Are Men Too Emotional at Work?

Last year, I wrote a blog entitled, “Are women too emotional at work?” I questioned the definition of emotion and pointed out ways in which men are, indeed, just as emotional as women—they just show it in different ways. After years of being tagged as the “emotional gender,” women are now riding a sea change in thoughts about what constitutes emotion and what affect it has on the workplace. In this Great Recession era, women are emerging as the ones who are more even-keeled/level-headed and some of the consequences of male emotion are being seriously questioned. So, what has brought about this change of heart? Read on!

According to Hannah Rosin (Atlantic Monthly article “The End of Men”), researchers have begun to look at the relationship of higher testosterone and excessive risk. They “wonder if groups of men, in some basic hormonal way, spur each other to make reckless decisions.” The picture emerging is the polar opposite of traditional gender stereotypes: men, especially those in the financial industry, are now depicted as irrational and overemotional while women bask in the sunlight of “cool and levelheaded.”

Do researchers know with certainty whether testosterone strongly influences business decision-making? Of course not. But it’s interesting to see that a hormone other than estrogen is now being blamed for less-than-optimal business judgment. Perceptions are shifting about how emotion is defined and about what characteristics make up the ideal business leader. The old model of command and control which often included one leader who was allowed to use “acceptable” emotion—yelling—to achieve results in a quasi-dictator-like fashion is passé. Rosin contends that the new leader behaves “like a good coach and channels charisma to motivate others to be hardworking and creative.”

The bottom line is that both men and women are emotional in the workplace. The best leaders, male or female, are just careful about how they use their emotion. They don’t cry in their bosses’ offices or yell or take unnecessary risks to one-up their peers. But channeling charisma and being good coaches? To me, those sound like great ways to be emotional.