to submit an anonymous, one-sentence description of the most pressure they’ve faced. So far, I’ve collected 3,797 stories. Dane Jensen The Pressure Equation On Stage Keynote The answers represent a vast cross-section of human experience – from cold-sweat moments such as “singing the national anthem in front of 10,000 people and I forgot the words halfway through” to life-and-death situations, like the person who described “performing CPR on my newborn who stopped breathing.” Then there are the tough moments that are part of life – a dying parent, a sick spouse or an excruciating time at work. As part of the five-year anniversary of the book, I’ve been digging a little deeper into the stories I’ve received – and it turns out the most common theme is caring for others. These stories represent 29 per cent of all responses. Many related to either end of life – 9.4 per cent involved a loved one’s illness or death – or responsibilities during the early years of life: 8.4 per cent related to pregnancy, birth or childcare. I see this finding as very reassuring. We live in an era that increasingly glorifies personal achievement. But when we ask people about their highest-pressure moments, they return to the responsibility they feel to ensure others are cared for in their most vulnerable moments.

If you applied the pressure equation to what people are facing now, which variable – importance, uncertainty, or volume – stands out most? And how does that compare to when The Power of Pressure was first published?

The book came out during the heart of COVID and, as a result, the acute uncertainty we were facing was the dominant thing I heard when I spoke with people. Five years later, I hear a lot about volume – the sheer number of priorities, to-dos, decisions, distractions, and inputs people face. The pressure equation: Pressure = Importance × Uncertainty × Volume, from The Power of Pressure by Dane Jensen. Most companies I work with have reduced their headcount over the last three years. That has left the remaining employees with a larger share of the overall workload. At the same time, AI has dramatically raised expectations around the volume of work one person should be able to handle and the speed at which they should get it done. Outside of work, changing expectations have led working parents to spend almost twice as much time managing their kids’ affairs as they did 50 years ago. This dramatic rise in volume cannot be solved by time management alone. After the book came out, I wrote an article for Harvard Business Review called “Time Management Won’t Save You.” In it, I said that better time management can backfire. As we get more efficient at squeezing more into our days, we simply pile on more tasks, decisions and distractions, creating even more pressure and stress. I’ve found myself sharing that article more than any other recently as people grapple with drinking from a firehose 24/7.

What part of your book has resonated most with people?

I somewhat cheekily titled chapter nine “Sleep and Other Inconvenient Necessities.” But in an era when many of us don’t get enough sleep, it’s the chapter people most often come up to me and talk about. In particular, I hear a lot about two sleep tips from the book: The first is to use the clips from a coat hanger to clamp together hotel room drapes so you can have total darkness, no matter how wonky the window coverings may be. I used this one myself recently at a Hilton in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The second is called “the 100 challenge.” If you’re tossing and turning, it’s a great way to quiet your mind and fall asleep. Here’s how I described it in the book: “Start by holding a vivid image in your mind’s eye of a room with a chalkboard or whiteboard at the front – it could be a school classroom, a meeting room at work, or something similar. For some reason, a chalkboard works best for me – but your mileage will vary. “Imagine writing the number 100 in chalk or whiteboard marker on the board. Hold the image of the numbers on the board steady for a second. “Imagine erasing the number with a chalk or whiteboard eraser. Try to really feel the process of erasing it. “Write the number 99 where the 100 was. “Continue the process to 98, 97, 96, etc., … and see how far down you can get.” Sometimes it’s the simple stuff that works.

How has your thinking about pressure changed?

One of the central ideas in the book is that there’s a difference between dealing with “peak pressure” moments and dealing with “long-haul pressure.” Peak pressure is when the pressure suddenly spikes, like when you’re about to speak in front of a large audience. The long haul is different. That’s when you’re under pressure for an extended period, like an important project at work that’s been going on for weeks or months while you navigate your kid’s competitive baseball season.
One of the central ideas in the book is that there’s a difference between dealing with “peak pressure” moments and dealing with “long-haul pressure.”
The skills required for one can be counterproductive for the other. So, the book is organized to contrast the three skills for handling peak pressure with the three skills for dealing with long-haul pressure, to show how different they are. I’ve come to believe that this is a little too binary. Whether pressure arrives in bursts or sits with us over the long haul, the overarching goal is to keep each of the three components of the pressure equation in balance. So while the book emphasizes six discrete skills for dealing with pressure, I increasingly think of it as holding three tensions: What changes between peak pressure and long haul is the relative emphasis on each side of the tension. For example, when it comes to importance, over the long haul it is often more about finding a sense of importance. In peak pressure moments, however, it is less about finding importance and more about keeping what’s at stake in perspective – we engage in “importance inflation” where we mentally build up an exam, a job interview, or a big sales pitch into a moment of existential importance. I’ve found that thinking about it like this is both more accurate and practical. The tensions give me a quick way to diagnose where I’m out of whack and therefore what intervention would be most useful.

What lasting message do you want people to take from your book?

I hope what endures is both an emotional and intellectual shift around pressure. The emotional shift is that, ultimately, the book offers a dose of optimism. Yes, pressure is unavoidable. But rather than a toxin, it can fuel growth, contribution and connection. I wanted to change how people feel about pressure. So instead of seeing it as a threat, they see it as something that challenges and motivates them. The intellectual shift comes from the pressure equation we spoke about earlier – the idea that we can break pressure down to its root causes and, in doing so, manage it better. It’s a different way of thinking about pressure. My goal with this book was to give people a clear path to the kind of direct action that is incredibly helpful when pressure hits.

