Another month in quarantine; another month to self reflect, learn, adapt or just survive.
Thank you to everyone who read my welcome last month on gratitude and sorrow; a special thank you to those who took the time to email me about it.
If you follow us on Twitter (@mcetrain) you may have seen the article we posted on the characteristics that define today’s leaders…”empathy, vulnerability, emotional connectedness.” I followed it up with my own thoughts, which I will repeat here and expand on a bit.
Leaders
not
showing their own vulnerability right now are probably increasing the stress levels of their employees (as well as their own). How can you
not
get emotional when people are dying and/or hospitalized and isolated from loved ones? How can you
not
appreciate the vulnerability frontline workers must be feeling every time they don PPE, assuming they have it? How can you
not
feel empathy and sadness for the millions of people out of work and for the ones you yourself have had to lay off or terminate?
There is business and then there is the business of people. It is ok to show you care.
“Expressions of emotion are not weaknesses.” David Schiesher, MSW, therapist, Geneva, Switzerland.
“This is about the saddest thing we’ve been through.” Marc Tell, chief executive, The Sam Tell Company, a restaurant supply distributor in New York.
So I ask you, if you cannot show empathy, vulnerability and emotions now, when can, and when
will
you?
To read the article click on the link to the
NY Times
.
