Organisations employ people at different stages of life. At any given time, some employees are navigating profoundly difficult personal experiences—divorce, bereavement, chronic illness, or anticipatory grief linked to illness. These realities are rarely spoken about at work and are often viewed, implicitly or explicitly, as distractions from productivity.
Keeping such experiences underground comes at a cost. It slows team growth, alienates individuals, and increases the risk of organisations being perceived as emotionally tone-deaf or even oppressive. Emotional attunement is not a “soft” capability; it is integral to building psychologically safe, high-performing workplaces.
My blog explores what individuals and organisations are truly dealing with during these life-altering events. For individuals, it offers the much-needed validation for what they may be experiencing and encourages timely support. For HR professionals and leaders, it aims to deepen sensitivity and expand the definition of what effective leadership looks like during a crisis.
Contents
Divorce
Divorce can bring transformational changes in one’s life. It forces individuals to confront some of the most difficult emotions of adult life. The choice of separation needs courage, resilience to rebuild, and a new set of coping skills.
- An intense and prolonged legal process: Divorce can be relentless long hours with lawyers, repeated negotiations, and frequent court appearances that drain emotional energy.
- Disruption of everything familiar: Routines, social interactions, living arrangements, and lifestyles change abruptly. We are pushed outside our comfort zones.
- Loss of identity and belonging: Divorce prompts deep questioning of life choices. Families may challenge the decision, and friends or social circles may distance themselves. If the support system is not already strong, it can collapse quickly.
- Loneliness and social stigma: We withdraw from family gatherings. Festivities that reward togetherness are brutal towards divorced women and men. We may feel alienated in communities that demand only family structures. At this time, we are in touch with a lot of shame due to a loss of social status.
- Operating in survival mode. Energy is directed toward personal survival and, where relevant, children’s well-being. Social engagement feels non-essential. This inward focus can be misinterpreted as self-centredness. Irritability may increase. Some of us get temperamental, interpreting comments or actions as personal judgments. We may experience more frequent conflicts at work and in social situations.
- An emotional rollercoaster
Divorce can surface multiple, often simultaneous emotions:
- Fears of abandonment, failure, helplessness due to loss of control over situations.
- Disappointment of loss of expectations and relationships
- Insecurity of finances, their future.
- Sadness due to hurt, feeling isolated, and remorseful of having lost a relationship.
- Anger due to disrespect, furious due to many reasons.
- Confusion and feeling stuck about where to start again. “How can I rebuild from here?”
- Relief that some issues from marriage aren’t occurring anymore.
Examples from coaching :
- In my coaching practice, as well as in Women’s Leadership cohorts, this topic and its impact on leaders come up quite often. Dayal, a father of 10-year-old twins, was in coaching with me. It was a tedious divorce due to child custody issues. Along with leading his business & team, Dayal was coping with a lot of sadness as he was missing out on so much of his children’s lives as his ex-wife relocated to another city.
He was coping with the stress of visits to his children, juggling work commitments, and also feeling so much anger at his ex-spouse. His peers or his leader did not get ‘too personal’, so they made only cursory enquiries of how he was doing. Dayal, therefore, had only the coaching space to bring all his dilemmas. I assessed that Dayal also needed some counselling support apart from my coaching. This approach provided him more space to process his complex thoughts and disturbed state of mind.
- Rashmi, on the other hand, was 54, a mature leader with a grown-up daughter who was 20. She did not have financial challenges, and her divorce was fairly amicable. However, her bigger dilemmas were around her identity now as a single woman, single parent, and what that meant in her social & family circles.
She began re-evaluating her ambitious career plans, her energy to take on tough challenges, and to be present for her daughter, too. It meant staying on for a while longer in her current job rather than moving for a challenging assignment to France. This decision enabled her daughter to finish 2 years of her course in the same city, and as a family, they could feel some sense of balance after a turbulent emotional period of 1 year. Coaching enabled making these decisions with ease and support. Rashmi did not feel that these were conversations she could take to her boss or her peer friends. Most of them, while kind and polite, kept their boundaries on these issues.
Death, Loss, and Grief
We experience different types of loss in our lifetimes. Loss takes many forms: the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, loss of a job or business, displacement from home or country, or even the loss of a pet. Workplaces often lack the language and structures to acknowledge death, loss, and grief, particularly in environments focused on efficiency and measurable outcomes.
The death of a person creates a profound void. Few of us have been role-modelled healthy ways of speaking about death and its emotional aftermath. Bereavement often brings new administrative, legal, and financial responsibilities. In the Indian context, many young people are forced into the role of primary provider, accelerating adulthood before they are emotionally ready.
Even when death is anticipated, such as in terminal illness, nothing fully prepares families for the devastation. Grief is deeply lonely and difficult to articulate. Multiple emotions coexist:
- Initial denial and shock at the absence of the person
- Fear about one’s own mortality and future loneliness
- Anger at the loss
- Resentment or regret over unsaid words or unresolved moments
- Despair at having to live with a reality one did not choose
Grief is intensely personal. It is shaped by upbringing, belief systems, the nature of the relationship, and the meanings individuals attach to their loss. There is no hierarchy or comparison in grief.
Grief can also lead to behaviours that appear unusual to outsiders—holding onto clothing, preserving a room, or keeping everyday objects untouched. These acts are ways of maintaining connection and memory.
