By Guest commentary Friday, May 15th, 2026

By Gerhard Apfelthaler

I have recently lost a son in a car accident, and — naturally — I was quickly faced with a few harsh realities. While this is not the place to share personal pain, I have started to deal with questions about being a grieving father while also having responsibilities as a leader that might offer something for others. Just don’t expect a blueprint.

The first thing I learned is that tragedy and grief don’t respect calendars, deadlines, or strategic plans. They arrive abruptly and with full force, destabilizing even the most disciplined professionals. And yet — for me, just like many other leaders, entrepreneurs, and managers — stepping away entirely is not feasible, and it may not even be desirable. 

So how does one navigate that tension between two competing instincts, withdrawal and continuity, in a time of profound loss? On the one hand, grief and pain demand cognitive, emotional, and physical space. 

On the other hand, work can provide structure, purpose, and a sense of normalcy when life feels unmoored. The most effective approach is probably not binary. It is calibrated.

What helped me a bit was the acceptance that I have to temporarily lower performance expectations. I needed it, and my family needed me. 

I consider myself a high-performing individual who is conditioned to maintain consistency, but the tragedy has doubtlessly lowered my cognitive bandwidth. 

But concentration faltered, decision-making slowed, and emotional volatility increased, so I lowered my bar in the short term: Checking emails only once or twice a day, letting phone calls go to voicemail so that I could prioritize, stepping in only when I have to, and giving myself time for long-term, strategic initiatives. 

After a day or two, it no longer felt like a decline in standards, but like a necessary reallocation of finite psychological resources. 

Most important in this context, however, is delegation — not just the merely operational, but the kind of delegation that is rooted in deep trust that your team will step up to the plate. Mine did, and I am eternally grateful to them. 

No policy or procedure would have helped as much as our positive work culture. As a leader, my own experience has taught me — once again — about the importance of starting to start building a supportive environment early and to reinforce it often: You can’t just conjure it when tragedy hits.

Equally important is transparency. Leaders frequently fear the stabilizing effect of being vulnerable by acknowledging loss and emotional distress. 

While trying to avoid overexposure by transferring my emotional burden onto my team, I opened the door to my grief fairly quickly and openly. I don’t know (yet) if it worked for them, but it worked for me. But the other aspect of this is to let people know when you don’t want to speak and be constantly reminded about the tragedy that has befallen you. 

It was emotionally liberating to tell people that you’re not ready for yet another story, yet another hug, more condolences.

There is also a physiological dimension that cannot be ignored. Grief manifests somatically — fatigue, disrupted sleep, loss of appetite. 

What helped me was to simply accept these symptoms and to treat them as operational constraints rather than personal weaknesses that must be overcome as soon as possible. 

The next phase now will be to find ways to get back to normal levels of work and performance. Grief is inherently chaotic; it’s uncontrollable. 

For some, returning to work soon might restore a sense of agency that was lost in the tragedy. However, this benefit materializes only when boundaries and expectations are clearly defined. 

Without boundaries, work can become an avoidance mechanism rather than a stabilizing force. Personally, I just can’t imagine returning to my old self instantly, and so I am contemplating temporal limits, cognitive limits, and relational limits. 

And I expect to see a long tail of grief. Often, organizational norms accommodate immediate bereavement but underestimate its persistence. Effective leaders anticipate this delayed impact. 

Working while grieving is not about resilience in the conventional sense. It is about adaptation under constraint. 

Leaders who navigate this period most effectively do not attempt to suppress grief or compartmentalize it entirely. Instead, they integrate it — acknowledging its presence while structuring their professional lives in ways that remain sustainable. 

In doing so, they model a form of leadership that is not diminished by vulnerability but refined by it. 

Will I ever be able to do it? I don’t know. 

• Gerhard Apfelthaler is the Dean of the School of Management at California Lutheran University.