Bend Together Or Break Alone?
- Aug 26, 2021
- 5 min read
Written by: Kat Niewiadomska, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
I cried in front of my boss today. Ugly, red-faced crying. He’s younger than I am (I think!) And he’s a ‘he’. And yet, as Director of Something, I still sat there doing some pretty serious feeling-of-feelings in front of my boss. Some things are too hard to bottle up, or, have been bottled up too long to stay inside.
I’m struggling with mental health at the moment, and although my work is not suffering and I’m still delivering, my heart is suffering. I’ve gone from really liking what I do to hating it, not because of the work itself, but because, Life. The joy has been sucked out of it and replaced by persistent anxiety, mostly low grade but sometimes pretty radical Garmin-watch-is-telling-you-your-stress-level-is-too-high anxiety.
I’m a ‘feeling’ kind of person and I often think there’s no place for me in the business world as a professional. Feelings people are usually artists and actors who have the luxury of having emotions, they don’t belong in the workplace, right?
In fact, I was telling my husband the other day that it would be amazing to hear a CEO or C- Suite executive talk about how depressed or anxious they were.
“Impossible!” My husband exploded, having previously been said CEO at one point in time.
Oh, they all get stressed out and super busy and overextended, but they don’t get red-faced crying breakdowns in meetings, do they? They don’t get smartwatch alerts that their stress level is too high or scream at their kids for a totally-innocuous-look-stressed, do they?
As the world’s push for productivity continues in the midst of a pandemic, we consistently hear the message that we need to mind our mental health, take our vacation days and make wellness a priority, but we see so little of this modeled to us. How does one start? And where? Is that one of the perks you get if you’re a high achiever? And what if you feel the world too much? Do you even belong in the workplace?
Well, one starts by recognizing it and naming it.
I kept saying to myself that I’m just stressed. I’m not though. I’m well past that. The truth is, I have anxiety and my mental health is suffering. I just didn’t know it. If I heard and saw more strong, productive, and capable leaders say it, share their journeys through maintaining mental wellbeing, it might have been easier to assess whether I too was susceptible.
But I can understand them and the worry of how an admission of one’s suffering might change the perception of others. I tend to channel my ‘feeling’ self to my art and family at home while, professionally, I’m usually the person others turn to for support and guidance. Will people still come to me if I admit I’m struggling at the moment? Will I lose face? Social standing? Credibility? If my professional network knows that I, too am human?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
A few years ago, certainly a possibility, but today? When my professional network knows my kids by name, recognizes the paintings on my walls and is intimately familiar with the background noises of my home, maybe catching a glimpse of the inside of my head and heart won’t be such a shocker either?
My husband once said to me, it’s really lonely being a leader because you have no one to turn to, to show weakness in front of, to get advice and pushback from. I can see why that might be. But is that just a self-fulfilling prophecy? Is it because we don’t want to be seen as weak that we continue to reinforce our protective barriers until we are so safe we break, alone on the inside, instead of allowing ourselves to temporarily bend in front of others?
As for me, I’m choosing the latter. I’m yielding to the pressures of life for now, I am working on my mental health, I’m seeing a therapist, I’m crying in front of bosses and colleagues and I’m writing publicly about it.
Why?
Because I know that I have clients and coworkers who are suffering similarly in silence and don’t dare speak up for fear of personal judgment or professional consequences.
I’m sharing this because one of the first things we learn as parents is to model the behavior we want our kids to adopt and if I claim to be a person who champions wellbeing, empathy, and creativity in the workplace, then I need to make sure I am walking my talk.
I’m sharing this because the reaction of my boss wasn’t one of horror or disappointment, it was one of humanity and support and concern. His response wasn’t: “Pull yourself together and stop being so emotional,”, his response was: “What can I do, and what can this company do, to make you feel better? You’re performing fine but that’s not enough for me. I want you to be professionally fulfilled and happy.”
And that, my friends, was the response I needed to be convinced that yes, even though I am a feelings person, I do belong in some kinds of workplaces where empathy and humanity shape the way we do things and the people we retain.
All employees are feelings-people. As leaders actively co-creating the workplaces of the future, we need to ensure that we are cultivating a ‘space’ that welcomes the entirety of our people, not just their well-manicured, professional persona and their puppies on Zoom, but their very human, anxiety-ridden, feeling self as well. If we want their productivity, we must welcome their pain, and if we want their loyalty, then we must commit to them our whole humanity.
Kat Niewiadomska, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Kat Niewiadomska is an award-winning author, a speaker and an advocate of creativity as a tool for developing 21rst century skills in the workplace.
She has always been curious about people and creativity. She turned an Engineering Master’s degree at MIT into a research dissertation on how humans learn and while she worked on her PhD in Environmental Science she wrote a book that was a finalist in the International Book Awards.
When she realized that her education didn’t fit with her values, she made the leap from working with underwater robots and writing software to working with people and writing creatively. Watch her TEDx talk on The Power of Distraction to find out how.
Kat has worked with startups, SME’s, NGO’s and multinationals including Deloitte Consulting, Adidas and Careem. As a creativity and leadership coach, Kat helps engineers, doctors and scientists prioritize what matters, unlock their creativity and become the heroes of their own story.
