How My Leadership Changed After Loss
Gina Velliquette · Global Head of Human Capital · Mubadala Capital, global alternative asset management
Summary
- Gina Velliquette returned to work one week after her mother died. She thought work would absorb the grief. It didn't. Six months later, a book changed everything.
- Roughly 90 percent of leaders have experienced grief or loss. Almost none of them talk about it at work. That silence has consequences for the people they manage.
- The shift from task-focused to human-centric leadership doesn't happen in a training room. For many leaders, it happens through personal loss.
- Unconditional presence, phone away, full attention, no multitasking, is a specific and learnable practice that changes the quality of every conversation.
- Grace is not soft leadership. Twenty minutes a week of genuine check-in time has a measurable return in productivity and retention.
Who This Episode Is For
Leaders, HR professionals, and managers in high-pressure industries will find this relevant. It covers how personal loss reshapes leadership and what it looks like to bring more humanity to a team.
What You'll Learn in This Episode
- Why returning to work immediately after loss is avoidance, not strength, and what happens when grief gets postponed.
- How the shift from driver to human-centric leader happens and what triggers it for many high-performers.
- What unconditional presence looks like in practice and why it builds trust that no policy can replicate.
- Why grace is a business strategy, not a sentiment, and how 20 minutes a week changes outcomes.
- How to start normalizing grief conversations without becoming a grief expert.
- What leaders need most: not training to be counselors, but permission and simple tools to show up.
Key Takeaways
Going Back to Work Is Not the Same as Going Through Grief
Gina took one week off after her mother died, then returned to work. She believed routine would help. It didn't. She stuffed the grief down and operated in survival mode for months. She wasn't healing. She was delaying.
- Returning quickly after loss is often avoidance dressed as resilience.
- The "push through it" mentality common in finance, tech, and other high-pressure fields is damaging long-term.
- Grief doesn't disappear because you're busy. It accumulates and surfaces in unexpected places later.
- Return-to-work support matters because what looks like full recovery in week one often is not.
- What Gina needed: someone to pull her aside and say, "We know you're not okay. What do you need?"
- Managers who don't check in after week one assume the person is fine. That assumption costs them.
Most Leaders Have Experienced Loss. Almost None Talk About It.
Gina estimates roughly 90 percent of leaders have dealt with grief or significant loss at some point in their careers. Almost none of them name it at work. When leadership goes silent about grief, it signals to everyone else that silence is required.
- Leaders who don't model grief conversations inadvertently make them taboo.
- Employees suppress their struggles and suffer without asking for help.
- A single leader saying "I lost someone too" changes the permission structure for the whole team.
- You don't have to have the right words. "I don't know what to say, but I'm thinking of you" is enough.
- The right language matters, but showing up imperfectly still beats not showing up at all.
- Normalizing grief talk is a cultural act. It requires repetition and leadership modeling, not a single announcement.
From Driver to Human-Centric: What Loss Teaches About Leadership
Before her mother's death, Gina operated as a driver: focused on targets, to-do lists, and measurable outputs. After, she slowed down. She started asking questions. She spent more time on the floor with her team. That shift wasn't a decision. It emerged from grief.
- Driver leadership focuses on what needs to get done. Human-centric leadership focuses on who is doing it.
- Loss forces a recalibration of what actually matters, often for the first time.
- Grief changes how people show up at work, including leaders, in ways that outlast the acute phase.
- Gina's mother modeled a different standard: care about people, do the right thing, listen, and don't compromise who you are.
- Many high-performers spend years morphing to fit the environment. Grief often breaks that pattern.
- The leaders who emerge from loss with renewed clarity tend to build stronger, more loyal teams.
Unconditional Presence Is Not a Soft Skill
One of Gina's core post-grief principles is unconditional presence: being fully with the person in front of you, not half-listening while checking email. In most workplaces, divided attention is the default. Changing that default is harder than it sounds and more impactful than most leaders expect.
- Unconditional presence means phone away, email closed, screen ignored. Fully there.
- People can tell when you are not really listening. It affects what they are willing to share.
- Turning off Slack notifications during a one-on-one is a small act. To the employee, it signals priority.
- In virtual meetings, multiple screens create multiple distractions. Ignoring them is a practiced skill.
- Presence says: you matter more than my inbox right now. Few managers communicate that without words.
- The quality of conversation that follows full presence is categorically different from the half-attention version.
Grace Is Strategic, Not Sentimental
Gina pushed back on the idea that human-centric leadership is "squishy." The data is clear: people who are acknowledged and supported through hard periods return to full capacity faster than those who are not. Grace is a business decision.
- Twenty minutes a week of genuine check-in time has measurable ROI in productivity and retention.
- Grace doesn't mean lowering standards. It means being realistic about capacity during a temporary period.
- A grieving employee at 70 percent with support will outperform a grieving employee at 70 percent without it.
- The cost of ignoring grief compounds through disengagement, turnover, and lost institutional knowledge.
- Leaders who extend grace see higher retention. Leaders who ignore struggle see quiet exits.
- The more you humanize the person doing the work, the more productive they become. This is documented outcome, not opinion.
About Gina Velliquette
- Global Head of Human Capital at Mubadala Capital, with over 20 years of leadership experience in financial services, including SVP and VP roles.
- Lost her mother, Janice Moore, in May 2022. Returned to work after one week. Processing the full weight of that loss took significantly longer.
- On the second anniversary of her mother's death, she published a LinkedIn post about how loss changed her perspective on leadership. The response was immediate.
- Now actively working to normalize grief conversations in high-pressure industries and equip leaders with the tools to show up for their people.
Connect with Gina on LinkedIn →
Frequently Asked Questions
Why doesn't returning to work immediately after a loss help with grief?
Returning quickly feels like strength. It is usually avoidance. Gina took one week off after her mother died and went back to work thinking it would help. Six months later, she read a book that described everything she had been suppressing and realized she had been avoiding her grief the whole time. The work didn't absorb the loss. It delayed it.
What is unconditional presence and why does it matter for managers?
Unconditional presence means being fully with the person in front of you: phone away, email closed, no half-listening. In most workplaces, divided attention is the default. Turning off Slack during a one-on-one is a small act. To the employee receiving that attention, it signals: you matter more than my inbox right now. That signal builds the kind of trust that makes people willing to share when they are struggling.
How should leaders approach grief conversations if they are not grief experts?
Leaders need two things: permission from their organization that these conversations matter, and a simple framework for having them. Week one: listen and acknowledge. Weeks two through four: regular check-ins. Month two onward: longer-term support. Saying "I don't know what to say, but I'm here" is not a failure. It is one of the most honest and useful things a manager can offer.
What is the business case for giving employees grace after a loss?
Twenty minutes a week of genuine check-in has direct impact on productivity. People who are acknowledged and supported return to full capacity faster. Grace is not lowering standards. It is being realistic about capacity, adjusting expectations temporarily, and protecting your investment in the people who drive results.
How can leaders normalize grief conversations at work?
By modeling it. Roughly 90 percent of leaders have experienced grief or loss. Few talk about it at work. When a leader says "I lost someone too, and I know how this can affect you," they give everyone else permission to be human. Training helps, but what changes culture is what the most visible people in an organization choose to say out loud.
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