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Some might call it the Year from Hell. Deanna Davies calls it the In- Between Year.
In 2025, she struggled as her mother’s cancer and heart disease, which had seemed in remission, reversed into a slide to palliative care and death. Meanwhile, her job and those of the other professors she led in the project management program at St. Lawrence College in the Kingston, Ont. area became precarious, as international student enrolment plummeted and resulting cutbacks intensified. A son and a daughter experienced medical emergencies and then in a routine appointment her doctor discovered a mole, which led to her own surgery for melanoma.
It was a lesson in leadership – for her and she believes for you.
“As leaders, we have to honour what is happening in ourselves. But we also have to notice what is happening in our teams,” she says in an interview.
Too often leaders neglect their own feelings in the push to get things done. And they remain professionally aloof – or oblivious, or simply hapless – at acknowledging what is happening to those they lead rather than assisting them through their own in-between year.
She kept track, first in a diary and then in a memoir, The In-Between.
“I had spent decades teaching, leading and holding space for others. I understood strategy, communication and emotional intelligence. I believed I knew how to stay steady and strong when things were difficult,” she reflects in that book about her career, which included time at Tim Hortons head office before landing nine years ago at the college’s business program.
“What I didn’t yet understand was what happens when life does not arrive one challenge at a time. When endings overlap. When roles collapse without warning. When the body carries more weight than the mind can organize.”
She had been living in uncertainty with her mother’s sicknesses, stretching the time they had together, delaying facing the future. She feels there is a difference between knowing something in your mind and your body.
In January of 2025, her body started to understand. The demands of caregiving grew steadily, presence and vigilance constant. She sensed something precious was slipping away. She might only have that year with her mother – and indeed, that proved true, her mother, Laurie Mitchell, dying on Dec. 14, 2025.
“Caregiving requires a particular kind of attention. One that doesn’t turn off. One that continues when you are doing something else entirely,” she writes.
But it was not her only responsibility and role. She had a partner, was mother to three young adults finding their way in their world and also had a teaching and administrative load. Students arrived with expectation and energy she had to fulfill. Colleagues needed steadiness.
And then without warning another loss arrived. The program she headed was suspended and her role as co-ordinator was gone. Teaching itself might also disappear and she would need to find a new job. Grief took hold yet again, this time over work and identity.
“Leadership literature often treats professional loss as something separate, a disruption to be managed or a transition to be navigated. But grief does not sort itself that clearly. It accumulates. It layers. It settles in the body alongside everything else that is already there,” she writes.
Her sleep became lighter. Her focus was less dependable. Decisions carried more weight because everything required more effort. “I could still lead. Still teach. Still show up. But the cost was rising and I could feel it,” she says.
By March, 2025, the job situation became more uncertain. There were no updates, reassurances or time lines as the college administration dealt with organizational challenges. And in that silence, fear was spreading. People were turning to her. Every day someone would ask, “Do you know?” She had no idea.
In her journal, she wrote: “I am trying to model strength. Leadership. Optimism. But inside I am bracing. I want someone to say it’s going to be okay. I want someone to name what is happening. I want someone to interrupt the fear. No one does. So I carry it. I carry my mother’s uncertainty. I carry my own.”
It’s her story. But it may be yours, as an individual dealing with family, work or personal challenges. And if you are a leader, you may have someone on your team similarly carrying fear, uncertainty and a caregiving burden.
“Don’t forget the humans,” now a consultant, she tells managers. “We become mired as leaders in what needs to get done. Everyone is in a sense of urgency. But often in these challenging and troubling times economically, we forget about the people. The projects, after all, can’t happen without the people.”
She has been teaching one day a year at York University in a project management offering. She had a new leader there, someone she had just met. When she was in the hospital as her mother declined, she received a message from him: “Just want you to know the team is thinking of you.”
She was wowed. “As a leader, that’s all that it takes,” she says.
Cannonballs
- Nearly a quarter of firms are listing artificial intelligence agents in their organization charts, Korn Ferry consultancy notes. But when mistakes occur, managers blame the AI rather than taking responsibility, unlike with humans where managers are more diligent in oversight and more willing to admit slipups.
- HR blogger Mike Pearce says most managers don’t know where their employees want to go in future postings because it’s awkward to ask. So they assign work based on urgency. Instead, in your next one-on-one ask the individual, “Where do you want to be in two years?” and then, “What skills do you need to develop to get there?” Help them build to their preferred future.
- Saying no to a bad idea is easy, observes executive advisor Liz Wiseman, but saying no to a good idea that isn’t strong enough for priority now is true leadership.
Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.
Editor’s note: This version has been corrected to state that Deanna Davies had a son and daughter experience medical emergencies.