In my decades working with major Australian organisations on their leadership capability and safety cultures, I’ve seen the same scene play out countless times. A senior leader, a top performer who excels at the technical side of their job, is in a meeting. A project has gone off the rails, a major client is unhappy, or the deadlines are simply unrealistic. The leader’s face flushes, their voice rises, and they fire a sharp, cutting remark at a team member. They’ve totally lost their cool.

This isn’t just a personal slip-up; it’s a failure of emotional awareness in the workplace. And as a leader, this one moment can undo months of talk about 'culture' and 'people-first' values. It creates a crack in the foundation of psychological safety that can take years to repair.

The natural response for most leaders after such an incident is to focus on personal stress management - more mindfulness, better diet, or a weekend break. This is where we consistently see the biggest mistake in modern leadership, because too often we confuse two distinct concepts: personal well-being and wellness at work.

As a corporate training organisation, we’re out to demystify complex behavioural issues and keep things congruent. We know that personal well-being is multi-dimensional - it’s about financial security, physical health, social life, and a sense of community. While an organisation can support these areas with initiatives like financial literacy training or gym memberships, this is largely the individual’s domain.

Wellness at work, however, is the organisation’s direct and non-negotiable responsibility. It relates purely to the employee’s experience within the workplace environment, culture, and social interactions. In Australia, recent WHS amendments put psychological and psychosocial hazards on equal footing with physical risks. As leaders, our job is to mitigate the hazards of psychological harm in the same way we approach a potential physical injury.

This is the key insight an emotionally intelligent leader must grasp - when you lose your cool, you are not just having a bad day; you’re creating a psychological hazard for your team. The high-pressure environment did not make you snap; the pressure revealed a systemic fault in how the work is managed, organised, or supported. True leader stress management is therefore not about forcing yourself to breathe deeply while the pressure cooker explodes around you; it is about fixing the lid.

What does this look like in practice? It means shifting your focus from treating the stress (which is personal wellbeing) to removing the stressor (which is wellness at work).

First, be congruent and address the issue directly, just as you would an issue of physical safety. If you see a rise in absenteeism, fatigue, or defensive behaviour, you must apply a risk management framework to the work design itself. Ask these questions:

Are our job demands consistently unrealistic?

Are we managing change poorly, leading to fatigue and confusion?

Are we providing clear instructions, or just assuming people know 'how things are done around here'?

The next time you feel the pressure building and the temperature rising, stop. Take a breath, not for your personal calm, but to prevent the release of a workplace hazard.

Recognise that your response is the highest form of leadership. Your self-control, your respect, and your measured, problem-solving approach in that moment is the greatest cultural signal you can send. It shows your team that their wellness at work is a non-negotiable priority, not just an entry on a poster. That is the definition of a truly emotionally intelligent leader.