I’m Not Crying, You’re Crying

Is crying in the workplace ever okay? Is it ever not okay?

If you read our blog post about getting feedback you don’t agree with, you saw that we touched on the concept of assessing your mental state when you’re at work to better understand your levels of reactivity; and while we do recommend that giving yourself space to walk away from moments when something is triggering a reaction in you, what about when that’s not an option? We specifically want to talk about crying in the workplace and what to do if you’re the type of person who may have leakier eyes than others.

Unfortunately, crying in the workplace has a bad reputation historically. Employees are often deemed “overly emotional” or weak, particularly if they are women. On top of that, not everyone feels comfortable when others cry in front of them. Some people don’t feel they’re emotionally equipped to handle their co-workers’ tears, some feel that it's unfair to ask them to take on that emotional burden, and some just feel a little useless because they feel there’s nothing they can really do to help. 

So crying at work is not a behavior that most people feel good about doing. But should people who tend to tear up easily feel ashamed of it? And are there times when this reaction should be more normalized in the workplace?

Why We Cry: The Emotions Behind the Tears

There are many reasons people cry. It relieves anxiety, it helps express joy, your empathy may be connecting you to others feelings; you may be angry, embarrassed, depressed, sad, or just need an emotional release. Tears are a response to a heightened feeling, and they’re a normal reaction your body has to let you know that you’re having an emotional reaction. 

Reflect and Communicate

If you are naturally inclined to tears, it’s okay to accept that about yourself. Get comfortable in your skin, take some time to understand what triggers you, and keep a record of when you feel tearful at work. Do feedback, praise, or fraught conversations trigger your emotions? Maybe it’s fear that you’ve messed up or that you need to have a hard conversation. Knowing your triggers can help you prepare yourself and others for how you may react.

If you feel comfortable, let the people you frequently interact with know that this is how you process emotions. You don’t need to apologize for it, but it does help to normalize it, and it helps other people understand that they aren’t the trigger. 

When Leadership Gets Emotional

If you are a leader or in a managerial role, knowing your triggers can be particularly helpful because how your emotions come across can have a trickle down effect. Keep in mind that crying during team meetings or 1-1s may affect the people you manage. You need to be aware of your impact and how you may make other people feel, intentional or not. 

There’s a common phrase in management that “sh*t travels downhill,” meaning problems originating in leadership end up becoming someone else’s problems. But as a manager your job is to control anxiety. Your reports have a right to their emotional well-being as well, which means it is particularly important to have coping mechanisms or outlets as it relates to any situation that directly involves your team.

That being said, there’s a difference between unloading your emotions on your direct reports and showing healthy vulnerability. As a manager, you don’t have to be a brick wall, but you also can’t offload your stress onto your team. It’s a delicate, sometimes confusing, balance and one Kindred Works is highly skilled at helping managers navigate.

The Balance: Individual Coping vs Company Responsibility

At the end of the day, we can work to normalize tears, but we can’t control how other people react to them. We can only control how we feel about our own reaction and how we choose to conduct ourselves in the moment. Tears are a normal response to stress, fear, anger, sadness, and anxiety, so if you’re feeling these things at work and you react with tears, spend less time being embarrassed and more time figuring out how to handle the underlying emotion that caused the tears in the first place and what coping mechanisms work for YOU. 

For company leaders it’s also worth noting that regardless of whether someone is a first time crier or 50th, when workplace situations (that aren’t joyful) are leading people to tears, this may be a sign that there’s something within the company that needs to be dealt with. If stress, team morale, communication style, inability to take vacation, lack of transparency, or other internal operational hurdles are causing tears, don’t ignore this symptom or assume that someone is just being overly emotional. These types of things are foundational to company culture and if they’re causing negative emotions, if the root cause is not resolved quickly and with care, it has the ability to cause long-term damage, spoiling team dynamics and affecting retention.

Accepting (and Embracing) Our Humanity in the Workplace

Not a crier? If you’ve seen someone cry at work and have perceived it as a sign of weakness or been in a situation where you’ve felt uncomfortable because someone started crying around you, you might question why that is. Is it a bad thing for people to let you know how they feel about something as long as they don’t do it in a way that harms others? Is it a bad thing for people to feel emotionally invested in their work? If someone is crying around you, are they actually expecting anything from you, and if so, what? Try not to make assumptions that someone wants advice (or even comfort!).

And if crying is a common reaction in your workplace environment, it’s worth keeping in mind that this may be a data point: it might be worth considering whether your company culture needs a facelift, rather than simply assuming that the people around you are “weak” or “emotional”.

Leadership comes up with a lot of complex challenges, and how you handle them defines your culture. Kindred Works can help! Read more about our human-centered approach here, and you can contact us via email at  info@kindred-works.co