Loss, Leadership and Emotion
Leaders should be willing and able to show their emotions when appropriate. It’s ‘when is it appropriate and how to express those emotions’ that we don’t all agree on.
There were two tragic car accidents this week that touched my world. The two that lost their lives still had so much living ahead. Their contribution to making life better will really be missed.
In the shock of reading an email in the first case and hearing the news in the second, I had to decide how to respond.
Writing a response via email was just too impersonal. Phoning seemed the right thing to do in both cases. With caller ID, the person on the other end could choose not to answer. They answered. Tears, a loss of words, then words overflowing were shared.
Perhaps this is not what another leader might have chosen to do. In these two situations, it felt right to me. I hope that my reaching out and sharing my sense of loss and compassion will in some small way lead to healing.
Leaders need to know themselves well enough to know what they are willing and able to do in times of loss. And I believe leaders also need to be willing and able to be vulnerable in those situations to share their emotions, their compassion and humanity.
Tags: emotions, leaders, self-awareness
