So Many Feelings. Too Many?

AMY GALLO: Amy B, do you ever see Liz Fosslien’s drawings about feelings that she posts on LinkedIn?

AMY BERNSTEIN: I’ve actually seen them in the book she’s written with Mollie West Duffy.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, those books are such a lifeline of support for me and not just for difficult situations at work, but anything about feelings. I actually bought my daughter their page-a-day calendar for Christmas last year, and we refer to it a lot. There’s actually one that’s labeled “Leadership at the Top,” and it shows a person walking on a tightrope and on one side it says, “Sharing too much,” and on the other side it says, “Sharing too little.”

AMY BERNSTEIN: I love that one. And there’s one that really speaks to me is all about despair. It’s from their book Big Feelings. And it shows, it looks like a pinging pong ball-sized circle that says “despair,” and next to it, a dot that is like one 10th the size that’s labeled “despair shared with people who get it.” And then next to those two, a softball-sized dot that says “despair shared with people who don’t get it.” Yeah. That landed.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, yeah. There’s also… Liz does a lot of these bar charts and they’re very simple, and there’s one where the y-axis is “how big a problem feels,” and there’s a very large bar when it says “when you shoulder it alone,” and then the bar is like a quarter of the size “when you can talk to someone about it.” And I think that same feeling about despair of just being able to share your emotions, makes them feel more manageable, makes it easier to be resilient and to do your job.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, I think sometimes just saying things out loud, that helps you either confront them or realize they’re maybe not as big or as scary as they felt when they were just sitting silent inside of you.

AMY GALLO: Yes, yes. As you know, I’m married to a therapist and he always is a big fan of, “If you talk about it, it’ll feel better.”

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh man.

AMY GALLO: Which makes me not want to talk about it.

AMY BERNSTEIN: You’re listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I’m Amy Bernstein.

AMY GALLO: And I’m Amy Gallo. The pandemic taught a lot of us that forcing ourselves to keep it together on the job during a crisis or expecting that other people should, isn’t reasonable or compassionate, and it’s not effective. We not only trust people who express their feelings and allow us to express ours, but not having to hide our feelings helps us perform better.

AMY BERNSTEIN: But have we taken all this too far? Is it still productive? Liz and Mollie who consult on leadership development and workplace culture believe, and this a quote, “The future of work is emotional.” The future of work is emotional, what about the now of work? And how do they see it evolving? Liz is going to tell us where she’s at on those questions.

AMY GALLO: But before we get that update, we’re going to replay a conversation we had in 2020 with her and Mollie from our episode “So Many Feelings.” At the time, they had recently published their first book, No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotion at Work. They talked to us about the pressure that many women feel to hide their feelings in order to be seen as professional and the good that can come from being selectively vulnerable with colleagues. Liz and Mollie, thank you so much for joining us today.

MOLLIE WEST DUFFY: Thanks for having us.

AMY GALLO: Mollie, I want to start with a big picture question. Why as women should we care about expressing our emotions effectively at work?

MOLLIE WEST DUFFY: So, as women, we should care because we have emotions whether we think we’re expressing them or not, and they will come out whether we’re aware of them coming out or not. So, if we are frustrated, even if we don’t verbalize that frustration, it will come out in other ways if we’re angry, if we’re sad, we’re excited. And as women, we actually get looked at longer and harder than men do for how we express that emotion. So, women are traditionally more likely to be labeled as overly emotional or a live wire. And so, women have to think longer and harder about when to express or not express emotions at work.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Does that go, Mollie, for all kinds of emotions? Is it positive emotions as well as negative ones

MOLLIE WEST DUFFY: Yeah, on both sides. So, with positive emotions, of course we view those as there could never be any issue with that. But if you are somebody who gets way too excited, unprofessionally excited about something or overshares about good things that maybe are in your personal lives, that can be a liability at work. And then on the other side of the spectrum, things like frustration and anger are also viewed sometimes as inappropriate, especially in the way that they come out for women. And we can talk more about this because they think they don’t always come out in the way that we expect for women, and they don’t always come out in the same way for women as for men.

AMY GALLO: As you’re describing this, it occurs to me that this feels like a bit of a minefield for women. And I’m curious, what advice do you have for our listeners who are trying, instead of being overly worried about this, what mindset should we go into thinking about expressing our emotions at work with?

MOLLIE WEST DUFFY: Yeah, it’s a great question. I think the most important thing is to be self-aware, to know what emotion you’re having before expressing it. Oftentimes when we’re first experiencing an emotion, we don’t have the verbal nuances to be able to describe it well so that others can understand and we can take good action on it. So, taking the time to understand first, why am I feeling frustrated? Is it because I’m behind on this deadline is because my team is having issues? And being able to articulate the nuances of that. But the other thing I’d say is, overall, I think generally we are scared of being overly emotional, and so we swing more towards the side of not displaying enough emotion. Of course there’s exceptions to this rule, but I think we’ve been taught for so long that we shouldn’t express emotions as women, and we lose out on the authenticity and the candor and the vulnerability that can come out of sharing emotions, which can actually have really positive effects on our teams and organizations.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, Liz, it’s important to share some, but where’s the line between sharing and oversharing?

