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In the imminent United States presidential elections, ‘Grief leadership’ is the most sought-after subject for the people of the United States. Leading publications and media houses are putting emphasis on the need of ‘Grief Leadership’ like never before, as the country is worst affected by the pandemic.
‘Grief Leadership Is Exactly What Americans Are Missing Right Now’- Huffington Post
‘When the world’s in crisis, we need ‘Grief Leaders.’ – Washington Post
Grief Leadership was generally being discussed as one of the requirements in these times of pandemic but it caught fire after a statement by President Donald Trump on Sep. 21st that the coronavirus ‘affects virtually nobody’. This statement came the same day the United States death toll reached 200,000.
What is Grief Leadership?
Grief leadership is about leading people, whether or not they’re your friends, employees, or a nation, through experiences of sadness, trouble, and grief. Grief leadership is, essentially, resilient people leadership.
In one form or another; a lost loved one, a lost job, and a lost sense of normalcy, we all share in the collective trauma. The presence of strong grief leaders would acknowledge that trauma and make sure the people felt heard, understood, and sustained through it.
Managing the grief:
A grief leader understands that it’s about our basic human need of wanting someone who reminds us that we can get through tough times and that we’ll share the weight of it together. Managing the grief is limited to understanding and assuaging the grief
Primarily one needs to acknowledge that grief is there and then identify the grief as people have lost everything from loved ones to health to jobs & wealth to education opportunities. For some weddings are cancelled, for some graduations are cancelled or postponed. Everyone for sure has lost a sense of normalcy.
It’s important for leaders to identify the grief as smaller or bigger and it’s not an easy job by any means but such is the time we are living in.
Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child’s loss of a doll and a king’s loss of a crown are events of the same size.” ― Mark Twain
The ability to assuage grief is a defining leadership quality because leadership involves holding a collective experience and modeling constructive behavior.
Assuaging the grief starts with ‘being there’. It’s telling the other person that ‘I understand your pain and you are not alone in what you are going through.’ Being there is especially important during a pandemic because the grief and decease both are isolating. One can use technology for being there virtually.
Whilst doing this, it is fine for the leaders to not have all the answers or strategies. During the process of establishing & assuaging the grief, the key is to be human, be vulnerable in sharing your own issues and sufferings. It’s completely ok to not have the solutions and answers at this stage.
A grief leader sits with sorrow but doesn’t wallow in it. Once they’ve acknowledged the uncertainty and loss, the leaders give people confidence that the country or community or office or family, or circle of friends, won’t be defined by those uncertainties and challenging times.
Once that’s established, a good leader in crisis surrounds himself/herself with a strong team of experts, who stay visible, take responsibility, and develop a plan of action to resolve the crisis situation.
Coming back to US elections, it’s paramount that the world doesn’t need ‘insensitive leaders’ in these unprecedented times and the strong leader to help the grief-ridden society is the need of the hour. Having said that, I don’t think all the focus should be on the Grief leadership aspect whilst choosing a leader at the national level, as the key should be to have strong leadership with vision, and the approach in order to drive people & country out of bewilderment.
Grief being immensely personal emotion, need to be handled with care and one doesn’t need leaders or other people to help them all the time. Once the acceptance of grief takes place at individual level or at community level, and the form of grief is established, things starts to improve and all you need from leaders to provide infrastructure & overhauled machinery to bring back the community & nation on its feet.
Whilst entire world is struggling with pandemic, the leaders are expected to be proactive and transparent than sweeping things under the carpet. When the only certain thing in the world in uncertainty, leaders with vision, transparency and authenticity can at least instill some hope in trying times.
As far as crisis situation in India is concerned, the concept of Grief Leadership dies down at the inception itself. Indians can’t afford to aspire for the Grief leadership at all, as we are miles behind in terms of having basic infrastructure for growth, in order to bounce back from the crisis. Hence, our limitations define are priorities. Moreover, looking for Grief leaders in India, may prove catastrophic, as it’s impossible to differentiate ‘genuine leaders’ from ‘leaders with Oscar worthy performances’.