Permission to Be Human

A decade ago or so, I was a manager at a different company when one of our associates had a heart attack in the company parking lot and died. Everyone loved her, especially me. I'd first met her as a trainee in one of my onboarding classes and we'd stayed in close touch over the years. When the email came through that we'd lost her I didn't quite know what to do with myself, but I also knew that I had to take care of my team and the dozens of other people who were waiting for more information. How was I supposed to show up in this moment? These are the things they don't cover in management training. Can you cry? Does that show empathy or does that show weakness? How much of the next hour (and the days that followed) were supposed to be led by my heart versus my head? We still had a business to run, after all. We gathered as a staff and I watched the senior leaders as role models. The VP of HR cried as she talked to us. That's when I knew I had permission to be human; it may be the most important leadership lesson I ever had. A current peer is going through a rough time with her team. She recently remarked, "That's what management is: hold it together, keep people pointed in the right direction, and be a human being." We can never forget that last part.