On November 10th, my father died of brain cancer. I knew it was coming and had been able to prepare. A few months earlier, in September, my siblings and I were informed that his disease — a rapidly advancing glioblastoma — was late-stage. Oncologists gave him roughly three months to live once they’d confirmed the diagnosis.
The unfortunate and too often overlooked part of losing a parent, friend or loved one, other than the event itself, is that it’s only really happening to you. Life doesn’t stop moving on in the background when your dad gets sick. In my case, I spent the weeks leading up to his death processing the complicated emotions accompanying the fact that my father, a man who was challenging to have a relationship with for most of my life, would soon be permanently removed from it. At the same time, in my management consulting career, I still had projects, deadlines and work to do in spite of my diminished capacity. Life continued to chug along at its usual pace.
A blessing throughout the whole ordeal was that my team at work proved tremendously sympathetic to my situation. They gave me the space and freedom to manage what was going on in my personal life and the ability to step away from my responsibilities whenever necessary. My colleagues, like me, understood that life is full of more important things than our careers. Coming out of it all, I learned how I like to be treated and how good leaders should respond when an employee faces a significant personal hurdle.
There are no more emergencies
Losing a friend or family member has a way of shaping your priorities or perspectives. If you ask anyone who’s lost a parent, they’d likely tell you that it results in a bit of introspection around your mortality. Death is inherently more impactful when it’s personal, and seeing it up close brings a host of anxieties and emotions that are difficult to parse. Moreover, stressors like work emergencies or project deliverables tend to fade into the background. It’s hard to care about the mundane when you’re suddenly carrying around a much heavier weight.
One of the lessons I learned through my own lived experience was the importance of having people around to shoulder some of the day-to-day burden. Nobody at your job can take away the personal angst and agitation, but they help alleviate some of the everyday sources of stress and pressure. In short, for someone managing a personal loss, there should be no more “emergencies” in the workplace. When you’re watching someone die, things like crafting great client presentations move down the totem pole. Good leaders recognize this and take proactive steps to redistribute responsibilities, alleviate burdens and balance the needs of the organization with the needs of their people. People move on from loss or grief, but they’ll remember how you treated them when it was their whole world.
Employees might not speak up
The problem with good employees is that they want to do good work. Sometimes, that desire gets in the way of them sharing the depth of their needs or the extent of their diminished capacity to deliver. In a lot of ways, it’s similar to an athlete trying to play through an injury. If your star wide receiver decides he can gut out the fourth quarter with an injured ankle, that’s great news, right up until he aggravates the injury and misses the next five games.
As much as I’d encourage anyone dealing with death or illness to speak up about their needs, I’m also not naïve enough to assume that everyone will. That’s when emotional intelligence and attentiveness as a leader become so important. There are ways to provide people space without taking away their power or pressing them too closely for details.
To give a specific example of how my situation was handled when I found out about my father’s terminal diagnosis, I was in the midst of helping lead a relatively time-intensive project. I informed my team and leadership of what was going on. However, I volunteered to continue working on the project, simply stepping away when I needed to. Regardless, knowing, rather transparently, that I wasn’t my best self, my practice’s leadership took steps to insulate me by shifting my focus to some slower-paced client engagements and internal initiatives. I hadn’t said anything to indicate that what I had on my plate was too much, but nobody ever allowed it to get to that point.
Don’t punish their honesty
Given that most people don’t retire until their 60s or 70s, it’s a near certainty that each of us will experience the death of a friend or immediate family member at some point during our careers. Managing someone through that experience, at least insofar as it impacts them in the workplace, is something leaders should prepare for.
It isn’t easy to call up your boss and tell them you’re losing someone. It’s tremendously personally revealing, and the burden of admitting real vulnerability to a manager or teammate is overwhelming. Good leaders don’t make that experience any more complicated than it needs to be. Allow your people to be open with you. Reward their honesty with empathy and a sense of safety. The fact of the matter is work is a part of life and, therefore, cannot be divorced from the rest of its challenges. As a leader, you must be ready to honor that reality, even when doing so might mean doing the hard work necessary to meet someone where they are.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
____________________________________
Take advantage of SmartBrief’s FREE email newsletters on leadership and business transformation, among the company’s more than 250 industry-focused newsletters.