We do not know the date and time of our death. We could live to be 100, or tomorrow could be our last day. As morbid as that sounds, it is a fact, and, in a way, it can be freeing. Recent deaths in the families of coworkers and people close to me have brought that truth to mind. We don’t get to choose how much time we have, but we do get to choose how we use it and how we treat people along the way. Why this matters to me as a coach: every day, every minute of every day, you get to choose how you lead others. You can lead with fear, or you can choose to see the person in front of you. That choice matters at work and at home, because we bring our whole selves to both. It may not always have looked that way, especially before COVID, but I believe it has always been true.
Fear Works, and That’s the Problem
I recently shared an Instagram reel about the rise in political ads and attacks on opponents. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that fear works. If you don’t like someone, show a video of people who look or act like them in a horrible situation. If you have an issue with someone’s religion, skin color, upbringing, or political party, show a few people breaking the law or causing harm, and our minds can turn those few into everyone. Then the person featured in the ad becomes our only solution, our only saving grace. “This person will save us.” But what have they lost along the way? I would argue that, to win, they lost their humanity. We bring that way of thinking with us. If we get comfortable with ads that tear people down because “everyone is doing it,” or accept a damaging claim about a group without taking time to examine it, we become more comfortable generalizing others. And generalizing is dangerous. It pulls our attention away from individual people and makes it easier to stop asking whether the person in front of us is being treated fairly.
Lack of Humanity
I’ve seen people write horrible things on social media that I believe they would never say to someone’s face. Which version is the real version? I think it’s both. When we speak in generalities, we don’t have to think about the effect of our words on one person; we’re thinking about no one in particular. But when we take time to think of the one or two people we know, or sit across from someone in person, we see the human being in front of us and act accordingly. When we think of people we know, we act humanely. This is one reason I believe empathy cannot be something we turn on only at home. We have to carry it into our workplaces, too. Employees are not numbers on a spreadsheet, or just roles to fill. They are people with families, hopes, worries, and lives beyond the office. Every employee is someone’s precious son or daughter. Remembering that does not remove the need for accountability or hard decisions. It asks us to make those decisions without forgetting who will live with the consequences. I’ve written before about what leadership looks like when we keep people in view.
When People Become Chips
At work, this pattern can show up when profits fall. Leaders strategize, and many conclude they need to send a strong signal to shareholders and investors. Like Pavlov’s dog, if that signal is a layoff, the market has been trained to respond positively. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ annual Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey table reports about 20.0 million layoffs and discharges in 2024 and 21.2 million in 2025-more than 41 million instances over those two years. Those are events, not a count of unique people; the impact on households can reach much further. Organizations can fear losing investors so much that they act against employees, seeing resources instead of human beings. It reminds me of casino chips. If I had to hand over actual money every time I made a bet, I’d bet more cautiously. However, chips are fun; they don’t feel like real money, so I may spend them more freely. The same can happen when we call people “FTEs” or “resources.” A reduction in force (RIF) can sound like a business term instead of a decision that changes someone’s life. Meanwhile, a senior leader may receive a substantial bonus while workers lose their jobs. This post from Robert Reich floored me because it showed a pattern where it appears greed matters more than humanity. When people become chips, it gets easier to spend them without pausing to think about the people and families behind them.
We Still Get to Choose
Life is short. How we live and what we do with our lives matters. We can choose to lead by fear, and history shows that fear can work: it can marginalize people, create poor working conditions, and strip the workplace of humanity. I guess that means it actually won’t work. If we forget the person in front of us is human, we’ve already lost, whether we know it or not.
So this week, I’d encourage you to find a moment each day to see the humanity in your employees. Before sending a signal to investors at your employees’ expense, pause and ask what other choices are available. You may say, “Coach Ha-Keem, you’re living in La La Land. No companies lead like this.” Before I read Everybody Matters, by Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia, I may have agreed with you. Today I know better. Bob Chapman’s work helped me see that leading with humanity is possible, and that it matters. Look at France, where protests over schools and the cost of living have drawn people into the streets, as the Associated Press has reported. I’ve seen frustration like this dismissed or reduced to political labels. Underneath it, I think more people are realizing they are worth more than how they're valued today. Those of us responsible for people should pay attention, not out of fear, but out of understanding and empathy for our fellow human beings.
None of us knows our last moments - that’s why it’s that much more important to choose to be better than our circumstances. Somehow, the Golden Rule we learned in kindergarten, treat others like you want to be treated, still applies.
Coach Ha-Keem
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