A CEO told his leadership team he had stage 4 cancer. After he shared his fear and uncertainty, staff felt safer discussing their own health struggles. The vulnerability shifted how his team saw him, making the workplace more human.
Chapters
I don't remember the exact timing of the conversation, but I do remember there was a specific leadership meeting I had. I try to do them every single week and it's pretty as consistent as possible. I had one where I was, you know, praying about thinking about, I was like, do I tell everyone what's going on? Do I explain? And then eventually I was prompted to, yes, I will. And I remember I had that conversation where I let them know, like, I just want to be transparent with you all. This is what I'm going through right now. It's very scary. It's a stage 4 cancer diagnosis. That's not something I'm taking lightly. I don't know what the future is going to look like. I might be here and I might be spaced out because I'm thinking about a million things, and I want you guys to know that. And it doesn't mean that I don't care about you or the team here, but I'm going through a lot. If anyone has any questions about it, you could feel free to answer me. But I think them seeing the vulnerability, and I'm sure I teared up because there's a lot of, a lot of tears that happened over the last few years, um, just talking about my health. And I think that was something that allowed them to feel comfortable. It made me more human. A lot of times the, the owner, CEO almost seems untouchable, like, dear leader, show them the lamb. Exactly, that's exactly what it was. I think they saw the lamb and they still see it now, where they could come to me with stuff. And I've had some staff that had their own cancer scares, and I know me being able to open up about that allowed them to feel comfortable to say, hey, what, what did you do? Or what are you going through? And just having human conversations. Yeah, are huge.
