Over the past several weeks—and especially after the shocking events in Minneapolis this past weekend—many employees are arriving at work carrying far more than their to-do lists. They are grieving, angry, fearful, exhausted, and experiencing a deep sense of uncertainty. Even when these events happen far from the office, their emotional impact does not stay neatly contained outside of work hours. For leaders, this moment presents a quiet but consequential challenge: how to acknowledge the weight people are carrying without overstepping, how to provide steadiness without pretending everything is fine, and how to lead with humanity when answers are scarce.
What makes the biggest difference in moments like this are TNTs (tiny noticeable things). Small, intentional leadership choices that reduce uncertainty, restore a sense of control, and signal to people—often without many words—that they are not alone.
These TNTs will help you feel better positioned to help your teams today, this week, and beyond as the news cycle, the AI conversation, and more continue.
1. Create predictability anchors, not just flexibility. When the world feels chaotic, people scan their environments for stability and safety cues. Identify one or two things that will not change this week—meeting cadence, response-time expectations, or decision processes—and name them explicitly. Predictability doesn’t mean being rigid; it means offering a reliable foundation so teams can focus on problem-solving and collaboration. This steadiness becomes a form of trust, helping people stay engaged, resilient, and able to perform at their best.
2. Lower the cognitive load. Stress from disturbing events can drain a person’s cognitive bandwidth, even if output expectations remain the same. You can try narrowing priorities to one or two outcomes for your team for this week. You can cancel a meeting, extend a deadline, or temporarily pause a non-essential project to give people some emotional and cognitive bandwidth. When leaders show up consistently—communicating clearly, following through on commitments, and responding to challenges in steady, grounded ways—they reduce cognitive load and quiet the anxiety that depletes people’s energy.
3. Normalize variability. Many employees feel pressure to “act normal” at work, which quietly compounds stress. A brief permission statement from a leader (“People will be in different places this week, and that’s okay”) reduces emotional suppression, which is also a strong predictor of burnout.
4. Set the tone at the edges of the day. Ask people privately to name a word that describes how they are arriving today (or do it together as a team, if appropriate). You can say “take care of yourself tonight” when people leave. Here are three other questions that land better than “How are you doing?”
- What has your attention right now? That gives people a measure of control to decide how to answer and will likely lead to something more specific than “fine.”
- What kind of day have you had?
- What do you need help with today, this week, or short term?
5. Notice & name small wins. As you navigate stress this week and beyond, notice and name small wins. These minor milestones and events often evoke outsized positive reactions and signal progress. Noticing small wins fuels the belief that together, you are on the right track and can handle both big and small obstacles.
6. Watch for lagging signals of stress. Teams often “hold it together” in the immediate aftermath of stressful events. Stress may show up later as irritability, withdrawal, errors, or decision paralysis. As a result, it’s important that leaders don’t assume that silence equals resilience. It’s important to proactively check in again in the coming weeks, when support may also be needed.
Importantly, organizations need to give managers the time, bandwidth, and tools to support their teams. Leaders do not need the right words or a perfect response to lead well in moments like this. What your team will remember is whether you noticed, whether you reduced uncertainty where you could, and whether you created enough steadiness for them to keep going. Choose one small TNT this week—clarify a priority, name what will stay the same, celebrate a small win, or check in again when others have moved on. In periods of collective stress, leadership is less about saying more and more about being reliably human.
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