Eulogy for a Boss or Mentor: Should You Be the One Speaking

A eulogy for a boss or mentor is short, specific, and built around one thing they taught you. Three to four minutes, about 400 to 500 words. You speak as one person who learned from them, not for the whole company, and you leave the family's version of them to the family.

Most pages you will find today give you a template with [Boss's Name] in brackets and a line about celebrating the life of an extraordinary individual. That is not your problem. Your problem is that you knew this person for eight hours a day for six years and you are not sure any of it belongs at a funeral.

It does. But the work of a eulogy for a boss or a mentor is mostly decisions, and they come before the writing. Whether you should be the one speaking. Whether you are speaking as yourself or for the company. How much of a person you only saw between nine and five you are allowed to claim.

This page answers those four questions, with the exact words to use for each one, and then gives you four complete speeches you can adapt.

Should you be the one speaking?

Speak if the family asked you, or if you were the person they mentioned at home. Otherwise offer and let the family decide. A funeral eulogy is usually given by family or by someone the family chose, and a boss or mentor sits outside that circle no matter how much they mattered to your working life.

The offer should be small and easy to refuse. Send it in writing so nobody has to answer on the spot:

"I worked for David for nine years. If it would help to have someone speak about that part of his life, I would be glad to, and I will keep it to three minutes. If the service is already full, I completely understand, and I will be there either way."

Three things that offer does. It names your standing, nine years, so the family can weigh it. It names a length, so they know what they are agreeing to. And it gives them a clean way to say no.

If you are asked and you do not want to do it, you are allowed to say no. It is not wrong to decline. Say it once, plainly, and offer something else:

"Thank you for asking me. I do not think I can get through it, and I would rather not risk it at her service. Could I write something down for someone else to read, or say a few words at the office memorial instead?"

Two situations where you should not push to speak at the funeral itself. If the family is holding a small service and has asked for family only, the work tribute belongs at a separate memorial. And if you were their manager rather than their report, be careful: a boss speaking about a person who worked for them can tip into appraisal, and a room full of grieving family does not want to hear that their son was a strong performer.

Are you speaking as yourself or for the company?

Speak as yourself. One person, one relationship, one set of things you saw. A eulogy written on behalf of an organisation reads like a letter from the organisation, and nobody has ever been moved by one.

The difference is concrete. Here is the same idea written both ways.

For the company:

"On behalf of everyone at Hartley and Dean, I want to express our deepest condolences to the family. Margaret was a valued colleague and leader whose contributions over three decades shaped this firm."

As yourself:

"Margaret hired me when I had been turned down by eleven other firms. She told me later she did it because I was the only one who asked what the job was actually like on a bad day."

The first one is a press release. The second one is a person. If you have been asked to deliver the company's condolences, do it in one sentence at the top and then drop it and speak for yourself for the rest. If someone senior insists on the corporate version, let them give their own remarks separately.

One exception. At a workplace memorial rather than a funeral, the formal register is appropriate and often expected, because you are speaking in a room of colleagues and the family are guests. The third speech below is written for exactly that.

What can you say about someone you only knew at work?

Say what they taught you, and show it happening once. One specific piece of advice, in their words, with the moment attached. That is the whole technique for a boss or mentor eulogy, and it is what separates a usable speech from a list of adjectives.

Work out your one thing before you write a sentence. Ask yourself:

• What did they say to you that you still repeat to other people?
• What did they let you get wrong on purpose?
• What did they do when you brought them bad news?
• What did they never do, that other bosses did?
• Who else in the room learned the same thing from them?

The last question matters more than it looks. If four people in that room were taught the same sentence by the same person, saying it out loud is the moment the whole room recognises. That is also the test for whether you have found the right detail, and it is the same test that works on any eulogy: our page on how to make a eulogy personal goes through it in more depth if your draft still feels like it could be about anyone.

What you cannot say is what they were like as a father, a wife, a friend at home. You did not see it. Trying to cover it is the single most common failure in a work eulogy, and the family will hear it immediately. If you barely knew the person outside a few meetings, say so once and then be useful about the part you did see. There is a fuller version of that problem on our page about writing a eulogy for someone you did not know well.

Four complete eulogies for a boss or mentor

Each one is written to be read out loud as it stands. Change the names, the job, and the one piece of advice, and most of the shape will still hold.

1. For a first boss who taught you how to work

Read by a direct report in their thirties. Plain, grateful, no flourishes. About three and a half minutes.

My name is Ellen Park. David hired me in 2014, when I was twenty two and had never had a job that required me to own a coat.

I want to tell you about one sentence of his, because about six of us in this room have heard it and I think we should hear it one more time.

In my second week I sent a quote to a client with the wrong figure in it. Twelve thousand instead of twenty one. I found out on a Friday afternoon and I sat at my desk for forty minutes trying to work out how to tell him. When I finally did, he put his pen down and said, "Right. Who else needs to know, and how fast." Not how did this happen. Not what were you thinking. Who else needs to know, and how fast.

