The Circle of Life

Within The Circle of Life

By Guy Casablanca

Looks like my co-worker’s toddler is into a heavy read.  She’s seemingly put down the William Faulkner classic “As I Lay Dying” in order to contemplate life; but contemplate what?  She’s not even two!  What is she thinking?

“When will I be fed again?  Will my Mom come back soon?  Where do my clothes come from?  Who fills my sippy cup when I’m not looking?”  In her 23 months of time in this world, these are MAJOR life questions that demand serious contemplation, dedicated mental concentration, lost sleep, and whatever it takes to figure it out and feel confident moving forward.

As the id of her infantile instinct to survive gives way to the ego of childhood, the coming years of ABCs and 1-2-3s will give her plenty to contemplate and will become a new source of stressful thoughts. And as she grows, she’ll experience her fair share of bumps and bruises, battered confidence and shattered hopes, little losses, and little wins…and she’ll lose sleep trying to figure it all out and move forward with confidence.

Boys will turn into men and come and go through the years, each failed shot at love bringing a new kind of loss into her life, while causing past losses to resurface and be dealt with again.  Family members will die.  Friends will move away.  Jobs will come and go, and times of high stress will ebb and flow well into her thirties.  She’ll lose sleep, contemplate, and do whatever she needs to in order to move forward with confidence.

At each phase of life, we encounter new levels of grief, new problems to navigate, and new things to contemplate and conquer. We start when we are but toddlers, tackling the biggest problems we have at the moment.  Each time our life experiences circle back around, we take the lessons we’ve learned from the past and the resiliency we’ve developed for the future and apply these more refined coping skills to overcome a new, life-altering reality.

In the workplace, a genuine leader recognizes that everyone is going through some contemplative phase of life pretty much all the time, from birth to death, exponentially amplified if they are facing any kind of personal or professional change.  Everyone is working on themselves and losing sleep in the process of trying to figure out their own life cycles and develop the resiliency needed to handle them.  The stress that comes with life is inseparable from the person going through it.  Expecting our colleagues to “check their feelings at the door” is wishful thinking at best and, frankly, signals to others an insistence to remain willfully ignorant of human nature.

“I’m not going to tell you to get over it.  I’m going to help you get through it.”

Sometimes we need to let our people “put the book down” for a minute, contemplate, and maybe even talk it out with us.  Instead of insisting that our associates “get over it”, we should insist our leaders help them ”get through it”.  Leading people who are clouded by stress requires a different approach.  Failure to adapt will lead to disgruntled associates who seek the first better opportunity they can find.  Not because the job is unbearable,  but rather because the leadership is intolerable, which will inevitably lead to things like high levels of burnout, fatigue, workplace negligence, injury and illness, and outright turnover.

Be that assertive leader who recognizes that any significant change in a person’s life will spark a grief response to some degree.  Be that leader who understands that people cannot just ignore their stressors when they come to work.  Be that leader who admits that the company’s own initiatives may be at the very heart of the grief your people are experiencing.  And be that leader who exemplifies compassion and understanding when navigating the emotions of change and the impacts of grief on the workplace.

How do you become that assertive leader?  Ironically, to become that assertive leader you have to become a leader who truly “CARES.” 

Courage – Have the courage to lead the person with compassion and empathy

Adapt – Proactively adapt both your leadership style and the work processes / load to support the employee

Recognize – Recognize the person will not feel comfortable asking for help or accommodations, but will need them

Engage – Engage in the person’s emotional healing process as early as possible

Share – Share the plan with your team… they will want to help but won’t know how

Anthony Casablanca

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