Key Takeaways:

  • Our highest-pressure moments are usually about other people. Of nearly 3,800 stories Dane has collected, the most common theme is caring for others, at 29 per cent of all responses.
  • Volume has replaced uncertainty as the pressure people feel most. When the book came out during COVID, uncertainty dominated. Today, smaller teams and rising expectations around AI have left people with more priorities, decisions and inputs than ever.
  • Time management alone won’t solve a volume problem. Getting more efficient often means piling on more tasks, which creates even more pressure.
  • Sleep is the chapter readers talk about most. Simple fixes, like clipping hotel drapes shut or counting down from 100 on an imagined chalkboard, are often the ones that stick.
  • Managing pressure is about holding three tensions in balance. See your work as important without being overwhelmed by the stakes, act on the uncertainty you can control while accepting what you can’t, and build your capacity for a busy life while cutting volume that isn’t productive.

Meet our expert: Garry Watanabe, Senior Principal of Performance & Leadership

Garry Watanabe is an expert on coaching and performance under pressure. A former corporate lawyer, Garry spent eight years as an elite swimming coach in Southern California, has a Master’s Degree in Sports Psychology, and has worked with thousands of executives in organizations like Deloitte, RBC, and Acuity Brands. As Third Factor’s Senior Principal of Performance & Leadership, Garry supports the performance of Olympic and Paralympic athletes, and teaches at UNC Chapel Hill and Queen’s University.

“I tend to avoid conflict. How do I get comfortable having the difficult conversations I’ve been putting off?”

We asked recovering conflict avoider and Senior Principal of Performance & Leadership at Third Factor, Garry Watanabe, to weigh in. I totally get it. I avoided difficult conversations for years. As the middle child of five, I was the family peacemaker long before I knew that managing tough conversations was a skill that could be learned. Handling conflict doesn’t come naturally to me. But “not natural” isn’t the same as “not possible.” It just takes a system and practice. That’s the idea behind our company’s name: beyond nature and nurture, there’s a Third Factor which is the capacity to develop yourself through awareness and conscious choice. And the ability to effectively hold tough conversations is one of those skills that is absolutely worth developing. Here are three steps to get started:

01. Count the cost of avoiding difficult conversations.

We often think that avoiding a hard conversation is easier than having it. Not true. Avoided conversations don’t disappear. They grow. The small issue you skipped in March becomes November’s performance problem. In his book The Power of Regret, author Dan Pink shows how many of the regrets that linger the longest are for the times we didn’t speak up. So while having a difficult conversation may be uncomfortable for an afternoon, bypassing it will bother you for years.

02. Change the picture in your head.

Third Factor co-founder, Dr. Peter Jensen, had the powerful realization that imagery is the language of performance: We can’t do what we can’t imagine. If the thought of difficult conversations conjures yelling, red faces and pointed fingers, no wonder you’re avoiding it. That’s an unhelpful image and an inaccurate one. The best leaders and coaches that I’ve worked with do not delay. When a valued performer is stuck, they raise the issue early. And while we often fear that the conversation will harm the relationship, in many cases the opposite happens. The relationship grows stronger because the performer realizes this person cares so much about their success that they won’t let an awkward moment get in the way. Think of it like this: A difficult conversation is not a selfish act. It’s a generous one.

03. Practise when the stakes are low.

None of the leaders I cited above were naturals at having tough conversations. They had to learn it. They identified the core skills (feedback, good questions, active listening, curiosity) and practised them in daily conversations until those skills became like old friends who show up when needed. At Third Factor, we’ve built those skills into our 3×4 Coaching Model, so leaders have a clear framework to practise with. The hardest part of a difficult conversation is getting started. I recommend that you pick one smaller conversation you’ve been putting off, picture it going well, and then go have it. And remember: The toughest conversation is rarely the one you have. It’s the one you keep not having.

Key Takeaways:

  • Comfort with conflict is built, not born. It’s a skill you develop through awareness and practice.

  • Avoided conversations don’t disappear. They grow, and the regret of staying silent outlasts any awkward moment.

  • Change the picture in your head. We can’t do what we can’t imagine, so picture the conversation strengthening the relationship.

  • A difficult conversation is a generous act. Raising issues early shows your people you care about their success.

  • Start small. Practise feedback, questions, and listening in everyday conversations, then tackle one you’ve been putting off.

I learned the power of recognition not in a boardroom, but as an Olympic ice dancer. Reaching the highest levels of ice dance is tough. It takes years of hard work, with incremental improvements that can barely feel like progress. Learning a routine, for example, takes months. I remember one stretch of choreography that took me six weeks to skate without falling. That was six weeks of going to the rink knowing the day would be full of failure. There was no evidence of accomplishment. No sign that success was even possible. What kept me going wasn’t the promise of a medal at the end. It was my coach who noticed the number of attempts I made, how quickly I got up after each fall, how closely I was listening to feedback. Those were the behaviours the moment required, so that’s what my coach recognized. That recognition told me the impossible thing was possible. Without it, I would not have stayed on the path. Nobody does, for long, unaided.

