Fall is here, which means jack-o-lanterns, haunted houses, and ghost stories. But if you’ve ever been in leadership, you know the scariest stories don’t come from the graveyard. Oh no, they might happen right in your office! Leadership manuals, business school courses, and bestselling books can equip you with the skills necessary for strategy, effective communication, and a clear vision. But nothing can fully prepare you for those moments when reality veers into the absurd and you’re left thinking: “This isn’t in any leadership playbook I’ve ever read.”
Welcome to the spooky side of leadership. These aren’t ghost stories. They’re real. And while they might make you laugh or shiver, they also hold lessons in emotional intelligence, staying calm under pressure, and rising above chaos when things get truly frightening.
Every leader has their ghosts! So, here are a couple of mine.
Now I’m going to tell you some truly haunting stories. Scary, because, believe it or not, they’re all completely true.
It was an ordinary workday until two team members got into an argument that escalated well beyond words. Before anyone could intervene, the disagreement turned physical, or at least office physical. Files began to fly down the hallway like a paper-driven poltergeist show. Pages scattered, folders soared, and professionalism vanished in an instant.
In that harrowing moment, I learned (much to my chagrin), there’s no leadership manual titled, “What to Do When Employees Throw Files at Each Other in the Hall.” And yet, we face these unpredictable, very human meltdowns. I knew with my training, education, intuition, and the skills I'd developed as a leader that my role, in that moment, wasn’t to pretend it didn’t happen or to escalate further by yelling. It was to keep calm, separate the storm, and bring people back to a place where accountability and respect can re-enter the room. That can be a very difficult task after an office blowup that leaves team members feeling rattled.
The hallway horror show is a reminder: emotions are contagious. If you meet fire with fire, you only fuel it. If you meet fire with composure, you have a shot at extinguishing it.
Termination stories belong in their own haunted anthology, so brace yourself for this one. On her very last day, a team member who had given her notice properly and was leaving on good terms decided to go out with a bang. Up until then, everything about her exit seemed standard and professional. But instead of wrapping up her work or sharing goodbyes, she shocked everyone by breaking out wine coolers at her desk. Not at all discreetly. She lined the empty bottles up along the edge of her desk like trophies, each one a strange declaration of defiance.
Which leadership podcast prepares you for “desk happy hour” at 10:00 a.m.? None. In this moment, leadership was about dignity. Maintaining professionalism for the firm and even extending a measure of respect to the employee, despite the spectacle, was critical. The solution was quiet removal, a calm address to the team to reassure them, and steady composure to ensure no one followed her lead. It wasn’t easy, but it was the only way through.
Here's the last story, and this one is fit for a horror flick. After being let go, the team member stormed out of the office, ran to the breakroom, and started hurling items out of the refrigerator. Yogurt cups, soda cans, and finally, a bottle of coffee creamer that exploded across the floor like a gruesome scene.
I think you're noticing a theme here, but I'll save you the legwork. There aren't any leadership blogs that dig into the nuances of dodging flying condiments while maintaining team morale.
Still, the lesson is real: you can’t predict human behavior in its most emotional moments. What you can do is stay calm, protect the team, and later, use the event as a teaching moment about resilience and professional boundaries.
These stories probably don't sound all that unusual for leaders who’ve been around long enough. In fact, I bet you've got some that would make my jaw drop…tales of the unexpected that test the very limits of patience and professionalism. Those stories highlight a critical truth: leadership is rarely about perfectly executing a meticulously crafted plan. More often, it’s about navigating the unpredictable with steadiness and grace.
Leadership training can teach principles and best practices, giving you the theoretical framework for success. However, the real differentiator is what you have to develop in yourself: the instincts. These aren't learned from a textbook; they only come from consistent practice, a deep and honest self-awareness, and an unwavering commitment to emotional intelligence. You need to know when to intervene, when to step back, and how to respond authentically when faced with the utterly bizarre.
So what can leaders do when they’re suddenly face-to-face with the ghosts and ghouls of human behavior?
1. Lead with Calm and Emotional Intelligence
When chaos hits, your job is to steady the room. People look to their leader like they look to a lighthouse in the storm. That doesn’t mean ignoring bad behavior; rather, it means controlling your own presence first. Take a breath, lower your tone, and remember that outbursts often come from stress, fear, or frustration. Also, keep in mind that many outbursts have nothing to do with what's going on in the workplace. Every team member has a life outside of the office. By separating the behavior from the person and responding with empathy and firmness, you can work to resolve the crisis and model how the team should respond when emotions run high.
2. Protect the Team
When one person loses control, the rest of the team can easily become swept up in the drama. Your responsibility is to contain the disruption and reassure everyone else that things are under control. Sometimes that means removing the disruption quickly; other times it means simply standing steady in the middle of it so your team knows they aren’t alone. Leaders protect the group, even when it means absorbing the shock of one person’s meltdown.
3. Capture, Learn, and Lean on Support
Once the dust settles, it’s tempting to push the whole episode aside. But real leadership means turning chaos into growth. Document what happened clearly and factually, so rumors don’t take over. Debrief with your team or leadership peers to identify what triggered the event and what could prevent a repeat. And don’t hesitate to lean on resources like HR policies, mentors, or outside consultants. At Vista, we often function as a mediator or objective third party in firm issues. We can offer the steady hand that has seen similar issues and can calm the storm. In fact, our role can sometimes be to wear the black hat and deliver some much-needed realness to both leaders and team members who have stepped out of line.
Handling spooky moments means maintaining focus on the organization and working to ensure everyone learns, adapts, and grows stronger.
4. Normalize Humanity
At the end of the day, these wild “spooky stories” are really just reminders that we’re all human. We all have bad moments. We all make mistakes. We've all done one or two things that don't represent us in the most glowing professional light.
People will bring their full selves to work. That includes their intelligence, skills, strengths, quirks, heartbreaks, joys, and, yes, sometimes their breaking points. And the truth is, people are unpredictable. You can consume every leadership resource out there and still never be fully prepared for the truly wild moments you will inevitably experience as a leader. You can’t plan for them, and you’ll probably carry the memory with you for years. Eventually, you may even laugh about them. But in the moment, the job is to stay steady.
That’s why the most powerful message a leader can send isn’t “things like this never happen here,” but “when things happen, we recover.” A more important truth than perfection is resilience. Incidents don’t have to end with shame or embarrassment. Instead, they can become opportunities to rebuild trust, clarify expectations, and prove that the team can withstand challenges together.
The spooky side of leadership is the very real challenges of leading humans in all their complexity. You’ll never find a manual that covers every bizarre scenario, but you don’t need one. What you need is emotional intelligence, calm under pressure, and the perspective to see even the strangest situations as opportunities to lead with dignity. Make space for imperfection and unpredictability. Send the message that no one is defined by their worst day (not even you!). People will make mistakes. They will act out of stress, fear, or frustration. But what matters most is how the team comes back together afterward. Leaders who acknowledge that truth create cultures where team members feel safe enough to admit errors, seek support, and bounce back stronger.
Working with people is messy, unpredictable, and often surprising. But it’s also what makes leadership meaningful. Those “spooky” moments are proof that the workplace is filled with human beings, not robots. And while you can’t prepare for everything, you can prepare yourself to be calm, compassionate, and focused when the unexpected inevitably arrives.
Spooky office occurrences don’t have to leave you feeling haunted. They can leave you a stronger leader. And that’s the real treat of the spooky season of leadership.
