Choosing to Love in a Crisis
Every leader and team will face a moment of decision that has far reaching consequences. Numerous micro-moments pave the way for this choice.
The moment of truth? When a colleague faces a personal crisis. In that moment, the leader and team can create an exerience of fear or they can create an experience of love.
The Path of Fear
If the path of fear is chosen, the colleague facing a crisis will be told, “Listen, you need to keep your personal issues separate from the job. Just do your work and let’s not bring everyone down or distract from the job we have to do.” This response creates fear for the individual and ultimately for that team. Everyone will learn they must hide what’s happening in their lives, and it is not safe or accepted to be honest, to be known, to be human. Diminished trust and belonging have severe negative long-term consequences for team performance, loyalty and engagement.
The Path of Love
If the path of love is chosen, the team member in crisis is offered humane, caring support in a way that is specific to their personality, preferences and unique circumstances. Everyone will learn they are safe and belong, that their human dignity and needs are respected. That experience has positive far-reaching impacts for that individual and for the team, again in terms of increased performance, loyalty and engagement.
We Choose
When I interview people about their stories of love and of fear at work, they tell me of hardships and struggles, of human experiences that come to us all eventually. They describe the time when their relationship with a partner crumbled or of abuse, of financial hardship or the death of a child, of their own cancer or a loved one’s suicide.
In these stories, there is always a fork in the road, a moment of truth, when the story goes one way or the other, toward love or toward fear. In that moment the response of their colleagues determines which story they are telling me, a love story or a fear story, and their response has far reaching consequences. This choice impacts the team member who will experience kindness, care and support, or feel rejected, wary, and isolated in their anguish. This choice impacts the team too, who will become either more trusting and psychologically safe, or not. And so this choice impacts the team to work better together with stronger communication, problem-solving, idea-sharing, loyalty, commitment, and engagement, or not.
The difference is choosing to love.
Loving the Individual
In my interviews, it is striking how the support given is calibrated to the need and honoring of the individual. Support is not one size fits all; it is not a program. It is tailored to the individual’s situation, needs, personality and preferences. For example, when a very private man lost his brother to suicide, his leader and co-worker left small items by his computer that they knew he would appreciate. The choice of items showed him that they knew him as a person and that they cared about him. They subtly checked in on him and he knew that they understood his uniuque needs and preferences. This specific caring response is made possible when the need arises by taking time day to day to know each other well in advance of any crisis. This is what I mean at the beginning by the micro-moments that pave the way for love.
What about oversharing?
Sometimes people are afraid that a hurting individual’s sharing will take over the workplace. They are afraid of the distraction and of their emotions. But what I’ve found is most people do not want to overshare the intimate details of their lives. Most people just want to know that while walking through a most terrible time, the people the work with know about it, care for them specifically, and they aren’t alone.
For the occasional person whose needs are greater, leaders can provide gentle coaching to calibrate sharing, professional counseling options, and bounded times for sharing with active, generous listening. For example, “Let’s go for a walk on our break so you can share how things are going. I will be able to focus then.”
Why does this matter now?
We are facing a collective ongoing series of personal crises brought on not only by life on this planet but by the dual pandemic of the Coronavirus and systemic racism. In the last few weeks I’ve seen and heard more signs of anxiety, overwhelm, and exhaustion. Some folks are reaching a point of fracture and, in some cases, personal crisis.
Primary relationships may be suffering or even breaking up. Children may be struggling with school, with depression, or behavioral challenges. Loved ones may be sick or may have died. Individuals may be isolated and facing extreme loneliness. Risk of infection at work may be causing stress. Threats of layoffs may foreshadow financial hardship.
While we may not be able to do anything to change the circumstances, we CAN choose the positive, healthy, helpful path through these crises by supporting each other with love.
At work? Yes, at work. Especially at work.
It’s important to be ready to love, to not hesitate to offer kindness, compassion, belonging, courage, in the form of practical, personal acts of love. And it’s important to be ready to receive it when it is your turn. Get to know each other so you know how to respond to each other with respect and specificity. And then be ready to give that love to each other whenever you see even a hint of need.
Besides, you really can’t go wrong with love. No harm can be done by choosing to love someone in a personal crisis. Choose to love.