Recognition answers the question: are they willing?

In Third Factor’s 3×4 coaching model, leaders focus on three things: Clarity, Competence, and Recognition. Clarity makes sure people know what to do. Competence confirms they can do it. Recognition, however, responds to a different question: Are they willing to bring their full effort – even when things get hard? Leaders tend to spend a lot of time on clarity and competence. But recognition gets less attention. That’s a mistake. Neither clarity nor competence creates the willingness to keep giving your best, day after day.

Motivation fails when effort stops registering

Being seen is not a soft need. Family systems research has long shown that a surprising number of relational breakdowns trace back to people feeling invisible. Relationships at work are no different. Employee recognition is a genuine intrinsic motivator. It’s not just a courtesy. University researchers Mussie Tessema, Kathryn Ready, and Abel Embaye found that recognition is a stronger driver of job satisfaction than pay or benefits alone. A study by Schrita Osborne and Mohamad Hammoud, meanwhile, identified recognition as a critical workplace resource for engagement. Wilmar Schaufeli’s “Job Demands-Resources Model” explains why. Recognition counterbalances the demands that wear people down, protecting the emotional and psychological well-being on which engagement depends. Frederick Herzberg identified recognition as a motivator, distinct from factors like salary. In other words, recognition doesn’t just prevent dissatisfaction. It encourages stronger performance. Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer’s research in The Progress Principle gets at why recognition matters in the day-to-day work of a team. Managers create a sense of progress by acknowledging effort and small wins. That recognition is a clear signal that someone’s work matters. The evidence gets even more specific. Research cited in Harvard Business Review found that employees whose managers excel at recognition are more than 40% more engaged than those whose managers don’t. They’re also more confident, better informed, and far less likely to quit. The lever isn’t a bigger paycheck. It’s whether a manager takes a moment to notice and say something. People are hungry for that acknowledgment. Sometimes it feels as though we can’t fully register the value of our own contribution until someone else says it.

Why leaders withhold recognition

Leaders don’t skip employee recognition out of malice. They skip it because of what they believe it will cost: “If I recognize this once, they’ll expect it every time, and then they’ll get needy,” “compliment them and they’ll coast,” or “if I recognize one person, I’ll have to recognize everyone, or it isn’t fair.” Beneath all these blocks sits flawed math: one that fails to recognize the opportunity cost that comes from untapped effort as a result of failing to recognize. Even the most committed performers respond to the environment that a leader creates around them. High performers are not exempt from needing to be seen. If anything, the bar they’ve set for themselves makes the silence louder. In workshops that we run – even those with very seasoned employees and leaders – two-thirds of people tell us that recognition has a positive impact on their performance.

Three moves for employee recognition

Third Factor’s 3×4 curriculum breaks effective recognition into three principles. Each has its own logic, its own supporting research, and its own story from practice.

01.

Make it Personal. What feels meaningful is as individual as the person receiving it.

02.

Recognize the behaviour that produced the result. Acknowledging effort and incremental progress helps sustain motivation.

03.

Notice what’s right, and say so. Recognition needs to be time-sensitive, specific and personal.

01. Make it personal

Generic recognition barely counts as recognition. Herzberg’s distinction between motivators and other factors, such as salary, matters here: a motivator functions only if it’s meaningful to the individual receiving it. A drawer full of identical gift cards, for example, satisfies a policy, not a person. Real recognition is specific to the human in front of you. I remember a leader who once sent a papaya to a team member because it was a fruit from that person’s home country. The papaya cost almost nothing. But it meant more than any gift card ever could because it showed the leader was paying attention to who this person was, not just what they produced. That’s the standard. What feels meaningful is as individual as the person receiving it. Finding out what that is requires the kind of attention most leaders reserve for performance problems, not for people.

02. Recognize the behaviour that produced the result

When leaders only reward outcomes – the sale closed, the deadline was met – people naturally focus on getting the result. The behaviours that produced it can quietly disappear. Amabile and Kramer’s research makes an important point here: acknowledging effort and incremental progress, not just the finish line, helps sustain motivation. Recognize only the win and you teach people to chase wins by any method. Recognize the behaviour and you reinforce the route that actually works. I coached a director of procurement at a global manufacturing company through exactly this gap. His employee (let’s call her Yvonne) had carried the team through a reorganization, a return-to-office mandate, and a short-staffed department without a word of acknowledgment from him. When we worked through the 3×4 model, clarity was there and competence was there. Recognition was the missing play. In our meeting, the director named three specific things he genuinely respected in Yvonne’s work: her attention to detail, her cross-functional relationships, and her compliance with the return-to-office policy when others resisted. The shift was immediate. Yvonne told him that she had assumed he didn’t care. The relationship didn’t fix itself overnight, but forward movement started the day he named the behaviours he’d been watching all along, not just the results they produced.