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yeah, great question. So, we get this question a lot and often from women. In our book, we define the line as selective vulnerabilities. So, that is being able to share what you’re feeling while still prioritizing the psychological safety of your team. So, a quick example of how someone might do that is, let’s say that there’s been a round of layoffs at a firm. A manager who’s practicing selective vulnerability will come in and say something like, “This is affecting me, it’s affecting all of us, and this is a really stressful time.” So, by doing that, they’re acknowledging the emotion in the room and they’re sharing a little bit about what they’re feeling without going into too much detail. And then they’ll provide some kind of path forward, and this is about preserving psychological safety. So, they might say, “Here are the steps I’m taking to make sure this doesn’t happen again, and here’s what I need from you. And the goal is that, again, six months from now, we’ll be in a much better place.”

AMY GALLO: That example you gave makes it sound like you almost want to share with a purpose, so you’re not just sharing willy-nilly here’s how I feel, that it’s uncontained, but that there’s a purpose in doing so. Does that sound right?

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yeah. It’s more about preserving relationships and giving people the information they need to do their job effectively, but also to connect with you on a personal level. So, lots of research again shows that when we feel our managers care about us personally, we perform better. We’re actually kinder to others, so it kicks off this virtuous cycle. So, I think it’s just about really preserving humanity at work. And one of the tips that we give in our book that I’ve used myself and shared with a lot of people is really putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. So, if you’re ever wondering, “Should I share this? Is it oversharing? Is it too much?” Really think, “If this person, if the roles were reversed and they came to me and they said this, would it… A, would it just help me get a better understanding of the situation and maybe learn more about them? Or B, would it burden me and would it unsettle me?” And if it’s B, then maybe don’t say anything, you can always go to bed and share tomorrow.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, Liz, let’s say we feel ourselves just getting really angry or really upset about something. Any thoughts about how we can calm ourselves down?

MOLLIE WEST DUFFY: Just take a break so that you can acknowledge what you’re feeling. We really hate the advice never go to bed angry. Just go to bed. Sometimes you’re angry because you’re tired or you haven’t slept, and it’s just good to take that break. So, take the break. And then really look internally. And so, one question to ask yourself is, are you making any assumptions? So, we tend to have strong reactions to situations. And your feelings in those situations are extremely valid, but they might be based on facts that aren’t necessarily true. So, assumptions that you’ve made. And the example that I give is, a few years ago I was on a team and we hired this new person, a man, to come in. And I noticed really quickly that every time I asked him a question, when he would answer, he would start speaking incredibly slowly and over enunciate every word. And I hated his guts. I was so angry. I was just seething with frustration. This went on for weeks. I could barely contain it. I was going to bed angry, but I was still waking up angry. And then our team went out for dinner a few weeks later, and he and I actually had this amazing conversation. And so, I just decided to ask without any malice, “Hey, do you notice that when I ask you a question, you slow down when you respond?” And his response was, “I know, it’s something I’m working on, but I’m just afraid to look dumb in front of you.” And so, it was the tone… I know. Every time I tell this story, it’s like, “Aw,” and he and I are still good friends, but it’s the total opposite of what I had thought. And I just never bothered to question that assumption. I just had this fact, which was that he spoke slowly, and then I layered on an assumption, which was, “He thinks I’m stupid.” And then I layered on judgment, which was, “He’s sexist.” And then it turned into this horrible situation that could have been avoided by a conversation.

And again, you can’t always assume good intentions. There will be times when it’s not this magical story where everyone goes, “Aw,” at the end, but it’s good to at least start there and then question what you’ve thought.

AMY GALLO: So, Mollie, you mentioned putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. Liz just talked about asking yourself what assumptions might you be making. What other questions should we be asking ourselves before we act on our emotions?

MOLLIE WEST DUFFY: Liz mentioned thinking about intentions. And I think another thing to ask yourself is what is my goal of acting on this emotion or sharing this emotion? What’s the ideal outcome of this? Because sometimes our goal is, “I just want this person to know how angry or frustrated I am,” and that may make you feel better immediately, but if there’s not going to be a change to their behavior or a goal that you’re trying to get to, that may not be the best way to move forward. So, an example I’ll give is we do lots of work with companies and workshops, and I had a conversation with a woman who was an executive assistant to someone in the C-suite at this company. And she was really frustrated by how often he came to her and he raised his voice at her and he spoke to her in a really angry or demanding tone. She sat on it for a while and she realized that she didn’t think that he had awareness of how this was coming across, and she didn’t think that he had awareness of how this was affecting her own emotions. And so, she said to him one day, “When you yell at me, when you raise your voice at me, I shut down. So, I’m not going to get angry back at you, but I’m going to shut down and I’m not going to be able to do the best work that I can because I’m thinking about you yelling at me.” And his response, “Oh my God, that’s not what I mean.” And he got defensive, but then she continues to say, “The reason I’m bringing this up is that I hope that you can have more awareness of how that’s affecting me, and so you can modulate your tone when you’re speaking to me so that I can do better work for you.” And the goal was they were aligned on the goal, which was her being able to do better work, and she had a specific ask for him that wasn’t just, “This is making me really upset.”

AMY GALLO: Right.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Okay. I want to talk about crying at work. Mollie, is it as bad as some of us think to cry at work?

