I’m not a cryer, but that doesn’t mean I’ve never found myself crying at work – or wanting to very, very, very, badly. Harsh judgements, bullies, layoffs, no sleep, big risks gone sideways, bad personal news crashing into our workdays…there are many good reasons that tears are an appropriate response to the lives we lead in the workplace. And although everyone experiences this, our workplace cultures are pretty terrible at guiding us about how to handle tearful emotions constructively.
As potentially the only positive outcome of our collective pandemic trauma, we are beginning to see emotionally intelligent ways of thinking about stress, grief and overwhelming uncertainty at the office evolve. The rethinking of work as a place of pure rationality has surfaced the idea that crying at work may not be the career-ending behavior it used to be. This is welcome news to many people too-often dismissed for “sensitive personalities” at the office especially, women.
Yet we still don’t have much culturally appropriate guidance for how to think about crying at work in the context of our career and personal brand development. So in the article below, we’ll explore this in the hopes that you can walk away with some new assumptions and mindsets to try out, both when faced with someone on the brink of (or over the edge of) tears, or when the tears well up within you.
Crying at work: myth vs. reality
I’ve had more than one client ask me, “Is it okay if I cry at work?” The answer is complex: No, if it demonstrates a lack of control you can’t recover from right away (which doesn’t mean you can’t recover later). Yes, if it’s a genuine expression of emotion that builds trust and appropriate vulnerability with colleagues. Maybe/maybe not if you’re working in a culture that doesn’t make room for such vulnerability.
When thinking about behaviors that are culturally accepted and expected in a workplace environment vs. those that are not, we all have a lot to unpack, especially the myriad of assumptions and beliefs we’ve never questioned.
In the realm of our emotional reality, researchers have dubbed some of these cultural norms and expectations “feeling rules.” This is especially complicated because our workplace cultures–which we rarely interrogate or seek to evolve–largely default to the “white male standard.” This leads to feeling rules that allow (and sometimes reward) emotions like hostility, competitiveness, greed and pride, while penalizing emotions perceived as opposite of these things like appreciation, trust, nurturing and responsiveness.
In addition to putting greater value on emotional expression that skews male, the feeling rules are different depending on your gender. For example, men can be rewarded for angry outbursts while women are penalized for it. Specifically, the “feeling rules” for women mean that when women cry at work for personal reasons (death in family, sick child) they get a pass, but when they cry for work-related reasons such as stressful situations or setbacks, colleagues see them as weak, unprofessional or manipulative. And in a reverse discrimination dynamic, men are often discouraged from crying, especially in female-stereotyped circumstances and by other men.
These feeling rules are changing, and there are many nuances that can lead one tearful incident to increase people’s respect for you (e.g., tearing up in a moving tribute to a colleague) while others may hurt your credibility (e.g., accepting and dealing with work+life overwhelm in a high-stakes business interaction). So to understand the nuances of the cultural reality where you work, you need to look at subtleties and be honest with yourself about what is truly “allowed” where you are, instead of simply assuming that any tear is an automatic sign of weakness.
In the best of circumstances, regardless of the feeling rules for those around you, you can manage your emotions with intelligence, strength and authentic honesty, role modeling for others how an effective person can cry at work and still be a productive and strong leader.
For those unsure that crying is all that necessary, let’s start with the basics. Crying is a physiological response to both physical and emotional stimuli. Our bodies don’t do things randomly, they respond to the world in ways that keep us healthy. Some of the clearest health benefits of crying include:
Emotional regulation and self-soothing
Pain and stress relief by releasing the “feel good” hormones oxytocin and endorphins in the body
Release of toxins and reduced bacteria
In the workplace context, the first benefit, emotional regulation and self-soothing, are critical strategies (which may or may not include tears) for establishing Emotional Intelligence. Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is highly correlated with both life and work success. Foundational to a person’s ability to improve their EQ is the ability to be self-aware of your own emotions and thoughts. An even more advanced state of EQ gives you insight into how the heart- and mind-based dimensions of consciousness interact.
Self-awareness when you are feeling emotions worthy of tears (e.g., sadness, grief, overwhelm, helplessness, anger, frustration, guilt, shame, anxiety and extreme happiness) might offer you the opportunity to shed some tears as a way of letting the strong, potentially unhelpful or destructive emotions, pass through you. Crying requires that you acknowledge and experience the emotion in your current circumstance. Once you’ve been present with the emotion which causes the tears, the emotion evolves, often transforming entirely into a more manageable feeling.
If you’ve spent a lifetime suppressing tears, as many of us have, you may rarely have experienced the profound relief of simply allowing yourself to feel what you feel very intensely, releasing the intensity of it and leaving behind a greater understanding of why you feel it so deeply. Crying gives you this opportunity. And when you feel so deeply, your body, heart and mind don’t care whether you’re sitting at your desk, driving in your car, presenting in a meeting or lying in a lover’s embrace. You just do.
So what does all this EQ stuff have to do with crying? Crying is simply one of many, many, many forms of emotional expression. Emotional expressions, like all expressions, carry information to help you and others make decisions. When you learn to view tears in this context, they lose their stigma and become information you can use to manage your own emotional state, your response to others’ emotional states, and interactions between everyone.
Crying also has the social benefit of alerting others to the fact that you are under duress and that they may need support. Of course, in highly competitive workplace cultures and social systems, the need for support can also be viewed as a sign of vulnerability, which can be preyed upon by low-EQ colleagues.
Regardless of your workplace culture, if you assume that all your colleagues are weakness-averse this can lead you to repress natural, healthy emotional responses in situations where people would be very willing to give you support without thinking less of you. The lesson here is to use your judgment and learn when, and with whom, you can safely offer your body and heart the healthy healing it needs from time-to-time.
Is my career over if I cry at work?