03. Notice what’s right, and say so

Leaders default to gap analysis. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, while the steady, reliable performer who never causes a problem goes unrecognized for months. Gallup and Workhuman tracked more than 3,400 employees over two years and found that those who received high-quality, frequent recognition were 45% less likely to have left their job. The recognition that moved the needle wasn’t an annual review. It was personal, specific, and delivered close to the moment it was earned. The CEO of a construction company that my colleague Peggy Baumgartner worked with took this idea on directly. He called it, only half-joking, his 2×4 method: two people recognized, every day, at 4 p.m. At first, he needed an alarm to remember. Within a week, he wasn’t waiting for the alarm. He was noticing good work before noon and couldn’t wait to say something. He told Peggy afterward that he wasn’t going back to how he had led before. Not just because his team’s energy had risen (though it had), but because of what the practice had done to his own energy. Tessema, Ready, and Embaye’s finding that recognition alleviates dissatisfaction while building satisfaction shows up here. The effect benefits not only the person receiving the recognition but also the person giving it.

Make employee recognition part of how you lead

“You get more of what you reward.” That line came from the construction CEO’s story and captures the whole point of this article in seven words. Employee recognition isn’t a nicety layered on top of good leadership. It’s a strategic lever, as concrete as clarity of expectations or investment in skills development. Yet it’s the one most leaders don’t use. The challenge isn’t complicated. Pick one behaviour you want to see more of on your team this week. Notice it. Say something specific, close to the moment it happens. Do it again tomorrow. Recognition works as a habit, not an event. And leaders who build that habit find they get exactly what they were hoping for all along.

Key Takeaways:

  • Recognition answers a different question than clarity or competence. Clarity tells people what to do. Competence confirms they can do it. Recognition tells them their effort is worth continuing.
  • Effort stops registering long before people stop caring. Motivation doesn’t fail from a lack of commitment. It fails when nobody notices the work it took to get there.
  • Reward the behaviour. When leaders only acknowledge outcomes, people learn to chase the finish line. Naming the specific effort behind it reinforces the route that actually works.
  • Generic recognition barely counts as recognition. A gift card satisfies a policy. Knowing what actually matters to the person in front of you is what makes it land.
  • Recognition works better as a habit. Pick one behaviour you want to see more of, name it close to the moment it happens, and do it again tomorrow.

Meet our expert: Debbie Low, President and CEO of the Canadian Sport Institute Ontario

Debbie Low
Debbie Low is a leading voice in Canadian high-performance sport, serving as President and CEO of the Canadian Sport Institute Ontario since 2005. Under her leadership, CSIO has grown from a team of five into a facility-based institute with over 50 staff across three locations, and her career spans roles from Chef de Mission at the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games to Director of Sport for Toronto’s 2008 Olympic Bid. A recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and recently inducted into the Class of 2026 Toronto Sport Hall of Honour, Debbie brings her strategic insight to Third Factor as a member of our Sport Advisory Board.

“How Can I Effectively Prepare My Team For The Day I Move Onto A New Role?”

Most leaders don’t get to plan their succession. Their succession plans them. A new offer arrives, a life change hits, or something else. We asked Debbie Low, president and CEO of the Canadian Sport Institute Ontario, how she thinks about succession in sport and business. At CSIO, “readiness” isn’t an abstract idea. It’s the difference between a medal and a missed final. The non-profit delivers sport science, sport medicine, and high-performance leadership to Canada’s Olympic and Paralympic athletes and coaches. The athletes it supports brought home 28 medals at the Paris 2024 Games. Debbie runs an organization built entirely around preparing people for the moment that matters. Succession planning, it turns out, is no different.

01. Coach yourself out of a job, starting now, not later

“Life is unpredictable,” Debbie says. “You don’t always get to choose when a successor takes over.” Her rule: build the foundation long before you think you’ll need it. Her goal as a leader is to make herself helpful, but never essential. A strong team should be able to function without its leader in the room. If not, the team is too dependent on one person.

02. Recruit a mirror you can’t argue with

Every leader has blind spots, and by definition, blind spots are invisible to the person who has them. So Debbie leans on her board chair, Ian Gordon, a former Loblaw Senior Executive. Because he sits outside the sport industry, he can offer a different perspective and challenge her assumptions. An outsider’s feedback isn’t clouded by the history and emotion that can obscure your view. Who plays that role for you? If no one does, it’s time to look for someone who can.

03. Turn “who might replace me” into an honest conversation, not a guessing game

Talk directly with the people on your team who could realistically grow into your role. Ask if they see themselves in your job one day. If they do, be straight: You can’t guarantee the job, but you can commit to preparing them to compete for it. Then get specific. Sit down with them and map out what the role demands. Be candid where they measure up and where they don’t. Sometimes the fastest path forward is sideways – a lateral move that builds the experience the top job requires. Give feedback often enough so that no one interested in your job is ever blindsided. The worst outcome isn’t someone losing the opportunity. It’s someone feeling they never had a real shot because you weren’t honest about where they stood.

04. Loop in the people who’ll actually make the call

A development plan is only as good as the intelligence behind it. Find out what the decision-makers need to see in a successful candidate, then build those exact requirements into how you’re preparing your people for succession.

