Week 2 — Calm in the Storm

The Project Manager’s Practice of Inner Stillness

Series: Self-Reflection & Self-Leadership for Project Managers (Week 2/6)

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Last Thursday afternoon I got a call from my boss, he was very upset and stressed.

Department X had requested a server and it was for a critical reason, the old server had broken down and department Y used surveillance cameras to protect employees and now the cameras were not working because of the broken down server. He had quickly surveyed options and the solution was to activate an old server that was currently not in use. The technician who got the work order had replied that this was not in line with their standards and refused to set the server up. My boss got furious and explained to the technician that the law regulated the use of surveillance cameras for department Y and that the law was overriding the IT standards. He demanded the technician to deliver the server.

Relations went sour, more people got involved and after a couple of hours we understood that department X, that requested the server in the first place, had not been giving us the full information. As a result a colleague of mine got criticized by our boss in a Teams meeting where I was also a participant.

My boss got more and more agitated, so I told him kindly to breathe and calm down. Then I said: “Before we decide the next move, can we try to find out what’s actually true right now?”

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward; it was necessary. In that small pause, the temperature dropped, and people began to think instead of react. Facts replaced assumptions. The storm didn’t disappear, but the eye of it had moved—to the Team.

After 24 hours we had uncovered that department X was changing the system managing the surveillance cameras because they had not handled the life cycle management of the old server and lost control of the old system and could not manage it anymore. This was of course a failure that they did not want anyone to know of, so they told us the server had broken down, which was not true.

That sentence induced a short pause — ten deliberate seconds — that wasn’t passivity. It was leadership in motion. The most calm person in the room had just become the most useful one.

The storm is not the meeting

Every project has its weather. Schedules change, dependencies fail, emails arrive like gusts of wind. But the real storm rarely lives outside—it brews in your nervous system and in the people running, stressing and rushing the work.

When you face a deadline that tightens or expectations that collide, we often respond with the reflex of speed: talk faster, decide faster, move faster. Yet calmness, paradoxically, is not a brake that slows us down. It’s a stabilizer. The calm project managers doesn’t delay the response, they improve it.

Philosophy in practice

Here are three examples of where philosophy have something to teach us about the value of that ten-second pause.

Stoicism calls it the inner citadel, the one place where all the external chaos are not allowed to trespass unless invited by ourselves. The Stoic doesn’t deny turbulence; we prepare for it. The art lies in knowing the difference between what you can affect and what you must stand through.

Taoism offers another metaphor: still water reflects clearly. When we calm ourselves and the agitation stops, the reflection of the situation is clear, and the right path often reveals itself on its own. The Taoist leader doesn’t fight the river; they learn its shape.

Zen goes further still—calmness is not seen as a withdrawal, but precision. In the Zen archery tradition, I used to practice archery therefore I like this metaphor, the arrow leaves the string when the archer’s breath and focus align. Calmness is not being passive; it brings accuracy.

For project managers, these teachings merge into a simple truth: the ability to pause—mentally, emotionally, even physically—is not absence of control; it is control.

Try this thought model

Next time you sense chaos rising—whether it’s a meeting, a deadline, or a stakeholder storm—try this short internal script:

“I will not let borrowed urgency decide for me.
I will see clearly first, then move.”

That’s it. A 10-second recalibration between thought and action. It’s the cognitive equivalent of putting both hands back on the steering wheel before taking the next turn.

If you start your day by practicing that line, even once, you are already shaping the nervous system of your leadership.

Below we will dive into some interesting research around the calmness and how we can become the Eye of the Storm.