E + R = O: Where Leadership Really Lives

Why influence, confidence, and control are found in your response — not the event

As responsibility increases, something else increases alongside it.

Pressure.

Decisions matter more. Consequences last longer. And the margin for emotional reaction gets smaller.

Over time, even highly capable people can begin to feel that life is happening to them rather than with them. Not because they lack skill or intent, but because pressure shortens thinking.

This is where a simple principle becomes profoundly useful.

E plus R equals O.
Events plus Response equals Outcome.

It is not a slogan. It is a description of how leadership actually works.

The illusion of control

Most people intuitively believe that outcomes are created by events.

The meeting went badly.
The feedback knocked my confidence.
The decision was out of my hands.

And of course, events matter. Often they are unfair, unexpected, or genuinely difficult.

But when we quietly assume that events determine outcomes, we give away something important.

Influence.

Because if the event controls the outcome, then our role is reduced to reaction. And reaction, under pressure, is rarely where our best leadership shows up.

Viktor Frankl and the limits of circumstance

This idea is not new, and it did not come from leadership theory.

It came from Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist who survived Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. Frankl lost his family, his freedom, his career, and almost his life.

If anyone had reason to believe that events alone determine outcomes, it was him.

Yet Frankl observed something deeply challenging. People in the same camps, under the same conditions, responded very differently. Some collapsed inward. Others retained dignity, purpose, and humanity.

From this, Frankl concluded that even when everything else is taken away, one freedom remains. The freedom to choose one’s attitude. The freedom to decide how to respond.

He later captured this insight in Man’s Search for Meaning, a book that has sold more than 16 million copies worldwide and continues to be studied today. Not because it offers comfort, but because it speaks honestly about responsibility.

Frankl was not denying suffering. He was clarifying where control actually sits.

Stephen Covey and the pause

Decades later, Stephen Covey translated Frankl’s insight into everyday leadership.

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which has sold over 40 million copies worldwide, Covey described what he called the space between stimulus and response.

A pause.

In that pause, he argued, lies our freedom.

This was not abstract philosophy. It was practical leadership. The ability to pause long enough to choose a response rather than default to habit.

That pause is where leadership lives.

Why this matters in real leadership

I did not come to this principle through books alone.

I have spent much of my working life in environments where pressure was real and consequences mattered. In the military, in business, and later as a CEO, decisions were rarely neat and almost never made with perfect information.

What I learned early on is this.

Pressure does not create behaviour.
It reveals it.

I have seen highly capable people struggle not because of the events they faced, but because of how they responded to them. And I have seen others navigate complexity well, not because life was easier, but because they understood how to pause, think, and choose.

As an executive coach working with senior leaders and founders, I see the same pattern repeatedly. The work is rarely about intelligence or effort. It is about awareness.

About response.

Understanding the formula

The formula itself is simple.

E is the Event.
The meeting that went badly. The feedback that stung. The decision you were not part of. The plan that did not work out.

Most events are outside our control.

R is the Response.
Not just what we say or do, but what we think, the meaning we attach, and the assumptions we make under pressure.

Most responses are habitual. That is human. But habits create patterns, and patterns create outcomes.

O is the Outcome.
The result we experience. The impact on relationships. The direction things move next.

Same event. Different response. Different outcome.

A small, personal example

I was reminded of this myself recently.

I was involved in work I cared about and had invested real thought and energy into. It did not land well. The feedback was blunt, and some of it felt unfair. My immediate internal response was defensive. I was already justifying myself.

That was the event.

What mattered was the response.

I paused. I did not reply straight away. When I returned to it, I asked a simple question.

What response here gives me the outcome I actually want?

Not the outcome that proves I am right, but the outcome that moves things forward.

I listened more carefully than I wanted to. I took what was useful and let the rest go.

The outcome was not dramatic, but it mattered. The relationship strengthened. The work improved. And my own energy stayed intact.

Same event. Different response. Different outcome.

Responsibility without blame

Responsibility is often misunderstood.

It is not blame. It is not self criticism. And it is not pretending that things do not hurt.

Responsibility is ownership.

It is recognising that while we may not control what happens, we always influence what happens next.

When we stop asking “Why is this happening to me?” and start asking “How do I want to respond to this?”, something shifts.

Influence returns.

Confidence reconsidered

Many people think confidence comes from certainty.

It does not.

Confidence comes from trusting your ability to respond well, even when things are uncertain.

When you know you can pause, choose, and act with intention, pressure loses its grip. You no longer need everything to go your way in order to lead well.

That is freedom.

That is what Frankl was pointing to.
That is what Covey translated.
And that is what E plus R equals O makes practical.

A final thought

Life will continue to present events you did not plan, want, or deserve.

That will not change.

What can change is how you meet them.

Over time, your responses shape your outcomes. Your relationships. Your leadership. Your sense of control.

The event does not decide the outcome.

Your response does.

And that is where leadership really lives.