MOLLIE WEST DUFFY: It is definitely something that we feel ashamed of. We blame ourselves. We feel like it’s not professional. But most people have cried at work at some point in their career, whether it’s in public or in private. And the thing about crying is it’s a human reaction. It is, “I’m having an intense emotion right now, and it’s bubbling over to the point where I can’t share it verbally and calmly and it’s just coming out.” And so, what you should do in the moment with crying is to excuse yourself and say, “I’m having strong emotions. I need to step outside and go to the bathroom,” go wherever you need to calm down. Because once those nerves have activated, it’s really hard to stop crying in a meeting. And then reflect on why it is that you were crying. So, is this a one-time frustration or is this a more underlying issue about you’re really frustrated at work, you want to quit, or your boss consistently makes you feel undervalued? And to say, “Okay, is the underlying issue something that I can deal with so that it doesn’t keep happening where it comes out in tears?” And try to work on that underlying issue. And what’s interesting for women in crying is that oftentimes our anger comes out in the form of tears. So, when men get really angry, they yell, and women tend to cry or get in a way where they don’t want to yell, but they aren’t really communicating well. I think it’s really helpful to think about that because I think when we see someone crying, we think, :Oh, they’re sad.” But oftentimes it’s, “Oh, they’re angry.” That’s a really different emotion to deal with. The other thing that can come out in tears is just that you care. I think if we can all have a better understanding of the deeper underlying emotions behind tears, we won’t feel like we’re walking on eggshells around them as much.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, I imagine we have listeners who are hearing this and saying to themselves like, “I work in a place where it’s just not okay to express emotion.” I’m curious, do you find that in your work that there are cultures or industries where it’s far less acceptable to do some of what you’re advising to do?

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yes. So, my background is in economics, and I come from a consulting investment bank world. I think there’s absolutely differences in emotional culture across organizations. And so, one of the pieces of advice that we give is if you’re not comfortable speaking about emotions, then again, go back to what is the need or what is your goal and can you frame it around that? So, as an example, a few years ago, I was leading a team on a design project and we were facing a looming deadline. It was incredibly stressful. And I realized one day I was just so irritated with everyone around me. And I went for a walk around the block, and when I thought about it wasn’t that they had all suddenly morphed into these super annoying colleagues. They were the same people they always were. I was just so stressed about meeting this deadline. And it was honestly an environment where I didn’t necessarily feel like I could go back to the team and be like, “I’m so stressed about the deadline.” So, what I did is I thought about how to articulate that need, which was I just needed to know that we would meet it and that all the work that needed to get done would get done. So, what I did was go back into the meeting and say to everyone, “Hey, we have this deadline. I would just like to walk through the plan for meeting it again and see if there’s anything non-essential that we can cut just to make sure we deliver something great that’s a high quality bar so that we’re not rushing. Are there any meetings in the next few days that we could actually cancel to give ourselves more heads down time to finish this project?” And after we had had that discussion, we did end up canceling a few meetings. We did cut some non-essentials. I just felt so much better and I wasn’t irritated with anyone anymore. And again, it was the conversation. I had never brought up emotions. It had always been about what is the goal? What are we trying to achieve and how can we make that happen?

AMY GALLO: Right, but the thought process was how do I get my emotional needs met?

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yes.

AMY GALLO: Right? Yeah, so it was still about emotions even though you weren’t expressing them.

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yeah, definitely.

MOLLIE WEST DUFFY: We have an assessment on our website, your emotional expression tendency, and you can see whether you are over-emoter or an under-emoter. And I think having that self-knowledge is really important. So, over-emoters are the people who are going to say what’s on their mind, you’re going to know exactly how they’re feeling, and you go to those people when you want someone to get excited about what you’re doing or you want someone to empathize or really get into it with you. And the flip side of that is those people are going to tend to share more without thinking through why they’re sharing or whether it’s appropriate to share and may be seen as a little bit more unstable. And the other side an under-emoter is somebody who is not going to share either good or bad news or emotions as easily, and so people come to them when they need to talk through something calmly, to know that the person isn’t going to overreact. But again, the flip side is much harder for your colleagues to know what’s going on.

AMY GALLO: I took that assessment on your site and I got even-emoter, which I felt like was like an A plus, but maybe not. I didn’t know what the other options were.

MOLLIE WEST DUFFY: Even-emoters are people who have tendencies on both sides of the spectrum, and so the opportunity there is to identify which situations at work you tend to over-emote or under-emote and try to be more aware of those.

AMY GALLO: So, it doesn’t mean I’m perfect.

AMY BERNSTEIN: You’re closing.

MOLLIE WEST DUFFY: I’m sure you are, yes.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. Can I ask a tactical question?

MOLLIE WEST DUFFY: Sure.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Okay. Liz, let me direct this to you. Let’s say you don’t have the self-awareness or for whatever reason you just explode. What do you do?

