Can Loss Make You a Better Leader?

Losses come into all our lives. Loss comes dressed many ways: death, divorce, accident, disease, unemployment, business failure, financial setback, and countless others. Sometimes the losses we feel the most profoundly are those that aren't even known or acknowledged by anyone but ourselves or those closest to us. 2008 was a year I will remember many losses in my life. A close aunt and uncle died within months of one another, two beloved cats died five days apart, someone I looked up to and trusted severed our relationship, my husband was involved in a car accident, our business suffered along with many others in the recent financial and economic crisis. All of those things I mourned in different degrees. Recently, however, I found out that mourning the loss of a dream may be just as challenging. I had worked for many months to prepare myself to interview and be selected for the job I just knew was the culmination of everything I'd done in my life up until now. It was so real I could feel it with all five of my senses! I would be working for an organization I respected and, most importantly, for a person I greatly admired and wanted to emulate. It was the opportunity of a lifetime and, I thought, the start of the "second half" of my career.

Unfortunately it wasn't to be. I was devastated to get the phone call telling me I was their "second choice". All the sudden, stranded by the side of the road with no map, I wondered how I was going to get to the destination I know is on the horizon. I've been leaning on those gurus, guides and girlfriends I've written about before and learning a lot from this unexpected growth opportunity.

Here are just a few of the things I've figured out so far:
1) The true essence of who I am has not changed a bit from this loss. No loss can take that away from me. Whether you call that God, Spirit or whatever it is the unchangeable core of who we all are.
2) Organizations need leaders with real heart who know what loss feels like. Especially community organizations that serve people in times of need. Loss can create empathy for others and that is a valuable gift to offer the world.
3) When your world cracks open you eventually discover the jewels. Those gifts of great value are becoming apparent to me more and more each day as I move through the process of letting go of that dream.

This process of renewal is still unfolding and I'm not sure where the road will lead because I'm still searching for that new map. But now I know that until I find a new direction I already have all the resources I need to create a new dream.