FROM OUR CEO: Two weeks ago, I sent an email to our team, sharing how distraught my partners and I were over the leaked Roe v. Wade ruling, and sharing what we were doing, proactively, to support women in a time when our rights feel threatened on multiple levels.
Last week, I sent an email to our team in light of the tragedy at the Tops Supermarket in Buffalo. Our Black colleagues were hurting and fearful, and it was important that they knew they had the space to grieve and fear and that it was understandable if they weren’t fully focused on their day to day work at Sway.
Now here we are, just one week later, a day after an unspeakable tragedy in Uvalde, Texas; a town that will now be cemented horrifically in our minds forever, much like Sandy Hook, Columbine, and so many countless others.
Leading a team through a period of nonstop trauma and tragedy is a challenge I never thought I would have to face. I can analyze a P&L, I can work with our management team on annual objectives and action plans, and I can contribute thought leadership on all of the ins and outs of influencer marketing. But this?
No one taught me how to lead a team that is brought to tears weekly by assaults on our rights, and the sickening realization that all the places we thought were safe and simple (grocery stores, elementary schools) are just… not.
How do you move forward with posting schedules and brainstorming meetings and contract revisions when 19 innocent children were just killed in their classroom in the last week of the school year? How do we conduct our meetings and edit our documents when most of us had a hard time letting go of our own children as they headed out the door this morning to their classrooms?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. But, once again, I give our team space to grieve and to fear and I try to ease some of my pain through the helpful process of writing. I suppose we move forward in the way that we always do. Through the healing nature of time, and by channeling our anger into action. Some ideas:
- Make a donation to Everytown for Gun Safety
- Place calls to your local representatives – here are some helpful tips
-Danielle