Basically, no. While crying won’t always help you in the eyes of others, it’s rarely the career-ending event many of us fear. A lot of the time, though, the extent to which crying at work can hurt or be a neutral event in your career depends on how you react after the tears have spilled, or when others around you struggle to contain their emotions.
As with many interpersonal “oopses” and conflicts, other people are more likely to adjust their opinion of you based on how you recover, than based on what caused the need for recovery in the first place. In other words, if you cry, be intentional about how you let others observe you recovering from it.
If a bully or troll lashes out at you and you cower, get defensive or dissemble, everyone sees you as vulnerable, but if you ignore them (genuinely) they see you as strong and centered.
If you scream in anger and lash out at others, they see you as out-of-control and immature, but if you calm yourself and speak normally while offering reasonable ideas, while conveying your disappointment or frustration, they see you as mature and constructive.
If you cry at a sad event, prove yourself unable to focus on the topic and force everyone else to stop to help you or indulge your emotions, they may see you as insecure, but when you quickly regain your composure, assuring others you’re ok/the feeling has passed and guiding the group back to the topic at hand, they see you as strong and centered.
It should come as no surprise that people with a reputation for strength, centeredness, maturity and constructive communications gain some personal brandshine over those who do not display these abilities, regardless of the reason–even crying.
People are generally more understanding and empathetic than you imagine they are. Most of the time they will take their cues on how to think about you from you. So if you want to be authentic, sometimes vulnerable, always strong – be that way, and that’s how most people will see you.
What should I do if I cry at work?
Achieving EQ and emotional maturity is, of course, hard work. It takes time and every crying incident is an opportunity to master it. In the moment it can be challenging but try these strategies when you can.
If possible, consider excusing yourself to leave the room until you’ve had an unfettered cry in private and pulled yourself back together.
When this isn’t possible or appropriate, signal that you’re taking a break, let the emotions come and simply experience them (with as little embarrassment and shame piling on top of the instigating emotions as you can). Take a deep breath and signal to people when you’re ok to continue. If you want to share what the emotions are about, feel free, but keep it brief and help yourself and others get back on topic as quickly as possible.
Try to help people understand the meaning of your tears. Specifically, what do you value so much that it produces this intense reaction?
Tell people what (if anything) you’d like them to do to support you. If it’s just asking them to wait while you manage it, that’s fine. When you are explicit with the support you want, people feel less helpless and less uncomfortable.
Leave the interaction on a positive and business-focused note. For example, if you cried because of bad feedback, don’t defend yourself in the moment, thank them and tell them you’re going to process what they said and get back to them later.
After-the-fact strategies for repair:
Start by repairing your own experience, especially if you’re feeling particularly embarrassed or ashamed. Reframe your own story about what happened, why and what it meant. For example, tell yourself and others you trust that you didn’t have a “breakdown,” you had a “difficult few moments.” Shift from feeling like you “failed to control yourself and succumbed to” tears to something more positive, like “accepting your feelings and dealing with them so you could focus again as quickly as possible.
Follow up within 24-48 hours in a totally business context, without reference to the crying event, to demonstrate to them you’re on your game.
Tell people you trust privately more about your emotional experience to assure them you’re ok and can handle it. This may help them counter any negative gossip.
If you still need support, ask for it. Be as specific as you can and ask for things people have the power and ability to give you. (E.g., If you need some days off, ask for it. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with work, ask your boss to accept that you will be prioritizing your work more carefully to prevent overwhelm and burnout.)
How to React When Your Coworker Cries at the Office
Many people feel even more uncomfortable when a colleague breaks out in tears than when they struggle with their own emotions. This is because when someone else is struggling emotionally we feel helpless. At least if we’re the one crying, we know what to do! When someone else is experiencing intense emotions, we can feel as though it is our job to make it all “okay.” But it’s not our job to fix it (or them). Our job is simply to be patient and understanding.
In these situations when someone else cries, as when we’re the one struggling, it’s best to:
Simply pause and allow the person to experience what they feel. Define success as “them processing so they can get back on task,” not “fixing the problem and making it stop.”
Tell them, “It’s ok, let me know when you’re ready to move on.” Don’t rush to try to help or fix it, just wait patiently and with the understanding that everyone experiences intense emotions, including yourself sometimes.
Don’t put your discomfort on them, blame them or shame them. Just breathe through it and wait.
When appropriate, ask them if they need support or are ready to move on.
If they ask for help you can provide (e.g., leave the room or come back to this item on the agenda in 10 min), give it to them. If not, offer as reasonable an alternative as you can.
When they’re ready to move on, do so and don’t treat them with “kid gloves,” just treat them as a normal person who had an abnormal moment.
For many of us, the hardest part of this process is managing our own discomfort. After all, discomfort is inherently uncomfortable! Be sure that the way you handle your own feelings isn’t to blame someone else. Some will feel uncomfortable around others who weep, while others will feel nothing but compassion. Accept that what you feel is what it is and just feel it (like the person crying is trying to do in front of you.)
Most importantly, be very aware of how their tears make you see them differently, or not. Be aware that you may be judging them as “weak” or “unable to hack it,” which is often untrue and unfair. Interrogate your own beliefs about their crying and about them and try to be honest if you find yourself judging them more harshly than necessary, or than you might judge someone else. It’s reasonable to consider emotional responses, especially if frequent, as part of how you evaluate someone’s effectiveness at their job, but this is very job- and situation-dependent. Don’t be overly critical.
Especially, don’t allow yourself to disqualify someone for a job they’re likely to be very good at, simply because they’re willing to be authentic and human in public. Be honest with yourself if you’re too harsh, or applying your judgment unfairly (e.g., giving a man with regular toxic behavior a pass and penalizing a woman for crying once in a blue moon.) Be supportive of them to help their talent and potential come into being. Role model Emotional Intelligence for them and give them feedback that is respectful and helps them build their own EQ, which may be helping them learn how to handle crying in the moment with grace (forward them this article!)
