Whether you’ve steeled yourself with a quick cry in a bathroom stall, had a rejuvenating laugh with a few coworkers, pushed through a swell of anxiety before a big presentation, dug deep to overcome a challenging project, felt your temperature rising after a particularly frustrating Zoom call, or jumped for joy after getting a promotion, everyone experiences emotions at work. Good or bad, they are—after all—a fact of life, and the American worker spends a considerable chunk of their life at work. While some have enviously mastered the art of stoicism, our emotions don’t turn off just because we’re at work. As it turns out, that may not be a bad thing.
In recent years, research suggests it’s time for a reevaluation of how we think about emotions at work. For instance, a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that, in some cases, anger can be a beneficial tool for attaining business goals. Additionally, a multisource field study found there to be pronounced benefits from healthy emotional exchanges in the workplace. The research concluded that teams that share genuine emotions and help one another work through them produce better ideas, insights and outcomes.
During the pandemic, many in the business world found value in showing more of their authentic selves to their teams, with anecdotal claims that doing so improved morale, helped workers overcome stressful circumstances, created a more supportive work environment, reduced employee turnover, and even improved efficiency. Research has since shown that there may be something to this—a Catalyst study concluded that empathy is the most important leadership skill in times of crisis based on findings that it boosts engagement, innovation, retention and productivity.
Yet, as the days of lockdowns and office closures seem further and further behind us, some CEOs are pushing to return to pre-pandemic attitudes about emotions and empathy at work—right along with rescinding flexible work policies and doubling down on return to office mandates—and they’re facing worker backlash because of it. Just this week, Amazon issued a memo announcing a 5-day RTO mandate that quickly ignited a firestorm of criticism from its workforce. It seems obvious, but going backward simply isn’t the answer.
According to a report from LiveCareer, a mere 2% of workers say they prefer fully on-site work over hybrid and remote options, 3% say they feel most motivated working on site, and 3% say they are more productive when working on site. Meanwhile, the majority of workers report feeling more motivated, more productive, and more satisfied with flexible work options. As this writer and many others have pointed out, going back to the old way of doing things isn’t only unpopular, but it’s particularly harmful to the careers of women and working parents—and the businesses trying to go back are facing drops in productivity, losing employees, and struggling to fill vacant positions, according to an Upwork survey as reported by Fortune. Indeed, 72% of women said they would look for a new job if their employer no longer allowed hybrid work, according to an International Workplace Group survey.
These negative implications hold true for traditional views on emotions at work as well, which disproportionately work against women. A recent report on language bias in the workplace from Textio found that 78% of women say they’ve been negatively described as emotional at work compared to just 11% of men. Notably, this bias was also reported amongst other underrepresented workers—60% of Black and Latino workers report being negatively called emotional, compared to 21% of white workers. If research points to empathetic and diverse work environments being better for business, penalizing perceived “emotional” workers not only entrenches problematic gender biases in the workplace, it can hold organizations back from success.
To create a workplace that doesn’t stigmatize emotion but instead welcomes and benefits from it, those in leadership positions need to model empathy and acknowledge and validate their employees’ emotions, rather than dismissing or ignoring them. This is especially true for difficult emotions. Business leaders should also adopt strategies for embracing and amplifying emotional intelligence to better manage their teams. To lead with more emotional intelligence, Harvard Business Review recommends that leaders journal to become more aware of their own emotions, seek feedback from their teams through assessments and surveys, and practice active listening by putting away distractions and actively showing engagement in conversations with team members.
Leaders should also try to ensure their teams are communicating their emotions in effective ways, as there are times where focusing too much on certain emotions—like stress—can hurt morale and even catalyze burnout amongst coworkers, according to research published in Personnel Psychology. Additionally, it’s important for managers to provide employee feedback that isn’t critical of displays of emotion. As Textio outlines in its report, leaders should provide employees with actionable feedback that is strictly related to their work output, and avoid making claims about someone’s performance—like whether they’re “too emotional” or “not likable”— that aren’t specific to their actual work or can’t be substantiated by tangible examples.
Evolution is the nature of business. It is ever-changing, always racing forward, and the moment you stop moving and growing with it, your business or your career is in trouble. While making room for employees’ emotions and personal lives might seem uncomfortable for those accustomed to a more traditional workplace of a bygone era, norms are changing, and businesses stand to benefit if they’re willing to change too. Indeed, while it was once believed that emotions in the workplace led to conflict and poor decision-making, research is proving just the opposite—they can offer valuable insights and strategic advantages.
Instead of trying to recapture what once was, business leaders need to look to the future by applying what they learned from the most difficult days of the pandemic. That is, when leaders foster workplace cultures that encourage emotional validation and understanding, when they make room for flexibility and they prioritize their people, it leads to better business outcomes, including higher levels of creativity, heightened morale and camaraderie, greater job satisfaction and increased retention.
Going backwards is one of the worst mistakes you can make for your business or your career. Don’t let a little discomfort convince you otherwise.