05. Make the process the prize, not just the promotion

This is the hardest part to get right but the one that matters the most. If you frame the entire plan as a competition to become you, then you’ve built a pressure cooker, not a pipeline. Instead, make sure the skills, relationships, and track record your people build along the way have value on their own. That way, even if they don’t get your job, the work they put in still pays off for their career. Succession planning isn’t about finding your replacement. It’s about building a team so capable that when you move on, you know you’ll be missed. But you also know your team will be just fine. You’re giving a presentation. You’ve just shared an idea you’ve been preparing for weeks. Then you notice someone in the room cross their arms, lean back, and furrow their brow. The instinct, for most of us, is immediate: They don’t like what I’m saying. Maybe they’re angry. Maybe they’ve stopped listening. Maybe I should wrap up and get out. But here’s the thing: When it comes to reading nonverbal cues, you almost certainly have no idea why that person is reacting the way they are. And your assumptions are probably wrong.

When Reading Nonverbal Cues, the Trigger and the Reason Are Not the Same Thing

Research from Dr. Paul Ekman, the psychologist behind the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), identifies seven universal emotions that we can read on the human face across cultures: anger, disgust, surprise, fear, contempt, sadness, and happiness. Each of these emotions has a universal trigger. Anger is triggered by the obstruction of a goal. Sadness comes from the loss of something we value: a job, our credibility, or an opportunity. Fear comes from a perceived threat. These triggers are reliable enough that behavioural analysts, credibility experts, and coaches use them as a framework for understanding what someone might be experiencing. But here’s what that research doesn’t tell you: why someone is feeling this emotion right now. Why is the person crossing their arms in your meeting? They could be angry because your idea threatens a project they’ve spent months building. They could be sad because you just reminded them of a missed opportunity. Their shoulder could be sore. They could have gotten a text from their vet this morning about their pet and be carrying grief they have nowhere to put. Or they might love what you’re saying and be comforting themselves because they wish they’d known it sooner. They might also just be cold! Physical reactions to emotions do tell you something. They just don’t tell you everything. And when we assume they do, we risk getting it wrong.

Single Nonverbal Cues Are Routinely Misread, Even by Experienced Leaders

The crossed arms example isn’t hypothetical. It’s one of the most misread nonverbal cues in professional settings, largely because people feel so certain what it means. We’ve absorbed a cultural shorthand: arms crossed equals closed, resistant, defensive. But a self-hug (which is what crossing your arms actually is) is often a self-soothing response. We do it when we need comfort, when we’re processing something, or when we’re cold. Sometimes it can even signal confidence: I don’t need to open myself up to you. You need what I have. Other times, it may simply mean someone is deep in thought, taking in what you’re saying. Eye contact is another commonly misread nonverbal cue. Conventional wisdom says people avoid eye contact when they’re lying. Research suggests the opposite may be true. Skilled deceivers sometimes use more eye contact, watching your reaction carefully to calibrate their story. Meanwhile, someone avoiding your gaze might be doing so because they feel shame, they’re overstimulated, neurodiverse, or anxious for reasons that have nothing to do with you. A single cue tells you almost nothing. Behavioural analysts look for a cluster: multiple changes that deviate from what’s normal for that person. Not one crossed arm or one averted glance, but a constellation of variations that together suggest something worth paying attention to. That’s not because those cues clearly reveal what someone is experiencing. Instead, they signal that it’s time to ask questions and better understand what the person is experiencing in that moment.

Why Baseline Is the Key to Reading Nonverbal Cues Accurately

This is where relationships matter. The better you know someone, the more useful nonverbal cues become. That’s not because you know what they mean, but because you know what’s different from that person’s normal, or baseline, behaviour. One example: an engineering supervisor with a prominent eye twitch. His team learned quickly that the twitch was simply part of who he was. It was his baseline, constant and unremarkable. What they eventually noticed was that when things weren’t going well, the twitch stopped. That departure from his norm became a meaningful signal. Not because they knew what was wrong, but because they knew something was wrong. That’s the distinction worth making. A variation from baseline is an invitation to ask a question, not a conclusion to jump to. It tells you something may be happening, not what that something is. Cultural, demographic, and individual differences matter here, too. Someone who grew up in a culture where sustained eye contact is considered disrespectful or confrontational will behave differently from someone for whom it’s expected. Someone who fidgets constantly isn’t displaying anxiety. That just may be how they regulate. Or it could be something else entirely. Learning someone’s baseline is an ongoing process, and it pays off most when a conversation is at its toughest.

How Coaches Can Use Nonverbal Cues to Have Better Conversations

It’s easy during difficult conversations (giving feedback, talking about performance, or managing up) to make assumptions about why the other person is reacting the way they are. Their face flushes and you think: they’re angry at me. They go quiet and you think: I’ve lost them. They cross their arms and you think: they’re shutting down. Knowing that emotional triggers are universal and that a single nonverbal cue can have a dozen different causes gives you somewhere else to put your attention. Instead of monitoring yourself through their reactions, try becoming genuinely curious about them: That shift from self-monitoring to curiosity is where coaching begins. When you notice a cluster of changes from someone’s baseline, you don’t need to interpret it. Simply use it as an opening. Ask a neutral, open-ended question. Keep them talking. Let the emotional state they’re in – whatever it is and whatever caused it – become information you’re gathering, rather than a verdict. You don’t have to dig for the reason or try to “out” them in the moment for experiencing an emotion they’re not ready to share. It’s simply another data point. Be gentle and curious. Don’t force the conversation. Sometimes people need time to process what they’re feeling before they’re able to articulate or share their experience. The emotion isn’t about you. Or at least you don’t know that yet. And that uncertainty, once you’re willing to sit with it, isn’t a weakness. It’s the beginning of a real conversation.
This article draws on the work of Dr. Paul Ekman, the Emotional Intelligence Academy’s partnership with Manchester Metropolitan University, and former FBI investigator Joe Navarro.

