How to Manage a Hothead

The people part of business

We all saw it. Travis Kelce had a temper tantrum, yelling at Hall of Fame coach Andy Reid to put him in the game. This was the Super Bowl! Here's the clip if you haven't seen it … 

I can't imagine a more stressful moment in sports. You are Travis Kelce; your third Super Bowl victory is slipping away, and you are on the sidelines. Every competitive bone in your body demands that you be put in that game! 

But who was the real competitor here? 

Let’s look at that clip again.  Kelce, the warrior, loses it.  But Reid doesn’t even turn his head - he’s laser-focused on the game. The only time Reid turns his head to look at Kelce is when Kelce grabs him, and Reid nearly loses his balance when he’s pushed. He must react. For a second. Then Reid dismissively and quickly turns back to the game. A teammate pulls Kelce away.

How would you have handled Travis Kelce's tirade if you'd been Coach Reid? Everyone's commenting on Travis's behavior, but I don't think he's the one to focus on. And no, it's not Taylor. Instead, let's look at Coach Reid's response. 

Reid, in that moment, showed us one of the most essential leadership skills I can think of: regulating your emotions. Strong leaders control their feelings in the face of strong negative emotions. And the team will key off of this. But why is this so important to leadership? 

The Hot Potato

In my psychoanalytic training, I heard a great metaphor. When faced with our patient's anger or even rage, we can feel like they've thrown a hot potato at us, and our instinct can be to throw it right back, maybe even hotter than before. But that's not our job. Our job instead is to hold the metaphorical hot potato until it cools and then hand it back. This requires absorbing the "heat" and keeping our cool. 

When you look at the clip, that's exactly what Coach Reid did with Kelce.  Holding the “hot potato” gives time for reflection.

How did Coach Reid do it? And how can we, as leaders, parents, coaches, or managers, take a page from his book?  

Coach Reid’s Playbook

At the time of the Super Bowl, leadership was on my mind. I'd just attended Harvard Business School's executive leadership program, which I've been attending for nine years. Arthur Brooks was an instructor this year who just authored Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier with Oprah. His class was about managing our emotions.

Coach Reid’s calm management of Kelce’s anger reminded me of what I’d just learned from Arthur Brooks.  Brooks described using metacognition to better regulate emotions. Metacognition is thinking about how we're thinking. Being aware and intentional about how we process the world around us helps us make better decisions. According to Brooks, we can lead happier lives when we tap into these metacognitive skills. Coach Reid is an excellent example of someone adept at metacognition.

Reflect Rather Than React

Reid is an intentional leader, and rather than reacting, he takes time and space to reflect on his response to the world and, in this case, to Kelce's anger.   Brooks talked about taking 30 seconds before saying something in the heat of anger. He also talked about playing out the possible consequences of what you want to say as a powerful way to give yourself space. He described this skill as pulling in your brain's CEO, the prefrontal cortex, to think through your options more carefully.

Taking time to reflect rather than react is powerful. In other blogs, I discussed the writing of Victor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, psychiatrist, and philosopher. Dr. Frankl wrote that one of the most powerful ways we make meaning of our lives is through how we choose to respond to our circumstances. Here's how he put it, and it's one of my favorite quotes: 

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Intentional leaders like Coach Reid take that space to respond rather than react.

Prayers of Petition

Arthur Brooks also talked about the power of prayer, even for non-believers. He described the power of getting our thoughts out in prayer, even if we're not sure God is listening, as we articulate for ourselves how we're thinking and feeling.

Prayer is no doubt a part of Coach Reid's life. After meeting his wife at Brigham Young University (BYU), where he played football, Reid became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and found strength in his faith.   Reid's faith is central to who he is and how he lives. His faith shapes his approach to coaching and to his players.  As Reid put it, “If I’m not doing football or family, then I’m not doing anything. I’m not a golfer. I don’t go fishing or all that stuff. It’s either family or football or church.” 

Research shows again and again that adults with strong faith are happier and less vulnerable to depression. Prayer has also been found to increase gratitude. We don't need to be religious to harness the power of faith; it's believing in something bigger than ourselves and tapping into it that matters. In an earlier book, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life,  Arthur Brooks describes the impact of faith on our lives.

When you spend serious time and effort focused on transcendental things, it puts your little world into proper context and takes the focus off yourself. Most of our days, I am thinking me, me, me. It's like watching the same dreary television show, over and over, all day long. It's so boring. Faith forces me into the cosmos, to consider the source of truth, the origin of life, and the good of others. This focus brings refreshment and relief.

Build and Harness Your Resilience

As a father of five kids, Coach Reid faced his share of life's adversity. In 2012, he lost his son to a drug overdose. An article in the Salt Lake Tribune describes Reid's loss of his son and how it impacted him as a coach. 

Reid, despite his gruff exterior, is almost universally beloved by his players and opponents alike. He has also been willing to give troubled players a second chance, including Tyreek Hill, who was involved in a domestic violence incident and Terrell Owens, the talented but controversial receiver who played for Reid in Philadelphia. Reid, who lost his son to a drug overdose, seems to believe in redemption.

Reid's resilience through this devastating loss deepened rather than destroyed him. His compassion and the belief that people can change for the better was strengthened by his adversity. In her book about five great historical leaders, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times, Nancy Koehn describes how great leaders, such as Abraham Lincoln, survived and even grew through adversity:

They came out on the other side of calamity without falling through the floorboards of doubt, without giving up on their mission and themselves. Because they survived, their missions and the other people who were invested in such effort—not only those who lived in that particular moment but also all the people going forward who were affected by what these leaders did—also survived. And this, at some fundamental level, was everything.

One of the key themes this year at HBS was that leadership is a verb, and it's about setting the conditions so that others can be the best versions of themselves. It's not just that Reid lives life the way he does; it's how he impacts those around him - it’s how he “sets the table.”Kelce did apologize to Coach Reid for his behavior when his big brother, Jason Kelce, called him out on their podcast.  I can’t help but think that Reid’s response to Kelce’s anger allowed Kelce to step back after the fact and take stock of his actions.

As I wrote in a past blog, superior athletes and performers often shine a light on life's fundamental principles in vivid ways we can emulate. They inspire us to be better versions of ourselves.  

Questions for Reflection

• When has someone helped you by holding your hot potato?

• When have you been able to hold the hot potato for someone else?

• What is your best tip for regulating emotions in the heat of the moment?

I’d love to hear your tips and tricks for regulating tough emotions. You can add it to the comments or reply to this email.