Should women cry at work?

Dubai: When it comes to women and tears at the workplace — whether the latter come as a downpour or as reticent sniffles — colleagues take both seriously.

But how seriously? Well, it depends.

This burst of emotion needs to be examined in various contexts. Let's start with the context of multiculturalism. A Japanese female manager starts crying in front of her male American director. What happens? Will the director use her emotional bout to hinder her professional growth, assuming she is weak? Will her co-workers judge her as out of control?

Not if the observer is Emirati Mohammad Ali Bin Futais Al Merri, head of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) at a government organisation in Abu Dhabi. He tells Gulf News, "In my previous workplace, my lady colleagues come out of my superior's office crying due to his behaviour, and I empathised with them because I believe crying is a natural release for pent-up emotions."

Learning curve

On the other hand, for Noora Al Daheri, an Emirati banker, her early career as a customer service representative in a UAE private bank worked as a learning curve. "I handled all sorts of customers — different nationalities and professions. I ended up crying several times due to difficult customers, but it was the best training experience in customer relations [as she learnt eventually to not cry]," she says.

It was all due to an incident when after dealing with nearly 100 customers, she then had to tackle an extremely challenging customer. "I was exhausted and couldn't hold back my tears. It was embarrassing for that customer and myself. After that incident, I learnt to control myself," she says.

Sophie Le Ray, the French CEO of naseba, a company that researches, produces and hosts B2B initiatives, and has an office in Dubai, says, "I believe having a strong facade is important.

"I work in the corporate events industry. When you're in front of royalty, chairpersons, CEOs and other high-level executives, you need to have a confident, calm and composed appearance — all the time."

So, here we are — with a diversity of opinions on women and tears at the workplace that lead to different conclusions. But outside of individual perceptions, what is the common acceptable theory on this issue? Particularly in a multicultural city like Dubai?

Gulf News turned to two industry experts, Dr Samineh Shaheem, assistant professor of psychology at Human Relations Institute Dubai, who specialises in cross-cultural and business psychology among others, and Cindy van de Kreke-Freens, personal and professional development coach and leader at Authenticity Coaching & Consultancy, Dubai.

To understand whether a workplace can tolerate tears, we must first go back to the basics. According to Dr Shaheem, it is the definition of crying that needs to be first understood. "Crying," she says, "is part of the wide range of emotional expressions we experience. Psychologically, we do not treat crying any differently from laughing. It is part of the spectrum of change in one's mood and could have an impact on job performance, decision-making, negotiation or leadership. Crying represents the emotions of a person who has gone through a challenging situation, and is unable to manage emotions in a public space."

Attaching labels

Van de Kreke-Freens too believes crying is a form of release and warns that attaching labels to the emotion could be dangerous. She says, "Labelling crying — or labelling in general — is what divides. So we have two camps — the pro camp that thinks crying is okay, and the con camp that thinks crying isn't."

Crying episodes need to be evaluated based on frequency, Dr Shaheem says. She explains, "If it is a one-off incident or if the person has been going through a tough phase like a loss of a loved one, it would seem appropriate and slightly more permissible. However, if it happens frequently and isn't linked to a taxing issue, it can create a negative impression and can make others feel uncomfortable."

The reasons for tears, Dr Shaheem says, depend on the cultural background, citing two philosophies — ‘collectivist' and ‘individualist'. She explains, "While these aren't distinct categories, I think individualist societies like those of the US and UK have learnt to express themselves and convey anger and frustration, whereas people from shame-based collectivist cultures, especially India, Japan, China, and the Middle East, that respect hierarchy, may not be able to express their feelings."

Le Ray says, "I don't necessarily think women should completely hide their emotions, as they can provide an honesty and transparency that garners respect from co-workers. Emotions also show that you care — particularly if they are caused by frustrations directly related to your work. After all, we're all human, but I do feel that in a corporate culture, emotions should be channelled appropriately."

Noora recalls an incident that happened after she got off the learning curve. "Recently, one of my subordinates exploded into tears because of the workload coupled with miscommunication. I was glad that with my experience, I could train the person on how to handle conflicts with professionalism. From a business perception, we cannot determine that all women who cry at work are weak. But it can also be said that the best women in business never show their tears."

Masking feelings

Dr Shaheem takes a different view on "managing emotions". She says, "Often, professionalism is synonymous with masking one's emotions, either positive or negative. If too much of ‘masking' is going on, people won't be able to manage their emotions in appropriate ways. So people need to be taught how to deal with negative emotions rather than hide them.

She also speaks of the role of EI (Emotional Intelligence) in a multicultural workplace. She says, "Coming from different cultures, we have been trained to socialise and express ourselves differently. This learning crystallises in the workplace. Emotional skills are taught and reinforced. In this, the HR department can play an important role."

Van de Kreke-Freens' advice is to reach a place where "crying isn't wrong". She says, "It would be a step forward. It opens the door to conversation, to awareness and connection rather than separation and disconnection. Working with women and men has taught me that there are many truths, limiting beliefs and assumptions around crying."

One of the important checks about crying is the why of it. That helps put things in perspective rather than a blanket assumption of tears being equal to weakness. "To get to the conversation about crying, curiosity is needed," van de Kreke-Freens says. "The tears could explain a lot. Maybe expectations haven't been met and you are feeling bad, disappointed. Maybe you have not met someone else's expectations, so you are disappointed in yourself. When you ask the ‘why', you might find the truth behind the tears."