My husband has a major surgery this morning. The surgery itself is scary and the recovery will be long and painful. He needs this surgery because of a brain infection. We are not looking forward to it and we’re not sure how long and how painful the recovery will be, only that it will certainly be longer and more painful that we would like.

Being my husband’s caregiver often requires me to live with uncertainty and uncomfortable feelings. The uncertainty makes it difficult to plan for the future—even next week—which can impact my ability to meet deadlines or show up to meetings. The uncomfortable feelings can make me impatient, irritable, unfocused, and weepy.

The person I’ve just described—someone who can’t meet deadlines, cancels meetings at the last minute, and is impatient, irritable, unfocused, and weepy—sounds like a terrible employee or student, don’t they? The very definition of “unprofessional.”

When I’ve had employees or students who exhibited these traits, I’ve sometimes thought that they need to develop time management skills, or they need more accountability, or they need to learn how to manage their emotions. Now that I’m the person in question, I can see that while these assumptions seem reasonable, they are completely off base. My time management skills are great and I have plenty of accountability. I think the emotions I’m experiencing are completely normal given the circumstances. There is nothing “wrong” with me. I don’t need more or different strategies; the fact is, I am living in a difficult situation and struggling with it is normal and healthy.

My assumptions about what causes “unprofessional” behavior were not just inaccurate, but they sometimes kept me from being the faculty member or supervisor I want to be. I thought, “Well, I’m not going to put in more effort than they are. If they don’t care about the assignment, I’m not going to knock myself out giving detailed feedback.” I was sometimes dismissive or less invested in their success.

As a professor and supervisor, I want to more consistently do the following:

1. Ask the person in question what is behind the behaviors I’m seeing rather than assuming it is laziness, lack of discipline, disengagement, unprofessionalism, and all the other negative traits that I now see are euphemisms for “someone who has a complicated life that I don’t understand and actually have no right to the details of.” And if they don’t want to talk about it, accept that it’s really none of my business.
2. Put my energy into supporting the person rather than devising “appropriate consequences.”
3. Find ways to maintain boundaries around my own time, energy, and other resources that don’t hinge on assumptions about what drives the behavior of others.