Case: Managing Loss
Leader: Christina Valentine Slabinski
Topic: Taking Charge
Reference: Medal of Honor Leadership Series
NOTE OF WARNING: Content in this case may trigger extreme emotions or adverse reactions. Discussion content includes issues relating to war, death, and grieving.
Case Challenge
When SEAL team military spouse, Christina Valentine, loses her husband, she must manage her grief - made especially difficult as a growing number of widows and war torn families look to her for leadership.
Summary
Leading community members of an elite military unit, Christina is faced with a tragic loss and then surrounded by others who subsequently experience losses of their own. Within this war-torn community, Christina must lead through extreme emotional pain and uncertainty. By acknowledging the grief, recognizing its power, and connecting with those around her, she is able to develop her own survival skills and inspire those around her to do the same.
Context
Christina Valentine is the spouse of a SEAL team leader who is killed in a training accident just before a series of others in the unit experience loss during the war in Afghanistan. As a mother, daughter, and community leader, she must navigate her own pain while supporting those around her who are also overcome with grief. Her ability to manage the loss is critical for not only her own family but also the lives of her entire community.
Case Design
These leadership cases are designed to be discussed in a group so that divergent viewpoints can be debated. This enables participants to broaden their perspectives and gain insights into the values and instincts that drive decision- making. Each video pauses to allow for discussion at key points in the leader’s presentation.
Keep in Mind
The cases do not always provide the correct or ideal solution. Rather, they present one person’s experiences and judgment based on the circumstances faced at the time. Some critical details may have been unintentionally omitted.
Facilitation Tips
To help create a trusting, open atmosphere:
- Establish ground rules for the discussion, such as setting up a safe space
- Feedback should not be personal but directed at behavior
- Encourage participants to state and defend his or her opinion
- Refocus participants by raising broad questions and themes
- Reassure your group that leadership is an art that can be learned through practice, feedback, and experience
- In closing, provide a theoretical context for the discussion and takeaway lessons
Teaching Insight - Leadership Background Content: Managing Self
Managing loss sparks an extreme set of circumstances for an individual to manage self. Managing self is a critical leadership skill that may be influenced by personal values and instinctual behavior but is always impacted by circumstances and context with levers such as role models, support, risk, and reward. Leading oneself in a crisis involves emotions, lack of information, and a range of factors that may derail a leader. A crisis is often very defining for a leader since it puts to test the leadership skills to manage a variety of factors that are in the leader’s control. This video case is about a community leader who must deal with an emotionally derailing situation while finding support from others living through their own loss. According to the Kübler-Ross model, people who experience sudden grief face a series of five emotions: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In reality, managing grief does not always follow this sequence of emotions and reactions are unique for everyone. The question is not if leaders will face extreme emotions and personal loss, but more importantly how they will navigate it for themselves or others in these times of crisis.
In this case, Christina must process her new reality and learn to manage in a time of crisis and chaos. Her personal world and the world she knows is completely disrupted, leaving her in a state of confusion and uncertainty. To survive, she must anchor on values that matter most to her as a way to guide her and others away from the dangers of grief and towards a new state of hope and survival. This video case is about a leader who must name the emotions she is experiencing, recognize their dangers, and then find a source of strength to guide her to continue in spite of the extenuating circumstances of war.
Background and Challenge: Leading community members of an elite military unit, Christina is faced with a tragic loss and then surrounded by others who subsequently experience losses of their own, challenging her ability to self manage and lead through extreme emotions and circumstances.
Discussion Questions:
Ask these questions to the group at large or to particular students. Encourage everybody to participate by seeking a variety of different opinions.
- In a time of shock, how do you react? What do you prioritize when everything is falling down around you? (i.e. Christina protected her child from hearing the news about her father.)
- When people come to Christina’s house and ask her, “what are we going to do?” it is clear they are seeking guidance when everything feels out of control. Share a situation when you have helped others direct their energies towards something productive in spite of miserable circumstances. How did you respond to the situational need?
- When faced with a situation that completely shifts the stability of your life, what decision criteria or values would guide you through the emotional turmoil and uncertainty? (i.e. Christina struggled with the decision of how to navigate her own loss especially while immersed in a community also facing losses)
- How does managing yourself through extreme personal circumstances shift when you are a leader and others look to you for guidance?(i.e. consider the moment Christina not only must face her own loss but also support others in a similar situation.)
Decision: Christina must lead through extreme emotional pain and uncertainty by telling people they are going to move forward, fight back by not succumbing to the loss, and bonding together to support one another.
Discussion Questions:
Ask these questions to the group at large or to particular students. Encourage everybody to participate by seeking a variety of different opinions.
- When you face an extreme emotional challenge, how do you summon the energy and direction to move forward in a way that feels productive? (Note: An instructor might share ideas such as finding strength from a like-minded community, setting and working towards a goal, using emotions such as anger to fuel efforts, or other self-motivating strategies.)
- If you have ever been in a situation where everything seemed to spin miserably out of your control, what strategies did you find helpful to gain a sense of control and purpose?
- When you are in a chaotic situation, what do you do to help yourself and those around you to endure?
Results: By acknowledging the grief, recognizing its power, and connecting with those around her, she is able to develop her own survival skills and inspire those around her to do the same.
Results Discussion Questions:
Ask these questions to the group at large or to individual students. Encourage everybody to participate by seeking a variety of different opinions.
- When she talks about ways to remain “a Valentine” how might this help her family cope?
- Do you agree with her when she says: “If she allowed the grief to hold her it would always control her”?
- Do you think it is helpful when dealing with an emotion to make it (grief) something that is tangible and maybe even alive? (i.e. Christina uses phrases like “you need to rise above the grief” and that “it wants to take you”)
- How do you get emotions “out of your system”? (i.e. Christine uses the example of throwing plates, swearing, crying, talking, being heard)
Lessons Learned:
- You cannot let grief turn into hatred and anger because you will project it on the people who are there for you.
- Learn to disseminate forms of your grief and recognize when it turns into a dangerously depressing feeling.
- Realise and believe you will get through the grief “figure it out”
- Look at how others (20 other women) are managing through the challenge - let them help, support, inspire, and empower you. Then you do it for people coming after you.
- Set milestones and celebrate progress of making progress towards goals of managing grief well (getting to year 2, year 5, year 10).
Lessons Learned Discussion Questions:
- Do you agree with the lessons learned here? (Note: An instructor will need to mention the above lessons learned.)
- What are some of the ways that you can manage your emotions effectively?
- How can you prepare for the realities of leading through emotional challenges?
Considerations
The lessons shared by this leader are based on his own experiences. These lessons are not necessarily substantiated by academic research but are shared to spark consideration and insight.