Let me tell you the story about the worst job interview I ever had.

I was interviewing servers for the restaurant that I owned with my husband.

The young woman was nervous, which is not unusual especially for a fine dining restaurant like mine. I offered her a glass of water, which I always did. We sat down, and the interview started out very normal and standard.

She told me she had been fired from her last job for stealing money, and she has learned to own her mistakes.

Her honesty was refreshing, so I just listened compassionately. I knew I couldn’t hire her, but I was curious to see where this would go.

Then she told me she was fired from her job before that for screwing over her coworkers.

At this point she realized she had blown it, and she started crying.

I handed her a tissue and continued listening. In addition to owning the restaurant with my husband, I also taught women’s self-defense with my friend Eric—he taught the physical skills and I taught the soft-skills. So, I had connections with many of the local organizations that support survivors of abuse.

I’m not a psychologist but I’ve worked with enough trauma survivors to recognize when someone has been in survival mode for too long.

She got to the part about her abusive childhood and how she felt it led her to make bad decisions. And now I had a sense of which organization might be the best fit for her.

I wrote down the name of the organization and their website on a piece of paper and asked if she had ever contacted them or any of the other local victims’ organizations.

She had not.

I explained my familiarity with them and told her a little bit about their services and how I thought they might help her, if she wished to take that step.

She hugged me and thanked me, and I wished her luck.

I’m sharing this story now because I told it to a client who was scared of blowing her own job interview.

Here’s a woman who epically sabotaged her interview but walked away with something even better than a job: a chance of healing.

We’ve all had hard conversations as leaders. What’s one moment where you led with both strength and compassion?