For more on how not to judge people when you find them crying at work, and in many other circumstances, watch this video.
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Sometimes it’s so easy to fall into negativity that we forget how much energy it saps from us. That’s why we started InPower Women, to help restart the dialog about women, leadership and power. That’s also why we love this post for female leaders by Kelsey, who reminds us that when we use powerless language to describe ourselves (personally or generally), we sap our own energy to “be the change.” -InPower Editors
I am exhausted by the stream of content pointing out the lack of women in leadership roles. This might be surprising, considering I went to a high school that carried the motto “Empowering Women.” My closest friends frequently call me a feminist, and the men in my office know not to refer to the women on our team as “girls” or they’ll incur the wrath of my evil eye. I currently run a growing company made up of dozens of talented men and even more women.
I’m not trying to ignore the facts. I know that women are still extremely underrepresented in leadership roles in industries ranging from finance to academia. I am also not oblivious to my own experiences with sexism. But I believe the best way to change the status quo is to focus on the opportunities, not the barriers.
Articles that stress the lack of women in leadership roles don’t empower young female leaders. And the comments sections emphasize this by digressing into accounts of sexism experienced in the workplace.
This type of content is unproductive for a few reasons:
1) Young women enter the workforce with predefined barriers; they assume they’ll experience sexism before it even happens. This can cause unnecessary stress and tension.
2) Young women assume they’ll have to work twice as hard to accomplish the same as their male counterparts, which can be demotivating and discouraging rather than challenging.
3) The articles and comments scare young women instead of empowering and encouraging them.
I — and many of the women I work with — prefer a more positive approach. Our problem with the portrayal of women in leadership exists partly because we are part of the Millennial Generation, and things are actually looking up for our group. According to Pew Research, women workers between 25 and 32 years old make 93 percent of men’s earnings. When compared to the average of women of all ages making 84 percent of men’s earnings, that 93 percent figure is a step in the right direction. A positive framing of the situation will lead to more encouraged women and more equality.
I am not arguing to stop writing content about the issues we face with the lack of women in leadership positions; I’m saying we need to reframe the conversation. Content can help the cause. By promoting articles that encourage and empower women, like this one from Georgia Nugent, we can change the way young women perceive the workforce and their futures. The entire piece is worth a read, but this quote encompasses the tone that inspires me as a young female leader: “I believe the best way to deal with such issues, and to help more women get ahead, is not to focus on the barriers, or to get stuck by feeling downtrodden or oppressed. A sense of humor, a strong spine and a supportive network can take you much further.”
I’m asking the women who have many years of experiences — good and bad — to show me the positive side of their interactions with men in the workplace. I am a female leader from the Millennial Generation, and I have not yet been jaded. Don’t discourage me.
Kelsey Meyer is Cofounder and President of Influence & Co., one of the leading providers of high quality expert content to the world’s top publications. She is also Co-creator of Contributor Weekly, a weekly newsletter for contributors, keeping them up-to-date on tips and trends for writing, publishing and sharing their content.
Most of us do it. We compare ourselves to the “ideal” and we compare others to the idea, too. But this gets in the way of developing supportive relationships that help us too. Mary reminds us how not to isolate ourselves in a judgmental vacuum to get the support we need and to stop competin. – InPower Editors
Competition comes in two forms:
Healthy competition.
Helps you see the impossible as possible. You know the rules and can find a way to win.
Unhealthy competition.
It’s purely about winning. There are no clear rules to win except the end justifying the means.
The problem with competition, in general, is that it implies judgment
When anyone competes, there is a judge who will hold her to standards. The person who meets or exceeds those standards compared to the others, wins.
A group, in this case society, defines what those standards are. Society defines an ideal for how people should live, behave, look, etc.
Does competing and being judged benefit anyone? Well, healthy competition is key to a successful sales team because it creates possibility. It encourages people to continue doing what seems impossible because they know that others are going through something similar and are succeeding. If she can do it, so can I.
“Does competition & being judged benefit anyone? – @MFBrodie on #InPower #Women” – Click To Tweet
I think we have all experienced unhealthy competition. I know I have. There have been times where a woman will stare at my body and compare my hips or waist to her own. These women don’t just study me, they examine me, looking at my body part with a slight hint of disgust, as if my hips and waist proportions are something to hate. (For the record, I’m fairly proportional with slight fluctuations.) I feel ashamed after these experiences, as if there is something wrong with me for being me.
And when this happens at work – it feels just as awful:
Unhealthy workplace competition – the kind that puts individual glory over the greater good – has a deadly effect on trust and collaboration.
–Susan DiMickele, When is Healthy Competition Unhealthy?, QIdeas
Unhealthy competition originates in insecurity. If you aren’t secure in yourself and your decisions, you need validation that you are living your life okay.
“Women have high standards for themselves and yet often feel inadequate about their abilities at the same time. When they see another woman who’s able to meet that standard, it opens the door for them to judge.” (Tammy Whitten)
–Molly Smith, Women Judging Women, All Parenting
Sometimes women will lash out at the woman who made a different decision (judging her), to give herself comfort, rather than looking inside herself to learn why she is so bothered.
“When a woman chooses to work outside the home, she can be a threat to a woman who chooses to stay at home and vice versa. Even though both women choose, there can be guilt and concern that they will not be as good a mother, or as capable and independent a person as their stay-at-home or working outside the home counterpart.” (Toni Coleman)
–Molly Smith, Women Judging Women, All Parenting
We as women sometimes put ourselves into a trap that doesn’t allow growth, supportive relationships and true success. How can we get ourselves out of it?
Practice gratitude
When you practice gratitude you realize the wonderful things you have in your own life. Sure, we all have challenges — some more than others – but looking at what you have reminds you that you have unique gifts, situations and opportunities that others don’t have. There is no need to compete when you feel grateful. You feel satisfied and don’t feel that you have to search for more.
