I’m going to begin this blog with a shocking truth. Ready?
Nobody leaves their emotions at the door when they come to work.
*gasp*
I know. Groundbreaking. Why? Because we are emotional beings. You cannot simply detach your feelings like clip-on ties and stick them in a drawer. Emotions are a built-in alert system. Let me repeat that:
Emotions are messages.
- Anger says, “Hey! I’m perceiving unfairness! Do something about it!”
- Frustration says, “This isn’t working. Try something else.”
- Fear says, “Something feels off. Proceed with caution.”
- Sadness says, “Hey… I’m carrying hurt, and it needs attention.”
- Happiness says, “Yessss! More of whatever this is.”
Now—before you start blindly following every emotions like it’s a wise old wizard—there’s a catch: Emotions reflect our perceptions and beliefs.
So if you believe “the world owes me,” then hearing “no” will feel like a personal attack worthy of an angry post and tantrum. That doesn’t make your feelings faulty. It just means they may be based on questionable, distorted, outdated, inaccurate, or maladaptive logic.
Bottom line: workplaces are full of feelings.
Some are obvious—deadline panic, post-meeting relief, euphoria after a project goes well. Others are more subtle—irritation at a colleague’s sloppy work, pride after solving a problem, or that very specific mix of hope and dread before a performance review.
So instead of pretending emotions don’t exist at work, let’s ask a better question: Why do we actually need them?
Why We Need Emotions at Work
We need emotions at work because they help us:
- Make decisions. We love to believe we are making clean, rational, research-approved decisions at all times. We are not. Emotions help determine what feels risky, urgent, worth pursuing, or absolutely not worth the headache.
- Read other people. A huge part of work is picking up on what is not being said. Understanding emotions helps us interpret tension, hesitation, enthusiasm, and discomfort—signals that are often more revealing than words.
- Build trust and connection. People work better together when they feel respected and understood. Obviously, if someone consistently makes you feel irritated, dismissed, or uneasy, you’re probably not going to be excited about collaborating with them.
- Motivate action. Confidence and passion drive initiative. Apprehension encourages caution. Feeling unappreciated may push you to speak up—or to leave. Emotions give people the energy to care, try, improve, and follow through.
- Communicate like actual human beings. Emotions help us express concern, appreciation, urgency, disappointment, and empathy. Without them, every message starts to sound like it was generated by a bot.
- Notice when something is wrong. Discomfort, resentment, dread, and frustration are not random—they are signals that something needs attention. (Remember: emotions are messages.)
- Fuel creativity. We don’t create something out of nothing. We create or innovate because something annoys us, stimulates us, or excites us.
- Take responsibility. Guilt, concern, and regret help us reflect, apologize, and make amends. Without them, we’d all be working in a deeply unsettling environment where no one learns or cares about anything ever.
Ignoring Emotions Won’t Make Them Go Away
One of the worst ideas floating around workplaces is that emotions should be “managed” by pretending they don’t exist. This is not how that works.
First, emotions don’t disappear just because you ignore them. They show up anyway—through tension, headaches, stress, overthinking, or suddenly having a very strong opinion about something minor.
Second, suppression does not hold up long-term. Eventually, those emotions will escape—and not gracefully.
- Snapping at someone over nothing
- Crying in a bathroom stall at work
- Sending an email you later regret
- Developing stress symptoms your body would very much like you to address
I am not saying you should give your emotions full control over your behavior—tempting as it may be to tell someone exactly what you think of them in vivid, memorable language. But you do need to do something with them.
That means:
- Figuring out the belief behind the emotion
- Actually processing it instead of pretending it’s not there
For example:
Let’s say your boss reviews your presentation and says: “It needs more work.”
Immediately, you feel: irritation, embarrassment, maybe a hint of panic. Maybe a brief fantasy of quitting in a colorful way.
Instead of expressing what you feel (e.g., “That’s disappointing—what would you change?”), you shut down and go into “professional mode,” which often just means sitting there silently while controlling the temptation to throw chairs.
But the emotion didn’t come out of nowhere. So instead of suppressing it, ask: What belief is fueling this reaction?
Take a second. Don’t just grab the first answer your brain throws at you—dig a little.
Maybe it’s:
- “If my work isn’t praised, I’ve failed.”
- “If someone criticizes me, it means I’m incompetent.”
- “My boss is an authority figure, so they must be right.”
- “I am an incompetent fraud and today is the day everyone finds out.”
Once you identify the belief, you can actually work with it.
You might:
- Remind yourself that feedback is not the same as rejection
- Take a break so you don’t respond emotionally in the moment
- Vent to a trusted person (not in the meeting, ideally)
- Separate useful feedback from nonsense and move forward
The goal is not to suppress the emotion or let it run wild. The goal is to understand what’s driving it, so you can respond like a human.
What We Should Be Doing with Emotions at Work
The goal is not to eliminate emotions. That would require replacing everyone with emotionally neutral robots, which won’t work, no matter how advanced AI becomes. The goal is to notice them, feel them, understand them, respond.
Because when emotions are ignored, they don’t disappear. They just show up other ways.
And if someone has the audacity to tell you, “Leave your emotions at the door,” feel free to remind them the next time they react emotionally.