Key Takeaways:

  • A single nonverbal cue tells you almost nothing. Crossed arms, avoided eye contact, or a flushed face can mean a dozen different things — look for a cluster of changes, not one isolated signal.
  • The trigger and the reason are not the same thing. Emotions like anger or sadness have universal triggers, but the specific reason behind someone’s reaction in the moment is almost never obvious.
  • Baseline matters more than the cue itself. Knowing someone’s normal behaviour helps you notice meaningful deviations — it doesn’t tell you what those deviations mean.
  • A variation from baseline is an invitation to ask, not a conclusion to jump to. Treat it as an opening for a neutral, curious question rather than a verdict.
  • Curiosity is where coaching begins. Shift your attention from monitoring yourself through someone’s reaction to genuinely wondering what they’re experiencing and why.

Meet our expert: Monique Kavelaars, Director, Assessments & Team Coaching

Monique Kavelaars brings more than 15 years of experience helping high-performing teams thrive — first in elite sport and now in corporate environments. An Olympian and Canadian National Team épée fencer, she competed at the Olympic Games, World Championships, and Pan Am Games. As Third Factor’s Director of Assessments and Team Coaching, Monique designs and facilitates leadership programs and workshops for global organizations, bringing an energizing, practical approach that helps teams build trust, communicate, and align around shared goals.

“I know there’s a lot going on in people’s lives that I don’t see: personal challenges, cultural background, identity. How do I make space for that without making it awkward or overstepping?”

When I first moved to Sweden after four years in Paris, I went from feeling fluent and capable to being a complete beginner again. There I was, sitting in a classroom for foreigners learning Swedish, fumbling through sentences a five-year-old could manage. The room was full of strangers. We had nothing in common. A dentist. Engineers. People who’d come for love, for work or for school. A few had no choice but to leave home. But inside that room, we were all beginners. That shared confusion did something: we became friends. A man from Ghana and I bonded over feeling completely lost. And because of that shared experience, it got easier for us to speak Swedish badly out loud. We took more risks with the language because neither of us feared looking foolish in front of the other. When I first walked into that classroom, I didn’t know anyone’s story. What I saw was a room of adults mangling their introductions. What was actually there were decades of careers, entire identities – all set aside to start over for reasons I’d never have guessed sitting next to them. That’s the part of coaching nobody tells you about. At work, what you see in others is only a small slice of their day. What’s actually shaping it is usually invisible. So how do you make space for all of that without making it awkward or overstepping? The answer isn’t to automatically know everyone’s full story. It’s to coach as if there’s always more beneath the surface that you can’t see. Here’s how to get started:

01. Get Curious About the Iceberg

You only ever see the tip. Don’t fill in the rest with guesses. I saw this most clearly when I was fencing at the World Cup. I was competing alongside a teammate from Algeria. It was Ramadan. She was fasting. That meant she had to be up before dawn to eat enough to carry her through the day – which could stretch to 12 hours if her results were good enough to keep her in the competition longer. To most of the room, she just looked a little quieter than usual and slower to warm up. A few competitors assumed she was having an off day. Our coach knew better, and so did the rest of us on her team. So we adjusted around her without making it a production: quieter check-ins, no unnecessary chatter before her matches, and extra time built into her breaks. Nobody outside our circle saw any of that. They just saw the tip of it, a fencer who seemed a little off. The rest – the fasting, the fatigue, the discipline it took to compete at that level while managing both – was entirely beneath the surface. This shows up in offices, too. If someone’s gone quieter lately, replies slower, seems distracted, don’t start with what you think is going on. (“You’re upset you didn’t get to lead the project.”) Ask something genuinely open instead: “I’ve noticed you’re a bit quieter lately. How are things landing for you this week?” You won’t get the full picture on the first question. But if you stay curious, you’ll be able to keep the conversation going until you actually start to understand what’s happening.

02. Build Real Psychological Safety

Safety isn’t niceness. It isn’t a shield from accountability. It’s a pattern people can predict. The Swedish classroom built safety in the way that any team environment can. People admitted what they didn’t know without it costing them. (None of us knew the language, after all.) That’s what Harvard leadership professor Amy Edmondson calls psychological safety. It’s the belief that speaking up won’t get you punished or humiliated. Safety isn’t announced; it’s demonstrated. Naming your own mistake plainly (“I misjudged the timeline on the client deliverable last week. I should have flagged it two days earlier.”) teaches people more than any values deck. They calibrate their own willingness to take risks based on what leaders do, not what’s written on a wall.

03. Balance Support and Accountability

Curiosity isn’t softness. It’s finding out what someone needs and still holding the line. Safety and standards aren’t a trade-off. They work as a pair. Without both, you get either comfort or anxiety, not real performance. When someone’s struggling to hit a deadline, keep the standard and the support as two separate moves. First, state the standard plainly: “This needs to ship Friday.” Then ask a separate question: “What would help you get there? More time, fewer meetings or something else?” Keeping those distinct means the bar doesn’t move; the support around it does. That’s what stops flexibility from quietly becoming a lowered standard. Nobody lowered the bar for my teammate at that World Cup. The standard never changed. What changed was the support around her, which allowed her to meet the standard. The iceberg doesn’t disappear because you ignore it either. It just keeps shaping what you see without you knowing why. Stay curious. Build safety as a pattern, not a policy. Coaching across differences isn’t about lowering standards. It’s about coaching the person who’s on your team.

