023 - Being a helpful leader in loss. Part one.

Welcome back. Or welcome.

“Finding Words in Hard Times” is a newsletter with stories and tools to help you be more comfortable as you help others in hard times. This week, I’ve got one list of suggestions for being supportive as a leader. There will be more in the future. And if you have questions, let me know.

One follow-up from last week. The man in my opening story died over the weekend. (“I know where you’re going.”) I’m grateful to have met him.

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I was part of a conversation about leadership and grief. One question we were working toward was "How can I be supportive as a leader when an employee’s family member dies?"

This is a big question. It includes knowing what to say when the death is a coworker and those needing support ARE coworkers. It’s related to knowing how to notify coworkers of deaths, knowing how to lead when we’re the one who has had a death. It’s hard and complicated.

I started to work the perfect, "Five things to do when an employee has a death" list. And I realized that I'm not comfortable writing absolute lists. 

So, here's my "Some things to consider if you are a boss and someone in the organization has a death:"

1. Remember that there's not one answer. You are going to have to think about this particular situation and person.

1a. Breathe. Before you grab the phone or the keyboard or the megaphone, breathe. In the first rush of emotion, be aware that you don't want to over promise, overreact, over commit, overlook.  

2. Start with the person who is alive and who works for your organization. To be helpful, we are going to have to listen and pay attention to the human and relational variables that we do when anyone loses a loved one. And we need to start with the person who just had a death close to them. (Not with our feelings or schedules or anything else. Find the grieving face.)

3. Be a human. There is the positional, supervisory structure that may come into play. However, you get to be a human offering support to a human. 

4. Help that person navigate work and the organization. Know that while they are trying to figure out all the logistics of service arrangements and figuring out the emotional and spiritual parts of grief, they are also calculating PTO and bereavement policies and where they are in the middle of projects that they are convinced they have to take care of, and whether they can get coverage, all at the same time. We may not be able to change policies, but we can offer all the possible clarity and support. 

5. Ask the person what details they are comfortable with you sharing, and to what people, and in what timing. Recently, a member of an organization died suddenly, and the organization shared the death on social media almost immediately. Family members heard about it on social before they heard from family. A good guideline may be to share the posts that family creates before creating your own. 

6. Know the resources for grief, for counseling, for HR policies before the event happens. Like right now as you are reading this, start learning. (This Is Hard: What I Say When Loved Ones Die is a helpful resource.)

7. Sometimes, the loved ones are the organization or are in the organization. If part of our work team dies suddenly, WE are the ones who are grieving and making adjustments and needing support. All of the items above apply and are helpful. And I’ll write more about this soon.

I'm learning all the time about attending to the person in front of me. Recently, I was talking with a coworker who had been out for a couple days. I don't see them all the time, so I said I'd missed them. "I was on vacation, but then my dad died." I shifted to support mode, saying it was hard and offering support. "It's a relief." they said. "He was a terrible person." When I heard a couple details, I agreed.  So, I shifted from "loss of dad" support to listening to a friend. And remembered that offering support has to start with the person, not with my story of what that situation must be like. 

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If this is helpful, I’d be grateful for you to forward it to a friend.

If you aren’t a subscriber, I’d love to have you join us for this free newsletter.

And I’ll see you next week.

Jon