IS IT OK TO CRY AT WORK
MICHELLE LEMELIN
SOUTHERN NEW HAMPSHIRE UNIVERISTY
Summary
In this chapter we explore emotions in the workplace. Is it ok to cry, vent or show happiness in your office? Displays of emotions will inevitably be part of your work environment, whether it is a full blown outburst to slight signs of emotions. How management or the leadership of a business deals with their employee’s emotions can either create a positive environment or negative environment. At this time the business community has not fully embraced or have become comfortable with employees expressing their emotions at work. Hopefully with education and training management will begin to understand the importance of emotions in the work environment.

IS IT OK TO CRY AT WORK

1. What factors do you think make some organizations ineffective at managing emotions?
Emotions are intense feelings directed at someone or something (Organizational Behavior, page 90). The factors that will make an organization ineffective at managing emotions is their lack of understanding of psychology, or the lack of training in managing emotions in the workplace. Test should be administered to assist managers in realizing what their personality type may be and also their EI (emotional intelligence) level may be. There are many businesses and managers that believe emotions expressed in the work environment will interfere with the employee’s ability to work effectively. Recognizing and dealing with an employee’s emotions can either create a negative experience or positive experience for the staff. 2. Do you think the strategic use and display of emotions serve to protect employees, or does covering your true emotions at work lead to more problems than it solves?
Certainly in cases of negotiations and uncertainly in the company the strategic use of emotional display should be used. An example would be if the company is re-organizing displaying anger or worry to the employee’s will only heighten their sense of worry, anger and in some cases increase stress. In some cases using the correct emotion can motivate your employees. Can covering your true emotions create more problems than it solves? Emotion regulation techniques can help us cope with difficult work-place situations, research indicates that the effect varies (Organizational Behavior, page 108). I believe that it depends on the issue and situation on how you react or don’t react. You should use your best judgment on how you react.
3. Have you ever worked where emotions were used as part of a management style? Describe the advantages and disadvantages of this approach in your experience.
I have worked in an environment and still work in an environment where emotions are used as a management style. That management style is anger and in instances what I would consider bullying. However, we need to understand that the position that management is in (Police and Fire) you would need to be authoritative and strong. They use many emotions to pry the information out that is needed in certain cases. So they have many emotions, one is for the public they are assisting or in some cases arresting, another for co-workers and yet another for their families. The advantages they are able to deal with many people and get the job done. I call this cop attitude and if they forget to turn that off before dealing with myself or others it appears like they are upset. The disadvantage is that at times they are misunderstood and appear to be angry.
4. Research shows that acts of coworkers (37%) and management (22%) cause more negative emotions for employees than do acts of customers (7%). What can Laura’s company do to change its emotional climate?
I think that the organization that Laura is in needs to conduct some training sessions on emotional recognition. Policies need to be put in place on how to handle extreme displays of emotions. Management also needs to be trained on the effective use of emotions to manage your staff. They need to get away from the anger management method. Managers need to regulate their intense emotional responses to an event by recognizing the legitimacy of the emotion and being careful to vent only to supportive listener who is not involved in the event (Organizational Behavior, page 114). They need to acknowledge the feelings because ignoring them or suppressing them in some cases could make it worse.

References
Robbins and Judge (2015). Organizational Behavior. Prentice Hall, Inc.

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