Today I’m not writing about a client’s story or a general leadership principle. I’m sharing a personal experience that caught me by surprise. It took me some time to realize what was going on, and it turned out to be an emotional intelligence lesson.
Heading into May, I noticed I wasn’t quite myself. I was more easily distracted than usual and generally foggy. Every day I felt like I needed a nap, and I am not normally a nap person.
For a few weeks I thought it was allergies, but my usual remedies weren’t working.
Then Mother’s Day arrived and it dawned on me: this was the first Mother’s Day without my mom. She passed last September, and even though I wasn’t consciously thinking about it, my subconscious knew and my body was responding.
But Wait, There’s More!
Fifteen years ago, my daughter was in a devastating car accident. She was critically injured, and her best friend and her best friend’s boyfriend were killed.
Out of that tragedy, a foundation was born that I’ve been actively involved in. For the past four and a half years I served as the (volunteer) executive director and president of the board.
In December, we decided the foundation would sunset with the end of this school year.
Since January, I’ve been maintaining daily operations while simultaneously winding everything down. Yesterday, June 1, we announced its sunset.
Even though I’m completely aligned with the decision and ready – well, bittersweet doesn’t begin to describe it.
So, when I put the timing and my symptoms together, I realized I wasn’t sick and I hadn’t lost my zeal for my work. I was experiencing grief.
The Reality of Grief
Grief is sneaky. It can show up without warning and be hard to diagnose.
Mother’s Day morning, what had been below the surface finally came forward – missing my mom. I realized the ending of the foundation was impacting me too.
My sluggishness was my body’s way of trying to protect me from unpleasant feelings.
After the accident, someone gave me a book called The Grief Club by Melody Beattie. One thing from it has never left me: grief isn’t only about death.
All significant loss involves grief. For example, loss of a job, a relationship, a dream, a chapter of life that closes, each can trigger grief.
In the book, Beattie explains we move through far more grief in a lifetime than many of us recognize. If we did, we could build the coping skills needed to accept it and move through it.
This book was helpful to me fifteen years ago, and again in recent weeks.
What Research Has Found About Grief
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health describes what I experienced as the “anniversary effect,” when grief resurfaces around significant dates and common timelines.
Dr. M. Katherine Shear, founder of the Center for Complicated Grief at Columbia University, has spent decades documenting how grief manifests in ways that surprise even those who believe they’ve already fully processed a loss. She has learned we don’t have to be actively thinking about something for it to affect us. Our bodies pay attention even when we don’t.
Common Grief Cycles:
- Three, six, and twelve months after a loss
- Leading up to a significant date: the first of each holiday, birthday, or milestone date after a loss
- Life transitions like graduations, marriages, births, achievements
- The end of something meaningful, even if we are ready for it
Leaders Need to Know
This isn’t just a personal story. This is about emotional intelligence in practice.
Effective leaders understand the relationship between grief and performance, their own and their team’s.
Recognizing what’s going on, rather than reacting to symptoms, demonstrates self-awareness and social awareness. Responding appropriately is self and relational management.
Your symptoms may not look like mine. They may surface as heightened agitation, impatience, or grouchiness. Or something else entirely.
The point is, grief happens.
Before labeling a behavioral change as a performance issue, consider something temporary may be going on.
Three TIPS for Dealing with Grief at Work
1. Name it. Research and Beattie agree — identifying what you’re experiencing is the first step. When we name grief as grief, we shift from confusion and resistance to processing. That shift alone can reduce the fog. For your team, acknowledging that something may have changed opens a door.
2. Give grace. Grief moves when we stop fighting it. Temporarily adjusting expectations — for yourself or a team member — is not lowering the bar. It is recognizing that performance exists in a human context.
3. Ask. “I’ve noticed you haven’t seemed like yourself lately. Is everything okay?” Then listen. You don’t have to fix anything. Being seen and acknowledged is often what people need to begin moving forward.
The Wrap
Grief is sneaky. It doesn’t always show up when we would expect or manifest in obvious ways.
That said, as leaders we have to accept we are human, as are our team members. Eventually we all experience grief, whether we recognize it or not.
Even though it took me a couple of weeks, I’m glad I finally recognized my lethargy was connected to grief, not allergies. As soon as I did, I shifted from “what’s wrong with me” to “oh, ok, I get it ” and I gave myself some grace.
The awareness lifted the heaviness. I knew what to do with grief and I knew, with a little time, it passes on through (for now).
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If you or a member of your leadership team would like more information on leading effectively through grief, reach out today.
Author KAREN PELOT, MCC, PCC is the founder and lead practitioner of PERSPECTIVES. She is an award-winning executive coach, partnering with executives to build and maintain high-trust, high-accountability, high-performance teams,
