A Manager's Guide to Supporting a Grieving Teammate
Leslie Barber · Founder · Grief Warrior, Grief Coaching and Corporate tTraining
Summary
- Grief at work is not rare. Miscarriage, diagnosis, divorce, layoffs, and losing a trusted manager all trigger real grief that affects focus, decisions, and engagement.
- Most managers were never taught how to support a grieving employee. The instinct to fix, cheer up, or avoid grief is the wrong one every time.
- Leslie Barber lost her husband Steve to cancer in 2015 when their daughter was six. That loss is the origin of Grief Warrior, her grief coaching and corporate training practice.
- The core reframe: you do not need to fix grief. You need to witness it, name it, and stay present without rushing anyone through it.
- The most impactful thing a manager can do is ask a "what" question: What do you miss most? What would they have said? Questions open the conversation. Silence closes it.
Who This Episode Is For
People managers, HR business partners, and anyone who has avoided talking to a grieving employee because they did not know what to say.
What You'll Learn in This Episode
- What grief actually is and why it shows up far more often than most managers expect, including losses that have nothing to do with death.
- Why the five stages of grief are a myth for living people and what that means for managing someone through loss.
- Scripts and language for supporting a grieving employee without saying the wrong thing, including the "what" questions that open conversations.
- How to listen generously without fidgeting, fixing, or filling silence and why listening is harder than any technical skill you were trained on.
- Why high-achieving teams have 55% of employees sharing personal experiences at work and what that means for psychological safety.
- What to do when you say something insensitive, because you will, and how to name it, own it, and repair trust.
Key Takeaways
Grief Is Not Just Death: Expand Your Definition
Grief begins whenever you love or care about something and it dies, changes, or goes away. That equation covers far more than the death of a family member.
- Recognize all grief triggers at work: miscarriage, infertility, cancer diagnosis, divorce, pet loss, layoffs, and a trusted manager leaving.
- Assume some of your team is grieving something right now and start every check-in with that assumption.
- When someone seems withdrawn, ask directly: "I've noticed something seems off. Is there something going on I should know about?"
- Account for collective grief too. War, social upheaval, and economic anxiety affect your whole team even when no one names it.
- Never rank or compare losses. Your loss is your worst loss. No grief Olympics.
Grief Is Messy. Stop Trying to Fix It.
Grief does not move through stages. It does not follow a calendar. It often gets worse after the one-year mark, not better.
- Abandon the five stages of grief. They were designed for people facing their own death, not for people left behind.
- Be flexible with grieving employees for months, not just the duration of bereavement leave. Three to five days is funeral leave, not grief support.
- When grief shows up unexpectedly, say: "I see this is really hard today. That makes sense. I'm here."
- Model emotional openness yourself. When you take a mental health day, say why. This gives your team permission to do the same.
- Follow the griever's lead. Don't steer them toward resolution. Meet them where they are.
Witness Grief. Name It. Don't Look Away.
Ignoring grief to avoid awkwardness is the worst thing a manager can do. Grievers are always thinking about their loss. Your silence does not protect them. It makes them feel invisible.
- Ask about the person or the loss directly: "Tell me about them. What do you miss most?" These questions feel honoring, not invasive.
- When someone cries, let them. Do not hand them tissues and move on. Sit with it. Crying is not a problem to solve.
- Mentioning someone's loss does not make them sadder. They are already carrying it. Naming it offers acknowledgment, not additional pain.
- Use "what" questions, not "why" questions. "What mattered most to you about her?" opens the conversation. "Why did this happen?" closes it.
- Learn how grief shows up at work so you can recognize it before it becomes disengagement.
Listen Generously. Don't Problem-Solve.
Grief cannot be fixed. The instinct to fix it is one of the most common and most damaging mistakes managers make.
- Before a hard conversation, ask: "Do you want me to help solve something, or do you need me to listen?" This gives the employee agency and sets the right expectations.
- If you are nervous while listening, clasp your hands or hold a bracelet. Physical grounding stops the urge to fill silence with talking.
- Avoid platitudes: "They wouldn't want you to be sad," "Everything happens for a reason," "They're in a better place." All of them communicate the same thing: I don't want to sit with your pain.
- Active listening means repeating back what you heard and asking a follow-up question. Show the employee you were actually there.
Grief Support Is a Skill. Build It Intentionally.
Supporting employees through loss is not a personality trait. It is a competency, and like every other management skill, it is learnable.
- Invest in manager grief training before a crisis hits, not after. Managers need language and tools in advance.
- When you say something insensitive, name it and own it: "I realize what I said was not helpful. I'm sorry. I want to do better."
- Build grief support for employees into your culture by talking about hard things yourself. Culture shifts when leadership models the vocabulary.
- Courage, not perfection, is what grieving employees need. Showing up imperfectly still means showing up.
About Leslie Barber
- Founder of Grief Warrior, a grief coaching and corporate training practice offering workshops, digital courses, and manager training programs for organizations.
- Creator of a LinkedIn Learning course on supporting grievers at work, now used by professionals across organizations of all sizes.
- Bereave's go-to partner for live corporate grief workshops focused on building grief-inclusive cultures for people managers and HR teams.
- Lost her husband Steve to cancer in June 2015, when their daughter Emily was six. That loss became what she calls a forever love letter to Steve and the origin of her work.
Connect with Leslie on LinkedIn →
Frequently Asked Questions
What should a manager say to a grieving employee?
The most powerful thing a manager can say is: "I see your pain. This is really hard. I'm here." You do not need perfect words. You need presence. Ask questions that start with "what": What do you miss most? What do you wish they knew? Avoid platitudes like "they're in a better place." Those phrases close the door instead of opening it.
Why is trying to cheer up a grieving employee the wrong approach?
Attempting to cheer someone up communicates that you do not want to sit with their pain. Grief cannot be bypassed. What a grieving employee needs is to feel witnessed, not redirected. Fast-tracking someone past their grief deepens isolation and erodes trust in their manager and their organization.
What types of loss cause grief at work beyond death?
Employees grieve miscarriage, infertility, serious diagnosis, divorce, pet loss, layoffs, departures of trusted managers, relocation, and financial instability. Collective grief from war or social upheaval also affects teams. Managers who only recognize death as a grief trigger will miss most of what their people are carrying.
How can managers build a grief-inclusive workplace culture?
Model emotional openness yourself. Take mental health days and say why. Ask your team about their lives. High-achieving teams have 55% of employees sharing personal experiences at work. Grief-inclusive culture is not built by HR policy alone. It is built by managers who make it safe to name what is hard.
What is the business cost of ignoring grief in the workplace?
Pre-pandemic research put the cost of death-related grief at one hundred billion dollars annually. That figure excludes the broader range of losses employees carry. Eighty-five percent of managers rated their own decisions as poor to fair in the weeks following a grief incident. Companies that respond with presence and flexibility create loyalty that outlasts the loss.
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