Leading After Loss - Nics McLaren
Hi everyone, I go by the nickname of Nics, I am 57 and I am an Insight Director with a focus on Responsible Business (think doing good for the planet and the people who live on it) for a healthcare company. I’ve worked in Marketing and Insights for over 30 years, and really enjoy doing so. It’s all about people, understanding their lives and needs to be better able to deliver products and solutions that help improve their everyday. People expect brands and businesses to “do good” and doing so also drives “good business”. Everybody wins!
I was born in SE London, the youngest of 3 children. I have an older brother and sister. We have always been, and still are, a close family. My father’s work took us to The Netherlands just ahead of my 2nd birthday and we ended up living there till I was 18. It was a great country to grow up in. At 11, I went to boarding school in England. Now, boarding school gets some bad press, but I enjoyed it. We had family nearby, our parents visited often, I made good friends and loved the holidays back in The Netherlands. After school and a gap year, I went to Uni and studied French, which included a year in France, teaching French schoolchildren to speak English and finally learning to actually speak French, which I also really enjoyed.
It was during my gap year, when I was 18, that my father died. And almost 40 years later, writing that still brings tears to my eyes. No longer tears of grief, rather tears of love. I feel more gratitude than sadness now, gratitude that he was my Dad, that I had him for 18 years and that he had such a positive impact on my life, both while he was alive and since. He was a scientist and was very creative and he was fun! We played so many games over so many years, shuffleboard, table tennis, umpteen card games, backgammon. We went ice skating, we shared a love of the sea and we must have walked miles over the years, walking and talking all the time. All activities that I have enjoyed, and continue to enjoy, with my (now adult) children. My children have for sure benefitted from the positive behaviours and outlook I developed thanks to my Dad.
My father was my champion, he would always show me what I could do, if I focussed on what I felt I couldn’t do. He held up a mirror, to help me see my true self. Having such a great role model and champion, has enabled me to readily identify other champions during my career, people who I knew would guide and support me, with positive intent, especially early in my career. I think I developed my “trust radar” from my experience of him. Those that meet the high bar he set, I trust completely. When I had the chance to live in the Caribbean, for a couple of years in my mid-20s, I knew that he would encourage me to do so, while others felt it posed a risk to my career development. He would have loved the life, the beauty and the experience of living in the Caribbean as much as I did. And my work experience while I was there (I was lucky enough to get a great Marketing job), if anything, had a positive impact on my career development!
My father had high emotional intelligence, which I value highly. He has made me a more empathetic leader, both at work and in my social circles. Thanks to him, I value and model open communication, I am available to people to untangle knotty problems, without judgement, and I see the importance of looking at situations through different perspectives, to understand others’ points of view.
My heart goes out to anyone reading this who has lost a parent. It is an irreplaceable loss. A loss of your parent in the present and in the future. It saddens me that my father will never know my children, nor they him – and yet they do. I have always talked about him, told them stories, been open about my sadness at his death and they know that our enjoyment, in many of the activities we like to share, started with my Dad.
Know that your parent, while no longer with you, is within you. I think it is helpful to talk about them with others that loved them, and love you, and to know that their love for you will always be there. You can still ‘talk’ to them, consider the advice and guidance you think they would have given to you, enjoy things they would have enjoyed and laughs you would have shared. With sadness at first, but over time with gratitude.