My plane had just landed. I was anxious to get to the office after the departure of our team leader, a reduction in force culling hundreds of jobs just days before, and an organizational move to an unfamiliar part of the enterprise. As my team’s senior ranking member, I needed to help process everything together.

I turned on my phone to a deluge of texts. “Please call as soon as possible,” my colleague wrote. “Is everything okay?” I responded. “No,” she replied.

I called her as the plane taxied my crammed flight to the gate. “Priya,” she said, “Ashley died. She took her own life.”

The words echoed in my head—strange sounds that made no sense and didn’t feel real. Ashley had been a valued member of the team, a well-loved and developing leader whose deep empathy, perpetual curiosity, and

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