Women in Business Don't Cry, My Dear
By Melanie Joy Douglas, Monster.ca 
On last season’s Apprentice, Martha Stewart, a young candidate whose team had just lost a flower-selling contest told Martha that she felt like crying. Martha frowned and said, “Cry and you are out of here. Women in business don’t cry, my dear.” Not surprisingly Stewart’s comment made headlines. Was she speaking from her cold heart or did she have a point?
Colleen Clarke, Monster’s Career Advisor, says that crying at the office is certainly an issue. “It’s a man’s world,” she says, “and the workplace is still dictated by the military and team sports - all set up by men. The workplace is just not a place to bring your emotions.”
We know that women tend to cry more easily; it is in our biological make-up. But, most women also know that crying at work is not acceptable. Not only do tears at work undermine your authority, but they also make you look weak, unconfident, and as if you've lost control. You are perceived as irrational, and not taken as seriously. Experts say that temper tantrums are actually considered more acceptable than crying.
As a general rule, women who often cry at the office experience such career-damaging consequences.
To Cry or Not to Cry?
Of course, the effect crying at work will have on your career depends very much on your level. “If you’re making $25,000 a year and you cry because somebody yells and screams at you,” says Clarke, “it’s not going to be a detriment to your career. But if you are a manager or a supervisor, that’s a different story.”
It also depends on what you’re crying about and who caused the crying. According to Clarke, crying because you’ve been criticized by your boss is very different from crying because a colleague did you a bad deed – lied to you, stole an idea, backstabbed you, etc. With workplace bullying on the rise, workers are dealing with psychological harassment and even physical assault from their coworkers. “In these cases,” Clarke points out, “it would be pretty hard as a woman with any feelings not to cry or at least express anger.”
“If you cry one time when someone really yells and screams at you and makes you feel terrible, it’s probably water under the bridge. However, if you’re crying when someone drops a pencil, that’s a matter of you really having to get yourself under control. Crying on a regular basis isn’t going to work. You’re not going anywhere, and you’re lucky to keep your job at this point.”
“As long as your bosses are not aware that this is going on, then it probably doesn’t have any repercussions,” she adds.
Why do we cry?
Clarke thinks that more often that not, when a woman cries work, she is not necessarily crying because of the situation at that moment. If a woman is having problems in her marriage or her children are having trouble at school, she’s overloaded, and lacking a sense of work-life balance. Then, says Clarke, somebody tells her she didn’t do a good job or that there are five errors on this letter. (How could she possibly have sent this out?) She starts crying and it’s not because there are five errors on the letter that she sent out; it’s an accumulation of all of the imbalances that are going on in her life. She makes the mistake at work because she’s so overridden with tasks and personal things that are going on.
Regardless of how wrong you know it is, there are times when you just can’t stop the tears.
Dealing with tears
Clarke provides a general philosophy for dealing with tears at work: You need to get away from the problem you’re crying about and look at the solution, she says. “People spend too much time focusing on the problem – What am I going to do? This is overwhelming me! – instead of working on a solution to try to make it better.”
Every situation has an emotional side and a cognitive side, Clarke explains. “When you’re so overwhelmed, you just go to the emotional side, and feel as if you don’t have any control. But if you can prepare yourself for a situation,” she says, “try to look at it as cognitively as you possibly can. In other words, what are the facts? That’s where you need to go to put yourself out of the emotional scenario.”
Emotionalism in a conversation or presentation is what turns people off. So, when somebody comes to you with a conflict or a criticism, train yourself to go strictly to how you think about it – rather than how you feel about it. Avoid personalizing and taking responsibility for everything. Learn to let go.
I feel the tears a-coming… They’re rolling round the bend…
Prepare yourself for emotional situations by considering these strategies:
- Do some self-assessment. What emotion are you feeling when you cry? It could be anger, fear, or anxiety.
- Be more optimistic. Everything happens for a reason.
- Anticipate situations where intense emotions might be involved. Prepare yourself. Rehearse your reactions.
- Pinch your skin, bite your lips, and breathe deeply. Put on your game face. Talk through your tears. Pretend you’re auditioning for the role of ‘strong woman who doesn’t cry.’ Do whatever you can to try to hold yourself together.
- Focus on the content of the conversation – not the criticism or the way it’s communicated to you.
- Have a strict agenda and don’t deviate, so you’ll be prepared.
- Manage your feelings. Put words to the tears, as Clarke suggests. Focus on the problem instead of your feelings about the problem. Say something like “As you can see, I have strong feelings about this…”
- If this doesn’t work, asked to be excused. Say “As you can see, I have strong feelings about this. I’d like to take a time out and talk about it again later. I appreciate your understanding.” Don’t sit there crying – get away from the situation. Take a walk. Avoid going into the bathroom, as someone will probably see you and you’ll be the subject of office gossip. Reschedule the meeting once you’re over the emotional impact.
Tears are not enough…
- If you got emotional in a meeting, be sure to address it, after the fact, with your superior. Say something like “I was overtaken with emotion. It’s not like me. I hope you understand…”
- Never blame crying on your period!
In her book, Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office, Lois P. Frankel confirms that both women and men have negative associations with crying in the workplace. “If you find yourself welling up frequently or easily,” Frankel notes, “you may want to look inside with a good friend, coach, or psychotherapist.”
As for Martha Stewart... well, she was dead on. “We’d like to think there is room for these very human, very real emotions in the workplace,” says Clarke, “but they’re simply not there.” That said, we’re human after all, and sometimes you just can’t help it. That’s why it’s best to learn techniques to minimize the interference of your emotions in the workplace.
Play by the rules, nevertheless, work at changing them. Promote a compassionate and sympathetic workplace, in which people don’t have to bottle up all their emotions. Encourage expression – even if that means tears. In spite of everything, crying, once in a while, is a healthy release. Crying can purge your body of toxins and free up a bit more of your spirit. But for now, you'll have to wait until you get home.