Key Takeaways:

  • What you see is the tip of the iceberg. Ask open questions that leave room for an answer you didn’t expect, instead of filling gaps with assumptions.

  • Safety is shown, not announced. Naming your own mistakes plainly teaches people more than any policy on the wall.

  • Keep the standard and the support separate. Set the bar clearly, then ask what would help your team member meet it. The bar doesn’t move. The support does.

Great leadership, especially when coaching others, does not always come naturally. The way you normally interact may feel comfortable, but it is not always what a person or situation needs. Sometimes an abnormal approach works best. That’s why strong leaders think carefully about how they show up in coaching conversations. Even a small change in approach can make a big difference in how well a message is received. Take a few common situations. You might have someone on your team who lacks confidence. Anne, for example, is capable and thoughtful, but she often defers to more senior people. Your instinct might be to tell her to speak up. But that rarely works on its own. A better approach is to help Anne recognize her value. Point out where her thinking is strong and create low-pressure opportunities for her to present her ideas. In this case, you are not building competence; you are building confidence. That requires a different kind of conversation. Or consider a high performer like Martin, who keeps getting in his own way because of poor interpersonal skills. You may need to challenge his assumptions about what is acceptable behaviour. That can be uncomfortable, especially if you dislike confrontation or have already formed a negative opinion about his intentions. How will your coaching conversation style help Martin receive the message while also feeling your support?

Why Coaching Conversation Styles Matter

We all have a “go-to” interpersonal style, often shaped by what has worked for us in the past. But effective leaders are flexible. They adjust their approach based on the person in front of them and what they are trying to achieve. At the centre of that flexibility are conversations. As leadership expert Susan Scott says, “The conversation is the relationship.” If you want stronger relationships and better performance, you need to be more intentional about how you have conversations. Below is a useful assessment tool to help you reflect on conversations you may want to have with a person or a team. The tool looks at five behavioural dimensions.

Five Conversational Behaviours to Track

Adjust Your Natural Coaching Conversation Style

The tool below can help you adjust your conversational style for different situations.* STEP 1: Assess Your Natural Style STEP 2: Consider The Situation STEP 3: Compare And Adjust  

Think About Your Impact

As a coach, it is important to think about both your impact and your goals for the person you are coaching. It helps to ask yourself what you want the other person to gain from the conversation. Keep in mind that your natural tendencies often become stronger during important or stressful conversations. Before a high-stakes discussion, especially one connected to a person’s development, take time to reflect on your style using the scales above. You may decide to adjust your approach depending on your goal. Are you trying to teach a new skill? Mentor someone through office politics? Gain insight by listening and asking questions? Or confront a behaviour that needs to change? Different goals require different coaching conversation styles.

Learning From Difficult Conversations

In our workshops, we ask participants to think about a conversation that did not go well. We ask them to score themselves on each scale based on what happened in that conversation and how they behaved, and then reflect on what they might do differently if they had another chance. One participant chose a conversation that had quickly gone off track. The employee had failed to share important information that would have changed the project timeline. The employee was talented but junior, introverted, and not naturally expressive. They rarely shared ideas unless someone asked them directly. In this case, no one asked. What would have been the best coaching style for this employee? What numbers would you circle on the scales? And how closely would that approach match your natural style? The supervisor’s normal style was high control, fast-paced, highly expressive and somewhat critical, with lower levels of positive reinforcement. The supervisor entered the conversation feeling frustrated and reactive. His goal, he believed, was to understand why the employee remained silent and to coach them on the importance of sharing information and ideas with teammates, even when not asked. Those were important coaching goals. Unfortunately, because he was upset, the manager became highly controlling, highly expressive and highly critical during the discussion. Later, he realized he had handled the conversation poorly. Given this employee’s profile – talented, junior, introverted, and non-expressive – the manager needed to dial down his need for control, slow the conversation down, and build the employee’s self-awareness by asking clarifying questions. He should also have listened non-judgmentally, asked how he could help in the future, and worked on strategies for the employee to use when feeling this kind of pressure in a more senior group. The goal: help the employee see the value in speaking up for themselves and for the team. It was a great opportunity to teach leadership skills, recognize the knowledge the employee held, and build confidence. When you are working with a valuable employee over the long term, trust and respect matter. Difficult moments are often when those qualities are tested most. It helps to identify small, specific adjustments that can improve your effectiveness as a leader and coach while still getting the job done. Often, this requires conscious effort and clear focus during the conversation. This conversational scale can be a great assist in planning the conversation. Good conversations are the vehicle through which good coaching travels.

Key Takeaways:

  • Your default style isn’t always the right style. Comfort isn’t the goal; what the person or situation needs is.

  • Confidence and competence are built differently. A team member who lacks confidence doesn’t need to be told to speak up. They need low-pressure chances to be seen.

