Does your organization have a mission statement? A vision statement? Do they follow them carefully? Were they brought to your attention when you were hired? Do you think they are important or just for their image?

A previous chapter from Dr. Brene Brown dealt with honest conversations. Another chapter goes deeper into more personal conversations. Here are two quotes:

"...I was reading an article in the Harvard Business Review, and it was talking about an organization that was researching companies that were reporting high levels of exhaustion. This team went into these companies to see what was driving such high levels of exhaustion. What they found was that while these employees were in face exhausted, it wasn't just because of the ops tempo. They were actually exhausted because people were lonely. Their workforces were lonely, and that loneliness was manifesting itself in a feeling of exhaustion" (60).

"Leaders must either invest a reasonable amount of time attending to fears and feelings, or squander an unreasonable amount of time trying to manage ineffective and unproductive behavior" (67).

What is your reaction to these ideas? Are they too touchy-feely? Is it the leader's job to deal with personal issues such as these? Have you had a leader/supervisor ask you about your feelings or what you are dealing with? What was their reaction? Where is the line that you or your supervisor would/should draw when it comes to self-disclosing? How far do you go to support someone going through a difficult time (how much time off, for example)?