We called the client together. He let me do the talking and he sat there so that the client could see he was sitting there. It took nine minutes. Afterwards he said one more thing, which was, "Nobody has ever been fired here for a Friday afternoon phone call."

I have said that sentence to seven people I have managed since. I said it last month to a twenty three year old who had broken something much worse than a quote. He did not know he was being quoted. That is how it works.

David was not a soft man. He would tell you your work was thin, and he would tell you in front of other people, and you would go away and make it better. But he had an absolute rule about mistakes, which was that the mistake was over the moment you reported it, and after that it was just a problem to be fixed. I have worked for four other people since. None of them had that rule.

He was also wrong about a lot of things. He thought email was a passing nuisance. He kept a fax machine in his office until 2019 and would not be reasoned with about it.

I knew him from nine until six, and I know that is a narrow window on a whole life. Sarah, Tom, Michael, you knew the rest of him and I am not going to pretend to. But I spent nine years learning how to be at work from your dad, and so did most of the people sitting behind me, and I wanted you to know that is still happening in offices he never set foot in.

Thank you, David. Who else needs to know, and how fast. We will keep saying it.

2. For a long term mentor who was never your boss

Read by someone in their fifties about a woman who mentored them for twenty years from outside their company. Warmer, slower, more reflective. About three and a half minutes.

Margaret was not my boss. She never paid me, never reviewed me, never had any power over me at all, and she shaped my working life more than anyone who did.

I met her in 2003 at a conference in Birmingham that was, frankly, a waste of two days for everybody except me. I was thirty one and I had just been passed over for a job I had been promised. I said something bitter about it at the coffee table. She listened to the whole thing and then said, "That is the second time you have told me what they did. Tell me what you want to do."

We had lunch four times a year for the next twenty years. She bought lunch for the first ten of them and then I started winning the argument about the bill, roughly half the time.

Here is what she actually did, because mentoring is a word that has gone soft and what she did was not soft. She asked me the same question every time, which was what I was avoiding. Not what I was working on. What I was avoiding. And then she would wait. She was comfortable with a long silence in a way that I have never managed to copy.

She told me to leave a job in 2009 that I was proud of, and she was right. She told me not to take one in 2016 that I wanted badly, and she was right about that too, and I did not speak to her for four months afterwards out of pure stubbornness. When I called her she said, "Good. You were due a sulk." No lecture. We went back to lunch.

She did this for a lot of people. I found out at her birthday two years ago that there were at least nine of us, all of us under the impression we were the special one. I was briefly annoyed about this and then I thought, no, that is the whole point.

Margaret, I am still avoiding something. I have a reasonably good list for you and nobody to read it to. I will have to ask myself the question now, and sit in the silence, and I am not going to be as good at it as you were.

Thank you for twenty years of lunches and one question. To her family: she talked about you constantly and she never once showed me a photograph, which I think was deliberate. She kept you to herself. I understand that better now.

3. Ninety seconds at a workplace memorial

Read at an office gathering or a memorial service rather than at the funeral, by a senior colleague, with the family present as guests. Formal, brief, and deliberately not a eulogy. About 170 words, ninety seconds.

For those who have joined us from outside the office, my name is Joseph Addo and I led the team Priya worked in for the last four years.

We are not going to try to do what her family will do on Saturday. We have one small thing to offer instead.

Priya ran the Tuesday handover for three years. It was eleven minutes long, every week, and it never once overran, because she started it whether or not anybody had arrived. If you were late you walked into the middle of it. Nobody was ever late twice.

Four of the people in this room were trained by her in that meeting. Two of them now run handovers of their own, the same way, to the minute.

To Anil and to her parents: she was very good at her job, and she was straightforward with people, and the room was better when she was in it. We are sorry. We will keep the Tuesday meeting.

4. For a boss you respected and did not always like

Read by a long serving employee about a demanding person. Honest, dry, no score settling. About three and a half minutes.

I worked for Frank Mulvaney for seventeen years, and we were not friends.

I want to say that at the start because most of the people in this room worked for him too, and if I stand up here and tell you he was a warm man you will stop listening to me, and then nothing else I say will land.

He was difficult. He was often rude. He had an opinion about how to load a dishwasher and he shared it. In 2011 he made me redo a piece of work four times, and the fourth version was the one that won us the contract that paid my mortgage for a decade, and he never acknowledged the first three at all.

Here is what I would like on the record about him anyway.

Frank never once took credit for something I did. Not once, in seventeen years. I have worked for pleasant men who did it constantly. He would stand in a meeting and say, "That was Dervla's, ask her," and then look at his papers while I answered, and if I got it wrong he would let me get it wrong in front of the client and then fix it afterwards in private.

He also kept four people on payroll in 2009 that the numbers said he could not keep. I know what that cost him because I did the numbers. He never mentioned it to any of them. Two of those four are in this room. You know who you are, and I think you should know.

So no, he was not warm. He was something rarer than warm, which is fair, and he was fair when it cost him money and he was fair when nobody was looking.