  • Five dimensions shape every coaching conversation: control, pace, energy, expression, and tone. Naming where you sit, and where the moment calls for you to sit, is what makes a conversation intentional.

  • Your natural style gets stronger under pressure, not weaker. It’s easy to default to your natual style in the exact moment that calls for the opposite.

  • The conversation is the relationship. Small, deliberate adjustments, not big gestures, build the trust that difficult moments test.

*Credit to Robin Pratt for the development of this tool drawn from the work of Sport Psychologist Robert Neidifer; Test for Attentional and Interpersonal Style

Meet our expert: Peggy Baumgartner, Chief Learning Officer

Peggy Baumgartner is an expert in developing top performers across business and sport. A master-level certified TAIS coach and Third Factor’s Chief Learning Officer, Peggy has spent 25+ years helping leaders and athletes build self-awareness and perform at their best — including four Olympic cycles with the Canadian Women’s Hockey Team. She teaches in executive programs at Queen’s Smith School of Business and UNC Kenan-Flagler, has published in Harvard Business Review, and leads the design of Third Factor’s flagship coaching programs.

“How Do I Keep My Team Focused and Engaged When Change Won’t Stop And We Are at Capacity?”

Some people think that when things get crazy busy, holding it together means looking invincible, projecting strength, and appearing like you can do it all. But that’s not authentic, and it doesn’t improve performance. If we want our people to be real and vulnerable in the face of uncertainty, we must model that behaviour. That means making it safe for people to share their real experiences. I once watched Third Factor founder Peter Jensen work with Canada’s Olympic synchronized swimming team. It was just prior to the Olympic Games, and this team had medal potential, so the media started to take notice. Suddenly, athletes who rarely saw cameras were surrounded by them. The coach used the opportunity to sit down with her athletes: “I don’t know about you, but with all this media presence, I’m feeling really nervous,” she told them. That one admission gave everyone else permission to say the same thing. And then she added: “This is going to feel like the Games. So what do we want to do with what we’re feeling?” During tough periods, we need to harness our emotions. That’s because people don’t change based on logic; they change based on emotion. As leaders, our job is to make it safe for real emotions to surface so we can work on them together and use the energy beneath our emotions to move forward. And to accomplish that, you need to focus on the relationships you have with your people.

Building, maintaining, and deepening relationships

The deeper your connection with your team, the greater your influence. That relationship is the pipeline through which all communication flows. If that pipeline is clogged or doesn’t exist, it means that when you need strong communication the most, it won’t happen. Which brings me to energy. We often frame the feeling of being overwhelmed as a time management problem. And so we ask ourselves: Where do I find additional time? But many leaders are already great at time management, and that question won’t get you far. The better question is: Where can I find the energy? Pay attention as you move through your day. When does time seem to fly? What fills you up? What are your strengths? You will have far more energy working on things you feel you do well, and it’s remarkable how much gets done when energy is high and how little when it’s depleted. And this isn’t just about you. A big part of your job right now is making sure your people have the energy to do what they need to do. They need to believe in themselves and believe they have the trust and relationship with the person who matters most to them: their leader. And finally, when things do get hard, here is the one habit worth picking up: Stop listening to yourself and start talking to yourself. During hard times, the inner critic gets loud. This is so hard. I’m not on top of things. I can’t do this. The best performers don’t silence that voice by ignoring it. They pause and ask: Is it true? Yes, work is often hard. But does hard mean you’re not good at it? No. It might mean a task is new or difficult. It might mean you’re doing something no one has figured out yet. Get clear on what’s actually true and lead from there.

Sustainable leadership for the long haul

Leading through relentless change is genuinely hard. And somewhere in the middle of keeping your team focused, your strategy on track, and your organization moving, it is easy to forget that you are also a person who needs to take care of themselves. The most effective leaders right now are not the ones who have it all figured out. They are the ones who stay honest with themselves, invest in the relationships that matter, manage their energy with the same intention they bring to their calendar, and extend to themselves the same patience and encouragement they would offer anyone on their team. Change will keep coming. The question is not whether you can outrun it. The question is whether you are leading in a way that is sustainable for you and the people counting on you. Be kind to yourself. That is not soft advice. It is how you stay in the game.  
This question and answer are adapted from a webinar hosted by Queen’s Executive Education featuring a panel led by Dr. Laurence Ashworth (Chair of Queen’s Executive Education), and panelists Peggy Baumgartner (Chief Learning Officer, Third Factor), Dr. Julian Barling (Smith School of Business Professor and Borden Chair of Leadership), and Dr. Lobna Chérif (Royal Military College’s Chair in Resilience). To watch the full Queen’s Executive Education Webinar, click this link.

Key Takeaways:

  • Vulnerability is a leadership tool, not a weakness. When leaders model honesty about what they’re experiencing, they give their teams permission to do the same.

  • Overwhelm is an energy problem, not a time management problem. Ask where you can find energy, not where you can find more hours.

  • Relationships are your pipeline. The deeper your connection with your people, the more effectively communication flows when it matters most.

  • Stop listening to yourself and start talking to yourself. When the inner critic gets loud, pause and ask: is it true? Get clear on what’s actually true, and lead from there.

  • Sustainable leadership requires caring for yourself, not just your team. The leaders who last are the ones who manage their own energy with the same intention they bring to everything else.