1. The death of a person creates a void in one’s life. Very few of us have had role models who have spoken of feelings around death. The bereaved has new administrative, legal, and financial responsibilities. In the Indian context, many youngsters have to take up the role of the provider. Having been forced to grow up too soon, they experience loss.
2. No one prepares you for the devastation. The family of terminally ill individuals knows death is coming. At the onset, they may have time to prepare and prepare for the events due to this loss. But one cannot prepare completely.
3. Grief is a lonely experience. Its morosity is not easy to explain. A concoction of feelings happens at the same time. At first, there is denial that they can get through it untouched, that they will remain unaffected. There is shock at the absence of a person at home. They can feel fear of their death in the future and sadness about the loneliness
4. The emotions rollercoaster goes through these feelings:
- Numbness, not wanting to feel grief.
- Anger at the demise of our loved one.
- Resentment due to how we may have behaved at times, at things being unsaid with the departed.
- Despair at how they did not choose this and now have to live without another.
5. Each person’s experience of grief is unique. It is incomparable. It matters how one attaches unique meanings to their loss. Their upbringing and, nature of the relationship with the departed play a role in the meaning. Also, by the life experiences and belief systems formed over time.
6. Grief makes us do strange things. Like holding on to a piece of clothing or a toy. It could be the cup they drank coffee from, the electronics one used, or even leave their room untouched. These are all the forms of holding on to the memory of the departed.
Example:
COVID times in 2020 & 2021 saw me doing 4-5 grief circles per week with many multinationals. Circle after circle has people who have lost team members, and some have lost their managers. At times, I co-led this with another coach, and all we did was hold space for expression and honor the memories of those gone. It was a healing space that allowed repressed feelings to emerge and be attended to. Organizations that took these initiatives reaped benefits am told. I cannot share data from any study done; however, many leaders spoke of how teams felt supported. Employees saw a deeply humane side to their organisations, which helped a lot. Above all, it creates trust and goodwill and deeper connected teams.
Recommended Read : Coaching For Leadership in the “New Normal” Workplace
Chronic Illnesses
Illnesses cause similar issues like loss does. Life-altering illnesses cause immense changes.
Life-altering illnesses such as cancer or autoimmune conditions bring challenges similar to loss, along with additional layers of uncertainty.
Common experiences include:
- Loss of physical ability and autonomy
Sudden dependence on others can evoke embarrassment and grief. Treatment side effects may sap energy, appetite, and the ability to manage daily routines. - Narrowed focus and emotional depletion
Illness often consumes attention. Response times are slow, and individuals may appear self-absorbed as they struggle to regain equilibrium. - Helplessness, anger, and overwhelm
Strict care routines, medical uncertainty, and altered identities can trigger frustration and emotional fatigue. - Existential questioning
Thoughts about purpose, unfinished dreams, and mortality surface: “Have I done enough?” “What now?” - Social withdrawal and role confusion
Individuals may look and feel very different from before. Their place within families, communities, and organisations can feel uncertain, leading to withdrawal and lowered visible energy.
Example:
Ronit & I were at a lunch meeting. He is a leader for whom I have facilitated a few team interventions. One of his key direct reports was diagnosed with colon cancer, had completed 8 cycles of chemotherapy & a surgery, and had resumed work after 10 months.
While Ronit is an empathetic and kind person, I could hear his struggle. He found his direct had slowed down in response time, was quick to be overwhelmed, and could not bring his 100% energy like before. Ronit felt pity and sadness, and his actions were governed by these emotions, while internally, there was also a buildup of frustration. He felt awkward to raise these issues in conversation and was walking on eggshells around this reportee.
Our conversation clarified for him that having an open, sensitive, and direct conversation with him does not mean he is insensitive. Speaking in this way with someone who is recovering from a critical illness allows them to know that you care about how you can help them integrate back into work in a realistic manner. Set new expectations, make realistic agreements, offer support, yet show them what you and they need to be on top of to deliver and keep their role. It allows you as a leader to re-evaluate with them if a different work arrangement was necessary. As a leader and HR allow yourself to multiple such conversations to design what could work for the organization & the employee.
Organisations can lead with empathy.
Team leaders, managers, and co-workers notice these special life events that change individuals.
Companies can be grief-informed:
Organisations can do better with impacted employees. Grief can be a lonely experience; it does not have to be so. They can begin by building awareness about the emotional effects of these events.
Here are some ideas that leaders can implement.
- Acknowledge and validate the experiences of those going through various forms of loss
Managers and leaders can support the bereaved with non-judgmental ways of listening. There is no need to avoid these topics. It is better to get skilled in handling these with empathy and sensitivity.
- Set up meetings or support circles to speak about it. Teams are also curious and insecure when a significant team member faces divorce, death, or illness. Invite open conversations about this and call in an expert to support these circles
- Referrals to therapists and counsellors. Even informed leaders and managers can only hold so much space. Therapists can offer a more holistic support.
- Providing continual support. Offer more time for self-care, regular therapy sessions, flexible working hours, and reduced workload for an agreed period of time.
- Offer emergency financial aid. Companies can offer emergency funds to cope with financial insecurity.
Leadership during a crisis is not about fixing pain or accelerating recovery. It is about recognising humanity at work and responding with maturity, clarity, and compassion. When organisations make space for divorce, grief, illness, and loss, they do more than support individuals—they build trust, resilience, and loyalty that no policy or performance metric alone can create.
In the long run, emotionally attuned leadership is not a concession to vulnerability; it is a strategy in itself.