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yeah, great question. So, I think one thing is not to make it worse. So, once you’ve had this moment, just say, “I just had a really strong reaction and I just need some time to process it.” And so, I think acknowledging that you realize that you maybe had a moment of over-expression, if I’ll put it that way, is really important to show that you do have self-awareness. And then it’s about following up. Give yourself the time and the space to let your emotions settle a little bit and then come back to the situation and really think through, what was it that happened that caused me to have this outburst? Was it something that’s been going on a long time? So, a great question to ask yourself there is, which of my boundaries have been violated? And was it someone else violating them or was it also a little bit on me? I noticed that I tend to get really stressed out and much more likely to have an outburst when I’ve totally over-socialized myself or over-committed myself. So, I’m an introvert, so is Mollie. We write about this a lot in the book. And I have struggled with this in the past where the workplace is built for extroverts. And so, it’s easy to just say yes to the happy hours, say yes to the dinners, say yes to the meetings, and then at the end of the week, you’re so high-strung and you haven’t carved out time for yourself that that’s when anything becomes an emotional trigger. In that case, so let’s say you’ve had an outburst because it’s just been building up for a while, and let’s say you do identify it’s because you just don’t have an enough time and space, really what to do is to take that evening, sit down, reevaluate your calendar, what can you cut? What’s non-essential? Do you just need to say no to a few more things? And then the last thing is really following up with that person. So, I think we tend to underestimate how forgiving people will be, and obviously this is that your outburst was still within the realm of okay for the workplace. But I think just admitting that you had a moment explaining what happened, maybe what caused it, but really taking ownership and just saying, “I’m sorry,” period, not, “I’m sorry that you felt like I had an outburst. That’s bad.” Just own it. And then the most important, the final part is just to say, “Here’s what I’m doing to make sure this doesn’t happen again.” So, again, the three parts of that I think are really just taking ownership, understanding what happened and why, saying, “I’m sorry,” period. And then showing that you’ve had the foresight, that you’ve had the time and the space to think about what you can do differently going forward.

AMY BERNSTEIN: What do you suggest we do if we’re on the receiving end of an emotional outburst?

MOLLIE WEST DUFFY: Yeah. If you’re in the receiving end, this is a really visual metaphor, but I think trying to put yourself in a bubble or another way that we’ve heard it is just don’t ingest. So, recognizing this person is having a strong reaction and you feel it radiating off of them and there starts to be emotional contagion where their emotions are going to affect your emotions. And so, as much as you can, putting a bubble around yourself or saying, “I recognize this emotion for what it is and I’m not going to ingest in the moment,” and I actually steal myself on the ground, I do sort of a power pose where I’m like, “Okay, I’m just going to ground myself. I’m here in the moment.” And then after you’re out of it, you can look at it and say, “How much was I complicit in that? So, how much did my actions create that emotional outbreak, or was it just whatever was going on with that person?” And if you are unclear about that, following up with the person when they have calmed down and you can say, “I know you had a really strong emotional reaction, I want to get clear about my role in that so that if there’s anything that I could do differently to make sure that doesn’t happen again, let me know.” Or on the other hand, it had nothing to do with me so that I can get clear on letting it go and moving on.

AMY GALLO: What I like about that is you’re not treating the person as a pariah for having had that emotional outburst because I think that’s tendency, especially if we feel hurt by it, to just avoid that person. And I think reengaging sometimes can be quite productive.

MOLLIE WEST DUFFY: It’s a hard thing to do because I think we all go into, “This is all my fault.” And that was a really tough thing to be a part of, to be witness, to be screamed at, to be yelled at. But it’s you being the bigger person to go back and give them that chance to clarify. And it also just, for me, helps me sleep better. Otherwise, I go to worst case scenario of like, “I caused that and now I can never speak to that person again” when that’s really probably not fair to them, and they had other things going on. We interviewed Kim Malone Scott for the book, and she said, as a boss, one of her employees came to her one day and said, “I know what kind of day I’m going to have by the look on your face when you walk in the door and I think that’s not super fair to the leaders. We are all going to have bad days.” But what it does mean is that, as leaders, we can get better at saying, “I had a really bad morning. There was traffic. Dealing with my kids at home. I’m in a bad mood. It has nothing to do with you.” So, the more we can distinguish what’s causing the emotions for others, the better.

AMY GALLO: And that’s a good point about leaders. We should talk a little bit about leader and selective vulnerability, but as you mentioned at the beginning, women are watched more carefully around emotions and I think leaders are too. So, there’s more imperative. Does that mean that you as a leader need to be more selectively vulnerable than we’ve been talking about? How does it differ when you’re a boss?

LIZ FOSSLIEN: If you’re a leader, you do need to be more careful about practicing selective vulnerability because you, to a certain extent, set the emotional and cultural tone for the team. And so, I think as a leader, just really thinking through what are you putting in your emails? That also is a place where it’s important to think through what emotional impact it might have. So, in the book, we give the example of if you’re a leader and you’re just sending off emails really quickly because you’re trying to be efficient, if you send in response to an email, “Let’s chat,” period. The effect on the recipient is so different than if you send, “Hey, great edits, let’s find a time to talk through some of the changes I want to make tomorrow afternoon.” Super different. And that’s again, because people are just looking into every word that you’re saying. And so, when it comes to emotional expression, again, if you walk in the door in the morning and let’s say you’ve been sitting in traffic for a long time or you had a fight with your partner or you’re just not feeling that well that day, if you don’t flag that for people and just say like, “Hey, I’m having a bad morning, it has nothing to do with you,” they’re going to spend the entire rest of the day worrying and feeling anxious. And then research shows that has a pretty dramatic impact on their productivity, how they treat the people around them. So, because you’re just more under the spotlight as a leader, it is really important that you think more carefully about your interactions and what you’re expressing. And that’s not only in your words, but also in your body language, your tone, and if you’re writing an email.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Do you have any thoughts on how… If you’re a manager and someone on your team is going through something deeply upsetting and maybe it lasts quite a long time. Any thoughts on how to be a good manager in that situation?