I am not going to pretend I will miss his phone calls. I will miss knowing that if something went properly wrong, he would not look for someone to blame first. He would just ask what we were going to do.

Mary, Peter, I know you had the other version of him, the one who sang at Christmas, and I am glad that one existed. This is the version four hundred people got, and it was better than most of them will ever admit.

How long should a eulogy for a boss be?

Three to four minutes, about 400 to 500 words. Shorter than a eulogy from a son or a spouse, and deliberately so, because you are one voice among several and you are the one who knew the smallest part of them.

Rough timings, read at a funeral pace which is slower than you think:

• 90 seconds is about 170 words. Right for a workplace memorial, or for a service with many speakers.
• Three minutes is about 400 words. Right for most work tributes at a funeral.
• Four minutes is about 550 words. The upper limit unless the family has asked you for more.
• Over five minutes, you are giving the family eulogy. Do not, unless you were asked to.

If you are one of four or five speakers, ask the funeral director or whoever is running the order of service how long you have, and then come in twenty seconds under it. Nobody has ever complained that a work tribute was too short. If you are starting from nothing and the funeral is in two days, the eulogy writer will give you a full draft from a few answers and show it to you free before you decide anything.

Openings and closings for a work eulogy

The opening has one job, which is to establish your standing in about eight words so the room knows why you are up there. Name the relationship and the length of it, then go straight into the specific.

Openings that work:

• "David hired me in 2014, when I was twenty two."
• "Margaret was not my boss. She never had any power over me at all."
• "I worked for Frank for seventeen years, and we were not friends."
• "I want to tell you about one sentence of hers."
• "There are six of us here who were taught the same thing by the same man."
• "I knew her from nine until six, which I know is a narrow window."

Closings that work. The rule is to end on the person or on the family, never on the company:

• "We will keep saying it."
• "Thank you for twenty years of lunches and one question."
• "We will keep the Tuesday meeting."
• "He would just ask what we were going to do."
• "That is still happening in offices he never set foot in."
• "You knew the rest of him. I am glad that one existed."

Avoid "rest in peace" as a closing line if you can. It is fine, and it is also what everyone says, and after four speakers it stops registering.

What not to say in a eulogy for a boss

Do not appraise them. The family is not an audience for a performance review, in either direction, and a line like "she was the best manager this company ever had" measures a person against a job.

Also leave out:

• Revenue, targets, and job titles in a list. One figure is fine if a story needs it. A career summary is a LinkedIn post.
• Anything a client or a colleague would not want repeated. You are standing in a room with their family, and sometimes with their competitors.
• The redundancy round, the restructure, the tribunal. Even if you were right.
• Inside jokes with no door in them. If forty people in the room get it and two hundred do not, the two hundred include the children.
• Claiming the home version. "He was a devoted family man" from a colleague is a guess, and it reads as one.
• The company's condolences, at length. One sentence, early, then speak as yourself.

One more. If you are speaking as a manager about someone who worked for you, be careful with the word "we". It can sound like the organisation talking, and it puts you in charge of a room where you are not in charge of anything.

Common questions

How do I write a tribute to my boss who died?

Pick one thing they taught you, find the specific moment it happened, and write that moment out in full. Then add two sentences about what you do differently now because of it, and close on the family rather than on the company. Three to four minutes is right. That structure works whether you are speaking at the funeral or writing something to be read at the office.

Who should say the eulogy at a funeral?

Whoever the family chooses, which is usually a son, daughter, sibling, spouse, or close friend. A boss, mentor, or colleague is a second tier speaker at a funeral and a first tier speaker at a workplace memorial. If you are unsure where you sit, offer in writing and let the family decide without having to say no to your face.

Is it wrong to not speak at a funeral?

No. Declining is a normal answer and nobody who matters will hold it against you. Say it once and clearly, and offer something smaller if you want to: writing something down for another person to read, or speaking at the office memorial instead. A person who cannot get through it does not owe the room an attempt.

How long is it appropriate to speak at a funeral?

Three to five minutes for a family member, three to four for a work tribute, and ninety seconds if there are many speakers or the service is tight. Ask whoever is running the order of service, then aim twenty seconds under what they tell you. Reading out loud at a funeral pace is slower than reading in your head, so time it standing up.

What are some good examples of short eulogies?

The third speech on this page is a 170 word example written for a workplace memorial, and it is a usable model for any short tribute: establish who you are, give one concrete thing the person did repeatedly, name who learned it from them, and close on the family. We have more at a range of lengths in our short eulogy examples, and if the occasion is a memorial rather than a funeral, our tribute speech examples are closer to the register you want.

Before Saturday

Find your one sentence. The thing they said that you still repeat. Write out the afternoon it happened, in order, with the real numbers and the real room, and stop when it is done.

You do not have to account for their whole life. Four hundred people learned something from this person and you are the one who was asked to say what it was. If the page is still blank on Friday night, you can start a draft here and read it before you decide anything.