You cannot erase emotions from work life, but you can make space for them and manage them properly.
Irina Rokosz
In the last episode of Ted Lasso (*spoiler alert*), I absolutely loved how Rebecca yelled at Roy. He said he was leaving the team, and she exploded. If you've missed it, here's the scene:
So, I'm curious: Did you have managers who exploded like that when you said you were leaving? Do you explode like that when someone on your team says they're leaving? If not, why not?
Personally, I’ve never had any manager cause such a scene when I’d said I was leaving. And I feel a bit jealous of Roy: I would've loved to have that. It would've been great to know that they actually cared.
See, I come from a culture in which everyone yells pretty much all the time. Not because they're angry, but because they're emotional. We love emotional — emotional is captivating! No show of emotions, on the other hand — well, that's just plain boring.
But regardless of culture, we want our friends and relatives to be emotional with us. That's how we make deep human connections: shared adventures and heart-to-heart conversations. You can know someone for five minutes but already feel them close if they open up to you — and vice versa.
Even marketing is emotional. You want to stand out, you want to grab people’s attention, you want them to engage. And what better way to do that than to stir up their emotions!
But our offices? Nah, they must be sterile! Emotions are unprofessional. We want our offices full of people devoid of any emotion. Our employees must be passionate, motivated, engaged… but numb! (Even putting an exclamation mark in written text is considered unprofessional, let alone using a smiley 😉)
So, I call this BS. I think people are finally ready to feel something. I think companies should finally live up to their name. And I challenge you, the CEO, to create a company where emotions are not pushed aside (or even punished), but welcomed and properly managed. That change starts with you.