MOLLIE WEST DUFFY: It happens a lot for managers someone comes to you in tears. And I think if you’re just a colleague and that happens to you, you say, “Hey, I’m going to give you a shoulder to cry on, or I’m going to give you the space and then go back to work.” But if you’re a leader, you actually need to think about the best next step for this person. So, a couple of things. The first is just to listen and asking good questions and creating the space. The other thing is managing individually. Same person going through a death in the family may actually want really different things at work. Somebody may want to just dive right back into work and say, “This is a distraction mechanism and I don’t want you to treat me any differently.” The other person may say, “I’m going to need more extended time off and a transition back in.” Co-designing what that looks like. And then avoiding telling people what to feel, saying things like, “You’ll be fine,” or, “Don’t worry.” The person doesn’t know that they’re going to be fine yet and they can’t stop worrying. So, just creating space for them to have whatever emotions they’re having which are right for them.

AMY GALLO: I want to go back to what we were talking about at the very beginning around women feeling like they’re scared of being over emotional so that we sort of tend to fall on the side of not displaying enough. What if, as a woman, especially as a leader, what if you’re just not that emotional, at least outwardly? How do you handle that? Liz, maybe you can answer that one.

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yeah, so people do have very different emotional tendencies. And I would say at work, sometimes I lean towards being an under-emoter. And especially if you’re a manager, I think again, that can be just negatively interpreted. And so, one thing is find moments when you feel comfortable sharing a little more. And it’s going to feel strange at first, but I think one of the first easiest ways to do that is to lean into excitement. So, if your team meets a milestone or one of your reports does something really well, leaning into being a little more open about that you’re thrilled for them and not overdoing it, but pushing yourself a bit past your normal boundaries. And then I would also just find moments to share personal stories. So, there’s a lot of research that shows when a leader shares a personal story, that does a lot to strengthen the relationships between them and their reports. And again, make sure it’s work-appropriate and is not something that could be seen as you undermining your ability to lead, but it’s really about pinpointing moments in which you can push yourself out a little more. You might be more comfortable doing that in one-on-ones where it’s not in a team meeting, but allowing people to see a little more of your human side to get to know your personality is usually a good thing, especially if you’re aware that you tend to be an under-emoter.

AMY GALLO: I did want to ask about the bias toward women around emotions, and in particular how a woman might respond if she gets accused of being overly emotional.

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yeah. You get accused of being overly emotional, I think one is to take a step back and say, Who is this coming from? Is this a credible source? Is this somebody who I respect how they show emotions? So, if it’s coming from somebody who never shows any emotion at all and doesn’t have respect from the organization, maybe dismiss it. But if it’s somebody who you view as an emotional expression role model, then maybe you should take it to heart. And as the case with any feedback, the next question is, “Can you give me some examples? Can you help give me some specifics?” Because it’s really hard to act on general feedback. So, you could say to the person, “I hear, that I want to act on that. Can you help me identify sometimes when that’s happened in the past and help me identify some moments for improvement in the future?” And same thing with being under emoting or less emotional, is to get more specific. So, I’ll give an example of that. I am somebody who… Again, I mentioned I’m an under-emoter and I’m somebody who tends to warm up to new people slowly. And so, I got feedback that when I was meeting new clients that I was coming across as too business-focused, too professional and not warm enough. I said, “Great, give me some specific examples of when and which clients that’s happened with.” And then I announced it to my team. So, I said, “I’ve gotten this feedback and this is something I’m specifically working on during this client engagement.” So, when the very first meeting I was walking with my team into the client office, one of my colleagues said, “Okay, remember, you’re going to be overly warm and emotional. Maybe you’re going to come up with a fun fact to share. Maybe you’re going to go in with a big smile on your face. Let’s brainstorm some things that you can do going in.” I slowly got better at it. I do think there’s some validity in that feedback as long as it’s specific and you agree with where it’s coming from.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, it sounds as if we shouldn’t be looking for an absolute balance between being hyper-emotional and being under-emotional or unemotional, that it’s very context-dependent.

MOLLIE WEST DUFFY: Absolutely. I think it’s hugely context-dependent, and that’s why the specifics can really help. Because it’s hard to be self-reflective of like, “For me, most of the time I’m calm and I’m collected, and that’s a good thing when I’m leading teams. But then there are scenarios where that is not helpful and I’m too cold and I need to be warmer, and so I’m going to work specifically on that.” Without saying, “I need to change my entire personality,” or, “I need to be exactly like someone else’s style.” You have to figure out your own style and how to make that work. And then I think the other variable at play here is that our expectations are changing of how much emotion men and women should share. So, we live in a society that is now wanting people to be more vulnerable and authentic. The lines between work and life have blurred quite a bit, and the people who can’t make that transition often struggle, and I think… So, for men and women to understand that this is a dynamic thing and this is going to be changing as we live our lives and as our leadership progresses and that we may need to change the way that we express emotion or how comfortable we are with that.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah.

AMY GALLO: Mollie and Liz, I’m so glad you were able to join us today.

MOLLIE WEST DUFFY: Thank you.

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Thanks so much for having us.

AMY BERNSTEIN: If as Liz said, society’s expectations of how much emotion men and women should express are changing, if work-appropriate emotional expression is dynamic, where are we now in 2023? She’s here to tell us. Liz, the last time we spoke in early 2020, you and Mollie identified a couple of questions to ask ourselves before expressing our feelings at work so that we’re sharing with purpose and not just unloading. Questions like will this information burden and unsettle the other person? And what’s my goal here? How do I want this person to use this information to change their behavior or the situation we’re in? Have those filters changed for you in the last three and a half years? Are you finding that people have become any more unfiltered since then? Has selective vulnerability become less selective?

