How All Grieving Employees Should Be Led, Part 2

Last week, we presented a scenario in which a prized employee was thrown into grief.

(See the article by clicking the link  How All Grieving Employees Should Be Led – Part 1)

Many things in this scenario were done well.  This leader provided a textbook example of a leader helping a grieving employee excel at work.  Below is a list of what this leader did exceptionally well.

• The leader established a culture in which the employee felt safe sharing his feelings and emotions
• The leader engaged the employee in his grieving process
• The leader adapted his leadership style to support, collaborate and communicate more with the employee
• The leader was willing to adjust almost every aspect of the employee’s role to help him through this most difficult time
• The leader enlisted the help of the team to support the employee
• The leader was able to creatively continue to develop the grieving employee and make him feel valued throughout the process

What could this organization have done better?  While this is a demonstration of great leadership, the employee shared some thoughts with me about the leadership inconsistency that often exists in this as well as other companies.

• While this leader intuitively led from the heart and with compassion, the employee shared that not all leaders in the organization would have handled the situation the same way.
• Rank and job structure has its privileges. Unfortunately, the further down in the organization, the less likely jobs will be structured to allow great flexibility and the less frontline managers will feel empowered to engage and lead in this manner.

Sadly, both of these statements are true and pervasive in organizations.  We have found there are four primary reasons why more leaders do not respond as the leader did in this scenario.

1. Our society, in general, does not deal with grief and the grieving well
2. Most organizations’ cultures do not provide a safe environment to deal with employee’s emotional well-being issues
3. Leaders are not trained, or even exposed to concepts, on how to deal with these incredibly awkward, emotional and uncomfortable situations
4. Organizations do not have processes in place to help leaders deal with these situations

Creating more leaders like the one in this scenario is our goal at GriefLeaders.

Author: Anthony Casablanca

Follow us on Linkedin at http://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonycasablanca/

Look for our book, The Dying Art of Leadership, due out August 24.

Anthony Casablanca

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