What Leaders and Managers Can Learn from The Journey from Abandonment to Healing
Devon ran a team of twelve and had never missed a one-on-one in three years. Two weeks after his partner moved out, he was still on time, still asking good questions in reviews, but he noticed he was agreeing to things he'd normally push back on, just to end conversations faster than usual. A direct report asked if he was okay after a meeting went oddly flat, and Devon brushed it off with a joke. That night he sat in his car in the garage for twenty minutes, not ready to walk into an empty apartment. He wasn't failing anyone at work, but something in him was running on autopilot, and some quiet part of him knew it couldn't last.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
The pain is real, not a performance issue
When a partner leaves, the intense grief that follows is a genuine response to a broken attachment bond, not a sign a leader is somehow less resilient or less fit to manage people. Leadership culture prizes even-keeled composure, which can make this pain feel like something to hide entirely rather than something to move through openly. It is neither weakness nor a diagnosis, just a real, temporary state that deserves honest acknowledgment rather than quiet suppression. Naming it privately, to yourself or one trusted person, beats pretending it isn't quietly shaping your patience and your calls with the team each day.
Hiding any struggle until judgment quietly erodes.
At day's end, write one honest sentence about how you felt.
Getting through the acute weeks without leaning on your team
The sharpest phase after being left can bring sleeplessness and a shortened fuse, both of which show up fastest in meetings and feedback conversations you can't reschedule. Self-soothing here protects your team as much as it protects you: a few slow breaths before a hard conversation, a short walk after a tense call, water instead of a third cup of coffee. The instinct to prove nothing has changed by overworking usually backfires, showing up as snappish emails or delayed decisions instead of steady judgment. Small, private anchors throughout the day matter more right now than any single dramatic reset ever could.
Suppressing every feeling until it leaks out sideways.
Before a hard one-on-one, breathe slowly for two minutes.
Rebuilding self-worth that doesn't depend on being needed at work
Anger after being left often gets rerouted into work, either as sudden intensity toward the team or a retreat into being endlessly available and useful to everyone else around you. Both avoid the anger rather than working through it directly. A better outlet is naming the anger honestly somewhere private, a journal or a trusted friend outside the reporting line, without turning it into a verdict on the person who left. Self-worth built entirely on being indispensable at work is as fragile as self-worth built on a relationship; both leave you exposed the moment either one shifts unexpectedly, often without much warning at all.
Relocating your fragile foundation from love to being needed.
List three things people value in you beyond your job title.
Becoming a steadier leader, and eventually open to connection again
Genuine emotional independence shows up as a leader whose steadiness comes from within rather than constant validation. It does not mean becoming detached or guarded against future relationships. It means the next connection, whenever it arrives, is chosen from a settled sense of self, not a need to fill the space the breakup left, and that groundedness tends to make you calmer too.
There is tension between validating how much this hurts and staying functional enough to lead well. Leaning fully into the pain can leave decisions undone; leaning fully into performance can mean the grief never moves. Holding both looks like small, protected pockets to feel it honestly, a walk, a private note, a call to a friend, while keeping the parts of the job that most affect others reliably covered. The goal isn't perfect composure, just enough steadiness that the team is fine.
Name one thing, honestly
Where has this shown up in how you lead? What would it look like to ask for support? What part of your identity has nothing to do with being needed?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
List three things people value in you beyond your job title.