The Work Isn’t Over. It’s Just Becoming Yours.
How You Lead From This Moment On Is What People Will Remember.
Table of Contents
You don’t get to choose when grief shows up in the lives of the people you lead. But you do get to choose what kind of leader meets it.
You’ve seen the cost of silence, the power of presence, and what it means to lead when there are no right words. . You’ve learned how to validate without fixing, how to hold boundaries with care, how to support someone without lowering the bar, and how to guide a team through uncertainty without losing your way.
You’ve learned that culture isn’t only built when things are easy. It’s built in the way you lead when emotions are high, stakes are real, and people are watching to see whether you mean what you say.
But this guide, as much as it’s given you language and tools, is not the work. The work is what happens next. You now stand at the threshold of choice.
You can close this and say, “That was helpful. I’ll remember it next time.”
Or you can pause, right here, right now, and ask yourself:
Where am I still avoiding the hard thing because I don’t want to get it wrong?
Who around me needs my presence, not my perfection?
What culture am I reinforcing by what I stay silent about?
And what kind of leader am I becoming—not in theory, but in practice?
And maybe, just for a moment, you let those questions turn inward too. Choosing to look in the mirror, rather than out the window, is one of the most important things we can do to further our own growth.
What about you?
What pain are you carrying that no one at work sees? What grief have you buried so deep that even you forgot it was there? What kind of support do you wish someone had offered you when you needed it most?
Grief doesn’t make you less capable of leading. It invites you to lead with more depth, more humanity, more steadiness. And the same is true now. This isn’t about getting it perfect. It’s about becoming the kind of leader who looks toward what needs to be seen.
People might remember what you wrote in their performance reviews. They’ll probably remember the birthday cake in the break room. But they will deeply appreciate the day you sat with them in silence because they couldn’t find the words. Or the email you sent on the anniversary no one else remembered. Or the way you said, “Take care of yourself. We’ve got you.”
They’ll remember how you didn’t rush them. How you didn’t need them to be okay. How you didn’t pretend everything was normal when it wasn’t.
Like the VP who showed up with coffee and sat on the floor of a grieving employee’s office, saying nothing at all. Or the supervisor who blocked off the anniversary of a teammate’s loss every year without being asked, just to make space. Or the plant manager who stepped in to cover a shift because someone couldn’t stop crying that morning and needed to leave.
Those leaders weren’t trying to be heroic. They were just present and showed they care. And their presence made a difference in the life of someone who needed it.
That’s what people remember. That’s what leadership looks like when it counts.
And here’s the truth that most leadership books don’t say out loud:
You’ll doubt yourself. You’ll feel awkward. You’ll wonder if you’re doing too much, or not enough. Some people might not respond the way you hoped. That’s okay. You’re not here to be perfect. You’re here to be real. You’re here to be steady. You’re here to keep showing up in a world that makes it easier to stay busy, distracted, or disengaged.
This is the long game of leadership. The one that’s measured not in metrics, but in memories.
So start small. Reach out to someone who’s been quieter than usual. Ask your team what support really means to them. Share one story from this guide with a fellow leader and talk about what it made you think. Don’t wait for the perfect moment. Make this the moment.
Because one day, someone will tell the story of how you led them through their hardest season. And when they do, that story won’t be about your strategy or your quarterly results.
It will be about your humanity.
It will be about the day you didn’t flinch. The moment you didn’t walk away. The choice you made to lead with care, even when it was uncomfortable.
That story will become part of who they are. And part of who you are, too.
So show up. Lean into the discomfort of being present without needed to fix the other person. Be genuinely curious about their experience. Listen.
That’s what changes lives. That’s what builds culture. That’s what makes leadership worth following.
That’s what the world needs more of right now.
Starting now. Starting with you.
Such a brilliant resource you have put together Jason. Restacking