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yeah, great questions and thank you, I’m so glad to be back with you. Obviously, a lot has changed since 2020. And Mollie’s out today, but would’ve loved to join. So, the questions haven’t changed, but I do think people’s answers have. So, in terms of what might burden the other person. I think what’s so interesting about where we are now is it’s really bringing to the forefront when you no longer have such strict lines around this is professional and this is unprofessional, people’s personal differences start to really come to the fore. Where some people do prefer to share less. Some people would love to share everything with their colleagues. And I think that’s really the question that we’re facing now versus can I share anything at all?

AMY GALLO: That’s interesting. The question before was, “Could I express this emotion at work?” And now it’s, “How much emotion can I express?”

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yes. And in what context? And people have very different answers to that.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. How do we navigate that as individuals when we’re making that decision about what to be vulnerable about and what to share?

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yeah, I think it does come back to this question of what will be a burden to the other person? I think there are absolutely times when something will burden someone else and you still need to talk about it because there’s been a violation or there’s structural inequity in place. So, I’m talking more about sharing maybe grief or just sharing about mental health struggles. And I would say it really comes down to understanding the norms of the team or organization that you’re in, and also having a deep awareness of the amount of trust within a particular relationship. So, if I am new to an organization, honestly, I can’t trust that everyone will treat what I share with them with empathy and that it won’t come back to hurt me. And that’s a sad truth of the workplace, but I would say that’s an area where I might… It’s not even burdensome, it’s just like you might want to protect yourself a little more. If your manager is very emotionally closed off, unfortunately again they’re probably not going to react well to you talking so much about how anxious you are. And so, in those cases, I would always advise, you can still talk about it, but start with the need versus the emotion. So, rather than, “I’m so anxious, I’m so overwhelmed, I have a lot on my plate. Can you help me prioritize my work so that I can be sure that I’m working on the right things and that will help me perform better?” You’re asking for the same support, but in very different ways.

AMY BERNSTEIN: How do you actually gauge your message might be to the person you’re talking to?

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yeah, it’s a really difficult thing. The way that I think about it, and this is often from a leadership perspective, is will this information be useful to the other person? Will it help them understand me and where I’m coming from? Or does this feel more like an opportunity for me to vent, for me to just get something off my chest that maybe isn’t that useful to that other person? One example, my father-in-law died in 2020, and I didn’t want to talk about it. It wasn’t even that I didn’t want to talk about it, I just couldn’t. Every time I would start to talk about it, I would choke up. But it came to the point where I had to move meetings around. It was very obvious that at some point I would have to take bereavement leave. And that was something where if I hadn’t said that, and this was in the fall of 2020, there was so much other stuff going on in the world, my team would have seen me moving things around, coming in and out, showing up to meetings very stiff, and they probably would’ve read into that, “We’re getting laid off,” or the company’s doing poorly. And so, at that point it was like, I have to share something with them so that I’m not causing unnecessary anxiety. And what I did was say, “I want to share that my father-in-law’s dying, he will probably die soon. I’ll probably take a week off when that happens. I’m sharing this with you so that you understand why I move meetings around, why I might not seem like my normal self. For me, it feels better not to talk about it, but I wanted you to know again why I’m showing up in this specific way.” I prepared this a lot. I really didn’t want to start sobbing on calls, especially some of the people I had just hired. But it was important that I say something because otherwise it would’ve negatively impacted them and probably started like a gossip rumor mill about all these horrible catastrophic situations that were not true.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And so, how was that message received?

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Really well, I would say people really respected that I didn’t want to talk about it. And I had some people send me messages just saying, “I’m really sorry you’re going through this. I went through something similar.” And that was really lovely, and I would just say thank you so much for sharing. And that was it. But I found that because I shared the context and very clearly said, “I can’t talk about this, it’s just too much right now.” And I would say I work with very empathetic people or did at the time. Still do, but it was different job. That was a boundary I drew and it was respected.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, it was both vulnerable and boundaried, which is an interesting distinction.

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yeah, and I think that’s an important thing to remember around vulnerability is it’s not just an outpouring, an unfiltered feelings fire hose. It’s often being very open about what you need and what support looks like for you. And then not saying anything else if you don’t want to.

AMY GALLO: For many of us work is this place where we don’t have to deal with those outside things, where we can feel competent, where we can fix things. We don’t have to experience a lot of the negative emotion we might feel if we’re going through a divorce, for example, managing a child’s mental health, dealing with a death or an illness in the family. I think I often wonder, do I owe it to the people I work with to tell them that I’m going through something? And I think you made a good argument for if it will help them understand why you’re showing up the way you do, then it is a positive thing.

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yeah, and that’s where it comes back to this question of is this helpful or is this maybe too much or more than they can bear in that moment? And so, it is often really helpful to know what someone is going through.

AMY GALLO: In your example, Liz, you knew the team. It sounds like maybe there were some new people you didn’t know as well, but it was a pretty empathetic culture. How do you deal with something like that when you don’t really know the people? Maybe they’re clients, maybe they’re a team you haven’t worked with very long.

