We are excited to share with you the next interview in our “Beyond the Page” series featuring Scott Drexler.
Chaos is no longer a rare event. It is the default setting for leaders who are trying to deliver results while information, technology, and expectations accelerate around them. I sit down with coach Scott Drexler, author of “Coaching on the Edge: Helping Leaders Perform When Chaos is the operating environment,” to get practical about what actually helps when there is no time, no slack, and no margin for error.
Scott brings a high reliability organizations lens shaped by years as a U.S. Navy SEAL, firefighter, EMT, emergency manager, and now a federal internal coach. We unpack what a sustained COVID-19 response revealed about rotating teams, leadership fatigue, and why “response” is only half the story. The other half is preparedness: training habits in calm moments so they hold when the pressure spikes. We also dig into his research on the inner cue blind spot, the way capable leaders can lose contact with the internal signals that keep judgment sharp and teams safe, especially under data overload.
A standout takeaway is Scott’s idea that the most important leadership coaching can happen in the 10 minutes between events. We talk about how coaches and managers can create micro-pauses, ask focused reflection questions, and “keep the receipt” from hard experiences so learning compounds instead of disappearing. If you coach executives, lead a team, or want a repeatable approach to crisis leadership, you will leave with tools you can use in one-on-ones tomorrow.
In this episode, I talk with Scott about his article published in our June 2026 issue.
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