Why Wouldn't The Workplace Be The Place To Heal?

“Unhealed leaders often lead from fear through control, avoidance or perfectionism. I want to help build a world where leadership is rooted in healing.” That’s Magdala Chery, DO, MBS, MPH, a physician who now works as a people leader and Change Practitioner reimagining systems, products, and organizational leadership to advance equity in health and tech settings at Google. Chery told me, “Going to work is like opening up wounds. So why wouldn't the workplace be the place to heal? The wounds are [already] open. What I'm daring to do is just name out loud what we all know, but it feels very taboo and against societal standards to say that.” She makes an audacious statement, so let’s talk about it. It's hard to imagine work feeling healing right now, but maybe that's the point.

I believe healing at work is simpler than we think. We heal at work when we stop hiding from difficult emotions, and simply accept them as part of life and leadership. So let’s start with one of the most uncomfortable emotions: grief. Modern Loss founder Rebecca Soffer writes in Time: “Grief is not a problem to be solved, but a journey to be supported, individually and collectively.”

And maybe work is a place where we can support each other through grief. Dr. Chery shares how grief changed her leadership. She lost both parents to COVID-19 just weeks apart. "The pain & trauma surrounding their death serves as my steady heartbeat for this work."  Healing her grief helped her adjust her anxious achiever nature into someone who isn’t afraid to pause, to plumb deeper, and to ask the questions that need to be asked.

Five years after her parents’ deaths, I asked her to share a bit about where she's at right now, and Chery shared a story: She was on her first international work trip—her first time presenting outside the country. It was a big milestone. After presenting in Scotland, she flew to another country for more work. And on that flight, it hit her. The magnitude of what she’d just done. She started crying uncontrollably. All she wanted was to talk to her parents and share the moment.

“They felt so close… but so far. It was almost symbolic, this all happening while I was in the clouds.”

A flight attendant came by to ask what she wanted to eat. She responded, “I don’t want to eat. I just want tissues.” He looked at her teary eyes and said, “But you can’t eat tissues.” Then offered croissants and fruit. He brought her food, then returned with a whole stack of tissues.

“It felt like my dad was reaching over, talking to me through this stranger. My dad would always say, ‘It’s going to be okay.’”

That moment was a quiet act of leadership. The flight attendant didn’t try to fix her. He just saw her, gave her space to feel, and stayed present. The moment reminded her of how her parents showed care: always asking, “Did you eat? Did you sleep?” Those small questions were love. A check-in. A tether. And now, she says, grief taught her to slow down and connect more deeply to others.

"I was always going as a highly anxious achiever. Productivity and performance gave me validation. Sitting still was not validating at all. But grief forced me to be still. Even when I couldn’t articulate it, something about it felt good."

Now, stillness is her superpower. “I will easily tell my team: I need time to pause. I’ll come back with clarity. I’ll connect the dots. But I need time.” And it's been well received.

Megan Reitz has done research on spaciousness and the quality that happens when we give space to another person without pressure. And when I’ve sat in meetings with Dr. Chery, she exudes that. Calm, grounded presence.

Was she always like that? “Yes and no,” she says. Growing up, she lacked psychological safety. Even though her parents tried their best, it didn’t feel safe to be her full self. That made her deeply aware of the importance of space and safety.

She’s trained in high-pressure environments like the ICU, where chaos is constant. As a Black woman, Chery shares that she understands calmness can be a tool to disarm others’ biases. And as a physician, she knows that the most important part of patient care isn’t treatment plans, it’s presence.

"The Hard Things Give Me Insight"

“It’s making space for you to tell me the hard things you don’t think are important, but they give me so much insight into how to show up for you.”

And that way of being—of making space for others—has become how she leads. Grief made Chery more attuned to what people carry. “It made me more aware of how people carry things you might not see on a status update or performance review.” Chery can sit with her own discomfort which means she helps her team manage discomfort. For example, she’s thoughtful about how she starts meetings, how she ends them, how she reads the room, even virtually. If something felt tense or awkward in the meeting, “I used to assume something was wrong with me. Now, I try to honor what might be going on for others.” That might mean pausing a meeting. Turning it into an email. Or simply saying, “Hey, I feel something—are you OK?”

Chery believes that grief taught her the power of slowing down, reflecting, and resetting values. She says leadership means translating those insights into how we show up while still meeting business needs. And equity means acknowledging that many communities don’t have the privilege to slow down—and creating space anyway.

What does that look like in action?

She shares this: “In a meeting, when I see things going awry and people getting uncomfortable, I still feel anxious. I still feel like it’s my fault. But I don’t try to erase those feelings. I use them as signals. I name what I’m noticing. Maybe I throw in a joke to ease the room. Maybe I follow up after, one-on-one. But I don’t leave it unnamed.”

A Tool To Practice Sitting with Yourself

Practice “expansion.” Feel the hard feelings. Take their teeth out by naming them. Ground yourself. Focus on your breath. Notice your values beneath the pain.

Ask: What do I care about that’s making this painful?

And sit with that discomfort without rushing to act.

Healing just starts with the bravery to feel difficult things.

Morra

P.S.: I love Susan J. Schmitt Winchester's Healing at Work.

P.P.S.: If you're grieving and need support, Rebecca Soffer's https://modernloss.com/ is an incredible resource.