It’s no secret that most people’s instinct, when something painful happens in public view, is to go quiet. You’ve probably felt that pull yourself: say less, wait it out, protect the image.
Two women in the public eye did the opposite recently, and it’s worth paying attention to why. Content creator Isabel Klee said goodbye to her longtime dog, Simon, in July, and instead of stepping back from her platform, she used it to point millions of followers toward Muddy Paws Rescue. Nurse and creator Jen Hamilton announced a separation the same month and, within days, launched a merch line that has raised more than $100,000 for organizations that help women rebuild their lives.
Why Going Quiet Isn’t the Safe Choice It Feels Like
Here’s the thing: Silence feels protective, but it isn’t neutral. Research on self-disclosure backs this up directly.
A 2025 study by Ai Ito and colleagues, covered by behavioral analyst Wendy L. Patrick in Psychology Today, found that when leaders share personal experiences, including a traumatic loss, it can increase how much their audience trusts and even feels drawn to follow them. The researchers call this a “charismatic attribution,” which is a fancy way of saying people follow leaders they feel they actually know.
So what does this mean for you? Sharing what’s hard doesn’t make you look weaker as a leader. Handled well, it does the opposite; it’s one of the more reliable ways to build the kind of trust that outlasts a single good quarter or a well-timed announcement.
What Leading Through Hardship in Public Actually Looks Like
Klee didn’t just post about grief and move on. In a tribute shared with her community, she said of Simon: “He has fought so hard for so long, and now he gets to rest.” She paired that vulnerability with a direct ask, inviting people to support other rescue animals in his name.
Hamilton took a similar approach. Days after announcing her separation, she launched the Sisterhood of Solidarity collection, with proceeds going to organizations including the National Network to End Domestic Violence. Her own words frame why: “What I recognized through this process is that I am so fortunate to be able to get out of a situation that I didn’t need to be in because I have the resources to do so.” So many women don’t have that.
Neither woman treated her hardship as a performance, and neither one hid it either. The through-line is simple: They named what was happening, and then they gave their audience a concrete way to turn that shared feeling into something useful.
Turning Personal Pain Into Collective Action
This is the part leaders most often miss. Sharing something difficult earns empathy. Pairing it with a specific action turns that empathy into momentum, for a cause, a team, or a mission.
Try this approach: The next time you’re navigating something hard in a role where people are watching, whether that’s a layoff, a setback, or a personal loss, ask yourself what a person could do with the sympathy they feel for you. If the honest answer is “nothing, they’d just feel bad,” you’ve shared the hardship without finishing the thought.
The key is to close that loop. A specific ask—whether it’s a donation, a volunteer hour or a changed policy—is what separates a vulnerable moment from a vulnerable brand.
How to Apply This Without Waiting for a Crisis
You don’t need a tragedy to practice this. Consider this simple framework before your next hard conversation with a team, a client base or an audience:
Name what’s actually happening. Vague reference to a “tough season” builds less trust than specific, honest thoughts. Precision reads as respect for your audience’s intelligence.
Decide what you will not share. Authentic doesn’t mean unfiltered. Draw the line before you’re in the moment and emotions are running the decision.
Give people something to do. A cause, a resource, a next step. This is the piece that turns a moment of sympathy into shared purpose.
Start by writing down, before you need it, what an honest update from you would sound like in a hard season and what action you’d want to pair with it. Having the framework ready matters more once you’re actually in it.
The Leadership Lesson Worth Remembering
But it doesn’t stop at feeling more relatable. Leaders who are trusted during hard moments are also the ones people stay loyal to during good ones. That’s not a coincidence; it’s the same charismatic attribution research showing up in reverse.
Klee and Hamilton didn’t choose an easy path. Both could have gone quiet, and no one would have blamed them. Instead, they treated their platforms as something to be stewarded, even in pain, not just enjoyed in comfort.
Consider this your action item: Identify one place in your professional life, a team update, a newsletter, a public statement, where you’ve been defaulting to vague positivity instead of honest specificity. Rewrite it. Then decide what single action you want your audience to walk away able to take. That pairing, honesty plus a next step, is what actually builds the kind of trust that holds up under pressure.
Featured image from PeopleImages/Shutterstock