Support others and show compassion
Money isn’t required to support another woman. You can give her time, an ear, energy, a complement. Giving from your heart builds relationships and decreases competition. It builds compassion.
“We need to remind women, especially young women, about compassion and solidarity with each other. Studies show that the more empathy and compassion we have towards others, the less likely we are to judge them. The more we see the ‘other’ as a subject/individual not as an object to be evaluated, the more we are to understand and empathize with each other.” (Silvia M. Dutchevici)
–Molly Smith, Women Judging Women, All Parenting
Accept your faults and ask for help
Being happy is about accepting who you are – faults and all. Rather than getting angry with yourself for not doing something right, laugh it off and find another way to do it that leverages your strengths. This includes asking for help. Nothing builds relationships better than 2 (or more) collaborating. Shared experiences draws people closer together and will allow you to show off your strengths.
Admire other women
We all feel threatened by another woman from time to time. Rather than looking for her faults, why not try looking for what’s incredible about her? Maybe it is a quality or style that works for her that you could adopt and improve on the wonderful you. Let her existence help you be a better you.
Look for synergies
Remember, other women are just like you, looking for assurance that they are ok. And when you see similarities, the differences become opportunities to collaborate, fill in the missing pieces, and achieve dreams together.
Instead of looking for ways that you would ‘do it better than her’ or ‘how she’s making a mistake,’ try to find ways that you are both alike. When you feel connected and alike, it’s easy to learn from each other and to put those critical and judgmental feelings aside.
–Molly Smith, Women Judging Women, All Parenting
Social pressures aren’t going to change, but we can change how we react to them. Rather than competing and judging, we can find ways to each other and help ourselves achieve our dreams. If you are busy helping others, you don’t have time to think about how you compare.
We women have to remember, it’s not a competition out there – it’s an opportunity for collaboration.
Take charge of your career development to get the job that supports your work and your life. Check out the tools and resources in the InPower Coaching Career Center.
FREE PDF Guide to Women in Leadership
Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel in higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
It’s a simple question that I don’t think we women ask ourselves enough: why can’t we decide what to wear by ourselves? Burkini or miniskirt, so to speak.
It seems that women are “managed” in their fashion decisions to wear what’s hot, what’s hip, or what’s appropriate. Surprisingly, there aren’t a lot of articles or books about clothing and colors that are more flattering for one’s body type, personality or even personal coloring as compared to what’s “trendy.” I’ve recently noticed that such pieces are often misinterpreted by women as being “shaming.” I think this happens as a knee-jerk response to being highly managed. There are too many expectations from the outside (i.e., the culture) about what’s appropriate for work, for school, for one’s age, for one’s weight, for one’s role, etc. As a result, I don’t believe that adult women feel they have a lot of freedom when it comes to deciding what to wear; at least not without a chorus of voices in their head trying to tell them otherwise.
How deep does this managing go? Let’s explore two extreme but very real situations:
Women ordered to disrobe for wearing too much clothing
Women needing to change or not allowed to fly for wearing too little clothing
Extreme 1: Women ordered to disrobe for wearing too much clothing
The French chose to address their “Islamic extremist problem” by writing a law banning the burkini. From their perspective, a clothing change would help these women more quickly adopt to French secular life.
The consequences of this thinking turned tragic. This video caused worldwide outrage: (more…)
We’re excited to introduce the ladies of Silkarmour, the highly fashionable unfashion site for professional women. InPower Women is partnering with Silkarmour because while we both believe that what we wear matters to our career, traditional rules about how to dress in the office often disserve us. – InPower Editors
Having been a part of the British educational system, getting dressed in our formative years was always easy most of the time as my sister and I wore school uniforms. Even in the countries where those itchy school uniforms are not the norm, we are told by our friends abroad that their parents would often take full control over their wardrobes. During our childhood, there seemed to be few clothing options to consider when getting dressed.
Dressing on a daily basis was something we only really experienced when we reached adulthood, when we first started working. We were restricted in our choice of what to wear as children because of school uniforms; as young adults at university and college we did not have the money to buy the wardrobe we desire. Adulthood however, offered us the best of both worlds. But like children who have been given free rein in a candy shop, we soon realized that we have indulged too much and bought in excess.
Fashion Can Trick Women About What To Wear At Work
And we weren’t alone. We found that many of our friends were at a disadvantage when buying into the passing trends of fashion – an industry that changes far more quickly than the average consumer can respond. This was especially true when it comes to understanding how to dress for work. Unlike men, women are confused by the ambiguous expectations of their working wardrobe. We often question our choices, which makes it hard to dress with confidence and leads to the negative self-talk that we all know too well.
We learned that fashion could trick us. We learned from experience that low-cut, brightly coloured polyester clothing wasn’t appropriate when leading an important meeting but we continued to buy into it because it was ‘fashionable’. When we went to the other extreme and tried not to pay attention to fashion altogether, we felt frumpy, unfeminine, and unnoticeable: a representation that was far from the one we want to project.
Your Fashion Choices Affect Your Career
Like it or not, personal presentation is highly relevant to career progression, especially for women. As part of an article published by the Wall Street Journal, Elena Berton raised a valid issue in commenting on the public mockery of Swiss bank UBS and their 43-page dress and personal grooming guide distributed to all of its employees. Detailed though it may have been, the bank had a point – personal appearance in a professional environment matters. A report from the Centre for Work-Life Policy, suggested that dress codes for staff are absolutely necessary. As judged by the thousands of employees surveyed by the Centre, ‘executive presence’ (EP) was highlighted as a common factor for career progression and 53% of the women surveyed felt that dressing professionally was vital to success. To get there, they proposed the obvious – female executives needed to avoid tight, low-cut or revealing clothing. Similar results were flagged by the Centre for Talent Innovation in New York as more than 75% of those surveyed said an unkempt appearance detracts from executive presence. Specifically, 73% of the women agreed that too-tight or provocative clothing undermined it. In light of this, it’s obvious why people bother to look smart and professional at work. But can fashion, an industry at the forefront of the buy-today-throw-away-tomorrow culture, really help women to climb the corporate ladder?
Dress Consciously For Success
Over time my sister, Sacha, and I have come to believe that dressing consciously may be the answer. Remembering that the product mass-manufactured by high-street brands is often not up to scratch for a working environment. Women need to move away from the media mania of what is ‘in trend’ and instead, shop and dress with a purpose. By directing your attention away from fretting over what to wear every morning, you can save yourself time and energy, focusing it on more important decisions. In choosing quality office staples in neutral colours, every item will contribute to a curated working wardrobe, a uniform for the office. Getting dressed can then be less of an outfit-building exercise and more of an easy routine as one can point to any combination of clothing, out of a curated 20 pieces, and know it will be to the standard that is required and expected of them. By doing so, you can psychologically depend on your working uniform every morning and immediately feel ready for work by association. This may sound crazy to many women but men have been using this trick for centuries. Zuckerberg is known for his work uniform of a hoodie and t-shirt and Obama wears the same colour suit every day “because I have too many other decisions to make”.
Curating a wardrobe out of the vast choice of clothing for women is one of the few portals at our disposal to communicate to the world how we perceive ourselves. In detaching ourselves from prescribed trends and defining what is our own working style, it is possible to utilize fashion as a tool to better ourselves at work. By focusing on what we actually need from office wear and making it a mission to invest in quality items that will always look chic and make us feel at our absolute best, we can build a reliable working wardrobe that will be a dutiful servant to our aspirations and not a capricious master of our mornings.
-Galyna Nitsetska Co-Founder Silkarmour UK
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FREE PDF Guide to Women in Leadership
Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel in higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
InPower Women has begun a discussion on women, fashion and power, which is a great reason to repost this article Mary wrote a while ago. We love how Mary covers the issue of “dress for success”, tying the power of being attractive to our own sense of confidence. Read the whole series! – InPower Editors
Clothes make the woman. It is worth that extra money for a better haircut if it makes you feel like a million bucks because it means you will act more confidently, as if you are worth that million bucks. And confidence makes you more powerful and influential.
There are 4 key lessons I learned that helped me improve my approach to management.
Lesson 4: Appearance really does mean a lot – This post!
Lesson 4: Influence thru appearance
While working at a client site for a Big 5 consulting firm, this stylish woman came into the office. She looked fantastic – St. John’s suit, leopard mules, hair neatly done, great makeup. She sat at a desk in the corner, and the team gave her lots of room and respect to make calls. I found out she was one of the top managing directors of the firm. And I learned that being a powerful woman didn’t mean leaving fashion behind. In fact – it added to the air that made her all the more powerful because she had incredible confidence.
I decided to try a “dress for success” strategy myself – I started wearing suits with skirts and heels. I wore makeup and a cutting edge hairstyle. I felt more confident and everything changed. I commanded a lot more respect – and this helped me achieve more influence. I didn’t need to get upset to be heard – people listened when I spoke. In fact, I was able to get more done.
Believe it or not, I was a Mary Kay consultant long ago. In Mary Kay, each consultant was REQUIRED to wear a skirt at each consultation. I never understood why – until I met that Managing Director. Confidence was oozing from her pores. Her presence commanded respect, even though she was wearing a pink suit and too much jewelry. She projected out what she felt inside, and it was infectious.
When women are dressed well it makes a difference. It’s less about how people perceive you and more about how you perceive yourself. When I am feeling low, I will dress up and notice my self-esteem fly thru the roof. I give myself a pick-me-up. And others can feel what I’m feeling inside – infectious respect for myself and others. This internal respect is influence.
My lesson: By feeling confident, respect will follow. And with respect, it is easier to influence others and get more done.
Women sometimes forget that there is a lot of power in influence. Power isn’t just a force to make things happen immediately – influence gives you indirect power that goes further than imagined. I remind myself of this often, remembering stories like these four lessons that have constantly prove this is true.
Explore more InPower strategies for investing in your Personal Brand.
FREE PDF Guide to Women in Leadership
Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel in higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
Last year, a company hired me to present “Leading With Grit & Grace” to its senior women executives. When the sponsor asked me to describe the content of the presentation, I said, “It’s about how women can wield their true power and influence more effectively.” Their response? ”Whatever you do, don’t mention the word power in your presentation!”
This client was giving voice to a common discomfort with the notion of power in our culture. Women seem especially wary of it, as if power is something that we shouldn’t claim or own. I think the reason we resist owning – or even talking about – power is because of how we define it. Most of us think of power as an oppressive and constraining force, a tool of domination. And unfortunately, our past and present are riddled with examples of power used in this way. So these are legitimate concerns.
But because we resist this ‘brute force’ aspect of power, we tend to send the whole topic underground, burying with it all of power’s positive potential for authentic power. As we dissociate from the more coercive aspects of power, we also disown our ability to unite and mobilize others for productive and compassionate ends. This positive, connective force is what Joe Weston, author of Respectful Confrontation, calls “true power.” Weston contends that true power is supported by four pillars of internal capacity: grounding, strength, focus, and flexibility.
Our personal power is not unlike an electrical current. Ground it, and it’s productive and safe. But when ungrounded, it has the potential to do real harm, so true power has to begin there. It’s the establishment of a strong physical, spiritual, mental and emotional foundation from which to encounter life. Grounding keeps us rooted in our bodies, beliefs and principles, and thus stable in the face of challenge. According to Weston, “Grounding…leads to an unwavering self-confidence and conviction in what you do and believe.”
2nd Pillar of Power: Focus
According to Weston, there are two aspects to focus: “finding stillness in the chaos” and “giving direction to one’s efforts.” Focus brings a calm, clear quality to your power. It enables you to sort through all that’s happening in and around you, and make a clear choice about what to bring forward. Focus concentrates your energy, enabling you to act and speak with intent and precision. To focus is to take a definite shape, something that can be uncomfortable for women. To help us move into that discomfort, we need the next pillar.
3rd Pillar of Power: Strength
This is the aspect we usually associate with true power, and without the other pillars, it can turn into the kind of brute force that we rightly resist. Here’s how Joe Weston describes strength: “The innate force of strength is expressed in two ways. The first is the courage to move out of your safe space and into the unknown, and the second is the physical force to accomplish your goals.” Strength is often a real skill of grit-based leaders. But when strength is not accompanied by grounding or flexibility, it can turn a woman from bold to bitchy.
4th Pillar of Power: Flexibility
Weston believes that flexibility is the most elusive, challenging, yet potent of all the pillars. He sums it up in a Taoist saying: “In a heavy monsoon, the mighty oak will snap like a twig, but the blade of grass will survive.” Flexibility is the key to versatility, creativity and compassion. This is often a strong pillar for grace-based leaders, yet they will tell you that flexibility without the support of other pillars can result in weakness. A leader who is grounded, clear and strong – while also able to adapt and adjust – is a force to be reckoned with.
What about you?
Each of these four pillars is essential to ‘true power,’ but the real potential lies in achieving balance in all four. Which of these pillars are most developed in you? What do those strengths make possible for you and others? What happens when you overuse those pillars to the neglect of the others?
Which of these pillars is least developed in you? What impact does that have in your ability to express ‘true power?’ How will strengthening that pillar help you to accomplish something that really matters to you?
What one or two steps can you take right now to get started finding your true power?
Why do you do what you do? Mary reminds all of us – especially entrepreneurs – how important it is to focus on the right motivations to achieve the success that matters most. – InPower Editors
I enjoy using inappropriate phrases to describe appropriate things. There’s a shock value that comes with it—most people know what the phrase really means (and how bad it is), but most people understand what you are trying to communicate, and can see that deeper, darker side to what you are saying.
“Chasing the dragon” is one of my favorite phrases that does this.
So what is “chasing the dragon” anyway?
. . . a method of smoking opium (opium is often referred to as a dragon in Asian cultures). The opium is heated on some kind of metal and a fine line of smoke evolves from the heated drug. This smoke is now to be “chased” (meaning breathed in), often through a small tube, like a straw.
. . . alludes to the feeling that the next ingested dosage of the drug will result in a nirvana that seems and feels imminent and conclusive, yet upon consumption never quite yields the promised experience—leading to the desire for the next dose that still promises the same—thus chasing the dragon but never catching it.
One could say this phrase describes the process of chasing a result (the high, the feeling), while ignoring the journey you need to take to achieve a goal (how you get the drugs and consuming them).
We all have our drug and our highs.
For entrepreneurs—chasing money or fame
For professionals—searching for the “ideal” work environment, greater recognition, more money
For women who are looking to be married—pursuing attention, rather than finding the right mate
For those on social media—getting as many likes, favorites or connections as possible, regardless if it relates to your brand or your beliefs
There are more drugs, but you get the picture.
“I keep chasing the dollar,” said my friend, Susan, “and I hate it. I know I need to build my business and to make it work, but I need to pay my rent and get by.”
This is probably the hardest challenge of being an entrepreneur. Everyone needs money to just live and grow a business. Sometimes, you can incubate your idea while working a full-time job, developing it nights and weekends; sometimes, you do make money from your business, however you may, instead, start with a services company, rather than emerge as a product company with a service.
Most will launch a single product and after it succeeds, branch to a second product. Some will launch multiple products from the start, anticipating multiple streams of revenue. Others may augment a struggling business with a related business and secondary product line. This approach works well for some businesses, particularly a service business that has a retail or product associated with it, creating revenue opportunities. For others, this additional product line can be a distraction that complicates the offer and in the end, makes it harder to make money by spreading operations too thin, not having enough time to do the marketing required to succeed, and produces mediocrity.
My friend Sue is running up to 4-5 businesses to make ends meet. Needless to say, she is pulled in many directions every day, has a hard time focusing to make a single business do well, and is constantly worried about making ends meet. All of her businesses circle around a central theme—Arab culture—so they are somewhat related, but unrelated enough that it is hard to leverage a single marketing effort for all to succeed. Her immediate concern is getting money to pay rent and bills—an endless loop goal to achieve every month.
Some have suggested that she should take the leap and close some of her businesses, focusing on her passions—belly dance and baklava (hers is fantastic!). However, if she drops one of her other businesses, she risks losing what little revenue she does get from it for first few months as the other businesses grow, or not, which is the risk. She cannot afford that. Instead, she chases money to get by and takes baby steps, moving in her passion businesses forward in an effort to escape that endless loop.
Based on your drug of choice, so to speak, you have the pattern:
I need (or want) [this feeling, end result].
I will pursue multiple directions to get it [money, attention, etc.].
I now need multiple directions to keep my supply of it [money, attention, etc.] in great supply.
How can entrepreneurs stop chasing the dragon?
Melvin, my boot camp instructor is a personal trainer. He says every class: “Don’t cheat yourself. Treat yourself.”
I didn’t understand this the first time I heard him say it. I thought it was about cheating—eating the wrong things and distracting yourself from getting in shape. I eventually realized that he was telling us that you treat yourself when you are going through the journey to get to the goal—doing the crunches and leg lifts to lose weight and get in shape. The result of the journey is the treat. The cheat is chasing the dragon.
This gets back to the statements above:
For entrepreneurs—focus on creating a solid product that will generate revenue and help customers achieve their goals.
For professionals—know what you are good at, determine what the next step in your career is and pursue that.
For women who are looking to be married—determine what you want in a partner and seek the right person for you.
For those on social media—focus on the quality of your posts. If you have great content, people will subscribe.
What’s your high? If you discover that what you are doing in your life is an endless loop, try to get out of it. Stop chasing the dragon.
Take charge of your career development to get the job that supports your work and your life. Check out the tools and resources in the InPower Coaching Career Center.
I have a complicated relationship with mentoring. Though I’d heard that mentoring was important, I never felt I received much mentoring early in my career, certainly not by anyone who looked like me (I only had one female boss, once, for three months). With decades of workforce experience under my belt, however, I realize that I actually did receive mentoring advice. I just never awarded the term “my mentor” to any of the bosses and colleagues who helped me grow and develop my professional persona.
Looking back, I can see that if I’d had a better understanding of what good mentoring could do for me, I would have been more proactive in cultivating my mentoring relationships, I would have been more open to mentoring advice and I would have more intentionally mentored others. Here are the tips I wish I’d had long ago. I needed a coach to help me understand all this!
What Is Mentoring?
Mentoring is about helping someone earlier in their career set realistic, but aspirational, goals and take well-informed steps to achieve them. Many believe that mentoring happens when a more experienced (usually, but not always, older) person shares their experiences with a less experienced person. While sharing experiences is a critical component, mentoring has more to do with the growth that happens because of the mentor’s ability to help their mentee/protégé grow towards their goals, and if they don’t have any, help them set some.
Good mentoring is goals-driven. It’s based on a good understanding between the two partners about the mentee/protégé’s goals. To the extent they’re unclear, the mentor’s role is to help their partner clarify their short- and long-term goals, sometimes through personal story and anecdote, offering suggestions to explore, and always asking good questions and listening to the answers so you can ask an even more insightful question.
One of the most important gifts a mentor can offer is to help their partner identify good stretch goals to focus on in the short term that, once accomplished, will help their mentee/protégé bridge the gaps between where they are and where they want to go. Sometimes this is a matter of developing some specific technical or soft skills (e.g., getting a certification or working on conflict management). It can also be gaining insights from a new kind of experience (e.g., a global project or cross-functional process).
In helping someone come up with good goals, it’s always important to remember that, although they may be on a similar path to yours, it’s not your path. This is why the best mentors help their mentee/protégé partners identify good questions to research for themselves. A mentor can provide information in response to these questions, but it’s best not to provide answers. Give your perspective and then support them in identifying other resources (mentors/networking contacts, associations, articles etc.) to explore in coming up with their own answers.
As a mentor, your experiences only matter to your mentee/protégé if you’re listening intently to the challenges your partner is having, identifying their actual challenge (which isn’t always what they think it is) and choosing to share specific experiences that illustrate specific input you want to give them. This means that waxing poetic about how you landed your first job may or may not be all that relevant to what they need to hear.
How to “Get” Someone To Become Your Mentor
Many early career professionals ask me, and each other, “How do I get a mentor?” This question often presupposes that the mentor and protégé have a formal, typically one-way, relationship. While this is sometimes true, more often than not, it’s an informal and subtle relationship where both parties benefit. When you speak with people who have long-standing mentoring relationships, you find that they often begin informally, when these two things happen (in any order):
The mentee/protégé expresses curiosity and respect about the mentor’s experience, and how it could help them reach their own (stated) goals
The mentor expresses curiosity about those goals and offers insights, advice and stories that help their partner imagine their own success and gives them inspiration and ideas for how to achieve it.
Either party can initiate this cycle, but it only works if both engage and find the relationship valuable. If either party get distracted or disengaged, even the most formal mentoring relationship will wither away. The process for inviting anyone into this kind of exchange, whether you’re the person in power or not, is also the same:
Reach out and ask for time to get to know the other person
Show up on time and be present and curious
Listen, take action on any advice given to you
Followup and invite more contact
Many people assume people who could mentor them are too busy or self-important to take time to give people “below” or “behind” them advice. While this is sometimes true, it’s also sometimes not and you can end up with a particularly strong mentoring relationship just by proactively looking for it.
Skills You Develop By Mentoring Others Well
Too many mentors enter the relationship believing they are there to donate their time without receiving anything except for some good feelings for “giving back.” If this is your attitude you will probably find yourself becoming disenchanted or unable to find the time to provide ongoing mentorship.
In fact, mentoring someone is a great opportunity to build and refine soft-skills and gain fresh perspectives to make yourself more innovative, creative and aware. When mentors have their own goals in the mentoring relationship, they will be more engaged and likely to help themselves and their partners at the same time. Here are some great ways to think about building up your own skills while mentoring others:
Become a champion listener
Learn to ask great questions that expands your understanding of something you’re curious about, which your mentee/protégé knows more about
Reflect on your own success and identify lessons learned you can teach others
This latter point is more important than you might think. Self-awareness is a key skill for success, giving you information about yourself that you can use to become better at what you do and grow more intentionally into your best self. Self-awareness is highly correlated with leadership effectiveness and success. And the ability to be self-aware is a skill we gain by leveraging some natural proclivity (i.e., curiosity), but which takes focus and intention to refine as we mature and become more emotionally and intellectually complex.
We can all benefit from greater self-awareness, but when you find your career or progress stalled, there is almost always a clue to getting unstuck found by looking inward.
What good mentoring is not, is the opposite of everything listed above. Self-focused story-telling, giving your mentee/protégé goals you think they should adopt, telling them what to do or how to do it… all this robs them of their agency and disempowers them instead of helping them and building their confidence.
As tempting as it is to answer their questions and give them answers and certainty, it’s better to help them find more questions and lean into their discomfort, which is where their growth lies. To do this, practice responding to their questions with questions of your own. This will help you develop your listening skills, but it will also encourage them to dig deeper into their own thinking. When they get to the point where they don’t have any answers, help them brainstorm places to seek the answers and offer them support in getting access to the information they need.
