Written By: Lauren Howard
I sent a 10 p.m. Slack to my leadership.
“I have to take the baby to the ER. I don’t know when I’ll be back. I will do my best to be here for the meeting first thing, but I’m just not sure.”
I didn’t wait for an answer.
The next day, we had a huge meeting with a potential massive client, and I designed the materials. It was a team effort, but I was supposed to present. I ran the departments that would be doing a fully custom implementation of what they wanted if we were picked.
There wasn’t any time to worry about that in that moment. I had more important things.
Thankfully, the baby was fine. It was a virus, and we were on our way home a few hours later.
We got in the car and the reality of the coming hours hit me. I had to be bright-eyed and ready to present a potential multi-million dollar implementation very shortly. I sent another message letting them know I would be there.
I set my alarm for three hours later, checked on the baby, and went to get as much sleep as I could before getting up to prep with the team.
I woke to messages that I must have missed in my exhaustion.
“No.”
“Don’t come in early.”
“We moved the meeting to tomorrow.”
“Family first.”
I collapsed back into bed with a heart full of gratefulness.
Those simple messages were exactly what I needed to hear even though I fully intended to give it my all.
I keep this story with me to remind me what kind of leader I always want to be. I will always consider my people first, like they did. They knew I would push through to my detriment. They knew it didn’t occur to me to move the meeting as soon as I knew it was possible to be there.
Possible was not enough. They needed all of me, and they couldn't have it (and didn't want it) when my kid needed to be my focus.
So my leadership did what was right for me over potential revenue for the company because my family was more important.
People first will always yield better results than revenue first. I would have done anything for them after that. And I did for many years that followed.
Founder & CEO at elletwo
Comments