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yeah, I would say if you don’t know people that well, you can also add a sentence about, “Here’s how I’m prioritizing the work that I’m doing with you or the work that I owe you. I might not be able to make every meeting, but please record it, I want to stay up to date. I will share updates. If I do need to take time off, I’ll make sure there’s coverage.” So, I might just add a layer of ensuring that person that you are still the competent colleague that you’ve always been, even if that means that you’ll just pull in other people to backfill or to help you out when you need to go out or if there’s a period of time when you’ll be unavailable.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Help me with something, Liz, because I’ve been going through some very big feelings ever since the attack in Israel and the war in Gaza, just sorrow and anger and despair. And I know I’m not the only one who feels these feelings. I’m not sure that for the week after the attack in Southern Israel that I would’ve even been able to tell you articulately what was going on inside my head and heart. But I can tell you, I could barely get my work done. It’s all I thought about. I wanted to talk about it, but I knew that just because my feelings are so mixed up and they are so much bigger than the way I usually feel my emotions, I was afraid that I couldn’t have a little conversation, I couldn’t confine it to a two-minute hallway chat. So, for the most part, I just kept my mouth shut. I’m still processing. It’s been three weeks, nearly a month, and my feelings are no clearer to me than they were on October 7th, but I can tell you they’re big and they’re overwhelming. Help.

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yes, I think there have been, sadly, many times when this has happened, especially over the last three years. And yeah, the last three weeks have been incredibly intense. I would say especially as a leader and maybe even a woman leader, we often put so much pressure on ourselves to have all the answers right away. And I’ve seen that manifest as what you just described, where we choose not to say anything because we don’t know exactly what our response is. My philosophy is always if you communicate nothing, that’s still a form of communication. And so, it might not be you’ve crafted the perfect email or you’re able to articulate everything, but even saying something to your team like, “I’m having a really strong reaction to the news. It feels incredibly heavy. I’m guessing many of you feel the same. I don’t yet feel prepared to even talk about it. I’m still processing it. But I wanted to flag that. And also say, if there’s anything I can do to support any of you, that might be just pointing you to HR resources, please let me know.” And then also being open again to this idea that people are very different and sometimes support will look like them not talking about it. But I think just allowing space for that, but still flagging. And I think it’s fine almost to say exactly what you just said like, “I feel so strongly. It’s very overwhelming. I just wanted to share that to acknowledge what some of you might be feeling as well.”

AMY BERNSTEIN: Thank you.

AMY GALLO: I’m not a manager, as our listeners know, but I have such empathy for managers right now because I’m super pro emotional vulnerability. But I’m also realizing the burden that’s been put on managers to be on the constant receiving end of their team’s despair, anger, burnout, any advice, Liz, for how managers can regulate their empathy so that it doesn’t wear them down? Like if you don’t have enough emotional energy in the moment to help, or there’s not a specific ask, they’re just expressing emotion, is there anything you can communicate… Any way to communicate that you care but not actually take responsibility for solving that issue?

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yes, there definitely has been a push or a trend towards much more authentic, empathetic leadership. And I think that’s great. And also I want to remind every manager and leader, you are not licensed or equipped to be a therapist. That is not your job. Your job is also to provide clear roles and responsibilities, to make sure the person feels confident in their work so that they have less anxiety about getting fired, about just where their career is going, about paying their bills, that kind of thing. And so, one of the tips I always give managers is inform yourself about the benefits that your organization offers. And also clarifying where you can help provide that solace for them and where you can’t, but where they can potentially find it. “So here are employee resource groups. I think these could be really beneficial to you, and I really encourage you to reach out. Where I can do the most for you is in your day-to-day work. So, if you need heads downtime this afternoon, if we can move meetings around, if there’s anything that’s unclear, I want to make sure that as you’re moving through your day-to-day, you don’t feel additional stress.”

AMY BERNSTEIN: You just gave us a great example of how to draw a boundary. Do you have a general way of thinking about where boundaries ought to sit so that we know how to draw them?

LIZ FOSSLIEN: To me, it really comes down to what is the role of a leader, which is to put the company first so that you can put your people first 99.9% of the time. If the company is doing well, it is way easier to create an environment in which people feel good, feel supported, have the resources they need to succeed. When I look back at times when I was really going through it, what created a sense of stability and what made me feel better was not having to worry as much about my job. That said, obviously in the given economic climate, there are situations where you can’t promise someone the future. You can’t guarantee that there won’t be layoffs in six months. You sometimes as a manager don’t know that you won’t be affected by layoffs. But there are still things you can do. So, one of the things I’ve started doing is I would say to people that reported to me, “Find a job that you would love to have in three to five years or maybe even in two years, bring that job posting to me and we will go through the list of requirements or qualifications and anything you don’t feel like you have a story for, I will help you try to come up with a story so I can delegate work for you. We can shift some of your responsibilities.” And that’s still a way of investing in them, of helping them feel a little more stable and confident, even if I have no idea if layoffs are coming, because the things that I help them develop will help them in this job, will help them if they need to find another job. Again, to me, the piece about boundaries comes back to what is within your control as a manager and leader? What are you best equipped to do? And how can you always try to create stability for someone, even if it’s on the short term or in a really small way?

AMY GALLO: Yeah, that concept of helping people feel safe reminds me of some of the misconceptions I hear about like psychological safety and that… Because I think people often hear that and they think that they shouldn’t feel any emotional discomfort or negative feelings or worry or anxiety at work, and yet many of our workplaces are full of those emotions because of the uncertainty that’s happening there. How can managers draw the line between doing things that build psychological safety, giving the tough feedback, being frank about where the business is, and also making sure that employees feel safe? You gave that good example of sitting down with an employee, but are there other ways that managers can help people understand negative emotions exist and we need to continue to move forward despite that? Does that make sense, Liz?

