Working Differently, Together

I was at work when I got the call. A loved one had died of cancer, quickly and unexpectedly. One moment I was moving through the day as usual, and the next I was sitting on the floor, overwhelmed, crying, not sure how to take another step forward. What I remember most from that moment isn’t the sting of heartbreak, but what happened next. A member of my team stopped what they were doing and sat with me. They didn’t try to fix it or rush me through it. They listened. They stayed. Later, a physician I work with pulled me into a quiet room and asked how I was doing. No agenda, no expectations, just genuine care for me in my suffering. 

In those moments, I wasn’t seen as a leader or a problem-solver, though that’s my formal responsibility. I was seen as a human. And I realized how deeply that mattered—how the space for vulnerability that our team had built had quietly shaped our collective ability to be resilient together.