How a family tragedy offered a lesson in transparent communication

Corporations are fertile grounds for spawning great leaders. Some executives make their mark turning around faltering companies. Others rise to the occasion when an unexpected crisis occurs.

There are certainly countless additional examples of what defines a great leader. Despite a long career in communications and corporate affairs, my epiphany on leadership came at the most unexpected time: following the suicide in 2012 of my 28-year-old nephew, Brooks. And the teacher wasn’t a high-powered CEO. It was my late mother, Elaine Winton.

My three brothers and I were raised on the family dairy farm in upstate New York. My mom also helped raise the next generation of our family, which included Brooks and two of his siblings who had all been abandoned by their mother when they were very young. Mental illness was not uncommon in that rural community of about 500 people, though no one ever spoke about it.

We were all shocked when Brooks died by suicide. Certain people suggested that we sweep the cause under the rug, and some went so far as to encourage my mom to tell people that he died of natural causes. Again, he was a healthy 28-year-old, a robust dairy farmer and steel mill worker with no known physical illnesses.