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Totally, yeah. And I think it starts with sharing without oversharing. So, again, as a manager saying, “Look, we’ve just received word that our goal for the quarter is changing. I understand that this is really stressful. I feel it too. We’ve put a lot of work into achieving the first goal. You know what I’m going to do is ensure that that work doesn’t go to waste, that we’re able to clearly chart a path forward, that you get recognized for all you’ve done to date.” So, I think again, it’s like as you’re sharing the news slipping in these, “This is stressful, you might be frustrated. That’s okay, we can still move forward and hold space for that at the same time.” The other thing is having people in positions of leadership share stories of times when work was really hard. I think it’s just really powerful to hear a leader say, “This is a challenging climate, and I’m feeling it too.” I think there’s always this trade off between sharing what you’re feeling but not wanting to destabilize the team. So, I think often it’s how do you speak to your emotion without undermining your authority? So, in one scenario, it’s, “This is challenging, but I’m really heartened to see how hard everyone is working, and I really believe we can get through this. It won’t be easy. If you have concerns, here’s how to voice them.” Versus, “I haven’t slept in three weeks and I just can’t handle what’s happening.” I don’t know, if I heard that, I’d like, “Okay, I need to look for another job. This person is not really going to chart a path to success or to stability.”

AMY GALLO: Right. Yeah. And I think the naming of the emotion, like the stress, the frustration, that was one of the things I found so useful about your and Mollie’s newest book, Big Feelings, is that you… Defining despair was just so helpful so that I knew, “Okay, that’s what I’m feeling.” And I think you’re right, that leaders, by naming those emotions and those moments, even if they can’t fix them, at least creates a shared experience.

AMY BERNSTEIN: It also helps you know you’re not alone.

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yeah, I think we deeply underestimate how validating it is just to know you’re not alone. I think, again, as leaders, we always think we need all the answers, and sometimes it’s just saying, “This is the situation and I hear you, and I’m experiencing it too. I don’t have all the answers. We’re going to learn together how to move through this.” And that could be really comforting.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I wonder, Liz, if you have any advice for leaders in this situation. More and more when something awful happens in the world, leaders are called on to give some sort of statement to the team, to employees. Maybe it’s an email to the entire staff, maybe it’s getting up in front of an all-staff meeting, to weigh in some way on what’s happened. And I wonder if you could just give some quick advice on how to keep that message real so that you don’t sound forced, so it doesn’t sound as if you’re trying to keep it safe and touch all the bases and please everyone when that might not be possible. How do you make that message land in a way where you really are helping people?

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yeah, specific tips. One is especially if you’re in an executive position, somebody else will probably draft this for you. Don’t just hit send on what the person gives you. You have a voice. Your employees are looking at you longer and harder than other people. They’ve probably come to understand what your voice is and what it’s not. You need to make sure that it feels like that message is coming for you. It is so obvious when it’s like this is boilerplate comms language. Again, pointing people to resources that the company has. So, understanding benefits, and that again, might just be asking HR for help to weigh in, to provide some links. There’s research that shows most employees do not have a good understanding of the benefits their company offers. And so, I think often that is actually surprising. It makes them feel better when it’s like, “Oh, wow, I didn’t know we had these programs. I’m going to make use of this.” Or even if they don’t, just being like, “It makes me feel better to work at a company that has paid for these resources for other people.” And then it doesn’t have to be endless. I think, again, it can be something short. Like, “The news is really heavy, it’s an overwhelming time. Here are some resources that can help.” And then also encouraging managers. Like, “Go to your manager if there’s something specific they can do to support you.” And then emphasizing to managers, “You have permission to prioritize supporting people.”

I just remember again, when my father-in-Law was dying, before I had even shared anything with anyone, I was on a call with my manager at the time and she asked me, “How are you?” And I just started sobbing. And she was like, “Turn off the camera. You’re not working for the rest of the day. Ping me in the morning and we can talk through what’s going on.” She could only do that because she knew that our CEO would have her back, that that was just the culture of the organization. So, I think there’s the message you send to everyone, and then there’s the message you send to managers or to people who are establishing the policies that support people that say, “I will have your back when you need to step in for someone,” if someone is really going through it. Just don’t send an empty message. You also need that structural support element, and you need to be investing in that.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, that makes sense. This has been so helpful. I always love talking about feelings, but especially with you, so thank you so much for coming on the show again.

LIZ FOSSLIEN: Yeah, thanks for having me, and also just for surfacing a lot of these issues that are really hard to navigate.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Thanks, Liz. That’s our show. I’m Amy Bernstein.

AMY GALLO: And I’m Amy Gallo. Women at Work‘s editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoch, Tina Tobey Mack, Rob Eckhardt, Erica Truxler, Ian Fox, and Hannah Bates. Robin Moore composed the theme music.

AMY BERNSTEIN: We’re accepting volunteers for upcoming Essentials episodes on handling criticism, demonstrating executive presence, and establishing trust. If you want to get better at any one of these skills and are willing to talk about your attempts, and join an interview with either me or Amy G, email us at womenatwork@hbr.org.

AMY GALLO: HBR has more podcasts to help you manage yourself, your team, and your organization. Find them at hbr.org/podcast or search HBR in Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen.