We don’t like to admit it. Many people fear it. Most of us have either done it or witnessed it, and yet the moment still feels like crossing an invisible line.
And when it happens, especially in a leadership context, the fallout isn’t usually about what caused the tears. It’s about the fact that they were visible at all.
But here’s the truth: I’ve cried at work. And I work with leaders every day who either have or are one sentence away from doing so. Sometimes from grief, sometimes from exhaustion, sometimes out of sheer frustration when something truly unjust goes unchecked.
Not every tear is a breakdown.
One moment that still stays with me was when a colleague passed away. She wasn’t someone I worked with daily, but when we did meet - usually across borders - she brought warmth, humour and presence. She showed us around the city. Made us feel welcome. Connected. When we found out she had been diagnosed with cancer, the shock was immense. When she died, it hit us hard.
I cried. At work.
And so did others.
It didn’t feel weak. It felt human.
And that shared emotion, in that moment, actually strengthened the team. It reminded us that we weren’t just colleagues executing tasks. We were people navigating life, loss and meaning together.
Another moment came years ago in a regular one-to-one. I had my notes, my updates, my tidy list. My manager asked, “How are you doing?” and I broke.
No build-up. No warning. Just tears - steady, involuntary, overwhelming. And I remember feeling completely exposed. Embarrassed. As if I’d failed some test of professionalism.
But in hindsight, that was the moment I stopped pretending I was fine. That conversation eventually led to the realisation I was deep in burnout. Those tears weren’t a failure. They were a turning point.
So why are we still so afraid of visible emotion?
What we call “emotional” in women, we often call “passionate” in men. And what’s even more telling is how often the conversation shifts away from the cause of the tears and zeroes in on the fact they happened at all, as if they’re the real problem.
I've cried in moments when a value was crossed, and nobody seemed to care. When I raised something unacceptable and was met with indifference. When I felt anger and pain on behalf of people being mistreated, and the system simply shrugged.
These moments weren’t about fragility. They were about being awake to what matters. They were about seeing clearly, sometimes too clearly, and hitting the limit of what could be absorbed silently.
And here’s what often gets missed in the leadership conversation: emotion is information.
Tears don’t mean someone’s out of control. They mean something is real.
They mean: this moment, this issue, this situation, it matters.
Culture, performance, and the real cost of suppression
We say we want authentic leadership, trust, and psychologically safe cultures.
And yet we treat visible emotion as a red flag. Something to be minimised, corrected, or avoided.
But there’s a direct line between how we respond to emotion and how we build (or break) trust. And that trust, or lack of it, affects everything: retention, engagement, creativity, resilience, decision-making, collaboration.
You don’t need to make tears a core KPI to know they have an impact on the bottom line.
When people feel safe enough to be human at work, they think better, they relate better, and they stay longer. When they don’t, you get silent resignation long before someone hands in their notice.
What if we saw crying not as a weakness, but as a signal?
It doesn’t mean everyone needs to cry at work. That’s not the goal.
But it does mean we need to pay attention when it happens.
To ask better questions.
To listen more closely.
To notice what the body is saying when words fall short.
When we do that, as leaders, colleagues, people, we create workplaces that are more resilient, more relational, and far more real.
We stop rewarding performance masks.
We stop confusing composure with capacity.
And we start building cultures that actually support the humans behind the job titles.