Here are a few quick tips to help you catch yourself wandering into the bad mentoring zone:
If the mentor is doing most of the talking, they need to ask more questions
If either party finds themselves giving yes/no answers to their questions, or getting yes/no answers, they learn to ask better questions that stimulate thinking and dialog
Mentors, ask yourself if you know what your mentee/protégé is trying to achieve, if you’re not crystal clear ask questions to help you both focus on their goals
Leave each conversation knowing the next steps and followup actions for the mentee/protégé
These are the things I’ve learned about mentoring as I reflect back on the mentors I did and didn’t have over the course of my 40 year career. Were I to do it all over again, I would have:
asked for hard-to-hear feedback on my goals and challenged myself to hear even the things I didn’t want to hear
Leaned on multiple mentors for different kinds of feedback instead of looking for “the one” who not only got me and empathize with my experiences, but also people who didn’t fully get me but had wisdom to share anyway
Been more diligent about follow-up with people who gave me advice, showing my appreciation with action and given budding mentorship relationships the opportunity to bloom
As a mentor, I would have encouraged all my mentee/protégé partners to do the same and been more proactive in reaching out to invite mentoring partnerships with people I felt had promise and just needed some insights and guidance. Live and learn. I’m not dead yet. I, like you, have lots of time to improve and grow.
Admit it. Sometimes you just need to whine a bit. Complaining is a natural impulse to experiencing things that we don’t like. Mary gives us a great gift in helping distinguish constructive complaining from destructive complaining. Use her wisdom the next time you feel like whining! – InPower Editors
Two examples of Complaining
What’s the difference between these two complaints?
This process is ridiculous! I feel like we are wasting so much time. There has to be a better way for us to work.
Why do the executives change project direction at the 11th hour? Don’t they know they make our lives more difficult?
Complaint #1 sounds like something from a post-mortem – raising awareness of a process that needs to be streamlined.
Complaint #2 is about something that cannot be fixed. Sure, executives can be influenced to change, but that’s just not realistic. No one has control over them changing, which means no one can fix the problem. It’s part of the work environment.
Constructive Complaining
Sometimes we complain to figure out what the true problem is and imagine what a different world could be. I’m guilty of that. Actually, I have built my career on it. I have helped fix call center flows, Website content review processes, launch processes, etc. because I complained about inefficiencies and thought that there had to be a better way.
After taking a step back to look at what I do, you could say I take a 3-step approach to constructive complaining:
I’ll vent about a problem to colleagues and friends. While venting I’m trying to determine what exactly the problem is and looking at it from all angles. Lots of frustration and anger coming out, but it’s to get to the root of what’s really bugging me.
I’ll brainstorm solutions and mull over options to solve the problem.
I’ll discuss the problem and potential solutions with friends and colleagues to get their feedback and additional ideas. Sometimes, they will suggest solutions that I’ve already thought about and discarded for one reason or another. Sometimes, I get some great reasons why I shouldn’t fix something and then I’ll just accept the problem and continue on. I mean if you can’t change the situation, why complain about it, right? However, most times, a solution is defined and problem solved.
This process is usually productive and results in improvements and a lot of new ideas. And during this process, I typically raise awareness of a problem with others and allow the team to provide more solutions. Great for everyone!
Often, whining is constructive complaining in disguise. – via @MFBrodie – Click To Tweet
Destructive Complaining (Whining)
Destructive complaining could be described as complaining about a problem that you and your team cannot solve.
Who will tell an executive to change his behavior?
How can you change the weather?
Can you send out a memo to get people to stop commuting to work at the times you travel there?
The answers to all of those questions are no. They are all destructive complaints.
There are times when whining is constructive complaining in disguise. Maybe you didn’t think something could be fixed, but while you were whining, someone offered an acceptable solution that you never considered? Talk about a twist!
But this is rarely the case. Most whiners reject all solutions provided to them. For example, let’s say someone complains about the company’s logo. You suggest that the person talk to someone in the marketing team, and you provide a name and number. Or go learn about logo design and branding. Or find a designer to create a new one. Every option is rejected and the person continues complaining about the company logo. There is no satisfaction.
Over at Psychology Today, F. Diane Barth gave 3 reasons why people whine:
They are deeply distressed by something that they feel powerless to change
They feel simultaneously angry and sad about the situation and worry that it is their own fault
They do not know how to soothe themselves
However, I think there is another reason why whiners exist – some people just like to whine. It brings them a weird comfort to believe that happiness is always out of reach.
Whining is destructive because it not only contributes to a negative work environment, but it simply destroys the brain:
A 2011 research study by Thomas Straube of the University of Muenster and another by Go Okada of Hiroshima University concluded that exposure to negative words impairs the formation of memory associations critical to productive work; research conducted by Stanford University’s Robert Sapolsky shows how stress from negative influences can shrink the hippocampus, the very part of the brain required to solve problems and drive initiatives. So a bitch session isn’t only unproductive, it’s counter-productive, depressing cognitive function and dampening can-do spirit.
Only the whiner can change his or her outlook on life. F. Diane Barth outlined 4 ways to handle whiners and not be drained, but you can’t “fix” them on your own. Whining is a choice. A choice you may not understand, but a choice nevertheless.
Parents can prevent adult whining through conditioning. I think I don’t whine because my mother didn’t tolerate it. As a child, if I started whining for something to eat or drink, she’d tell me to either make a request (go get a solution) or stop. And if I was told no, I could try again, but most times the answer was firm, I had to accept the situation, and stop whining. I lived in a no-whine zone.
Complaining isn’t always horrible. Complaining to find a solution is constructive and can broaden someone’s mind as he considers various solutions. Complaining to complain is destructive – and not only to those listening, but to the whiner himself, and limits his options. To complain or not to complain – it’s a choice that is really up to you. And I choose constructive complaining.
Updated-Originally published September 2014
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