How do you handle someone crying at work?

<p>Racquelle Pakutz started us off by sharing that she is an empathic leader. Because she has employees who are young and may have a lot going on in their lives, her first instinct is to try to figure out what is going on and if she can help them.</p> <p> </p> <p>Atif Agha added that his is always happy to listen and perhaps get the person’s manager involved, particularly if the crying is caused by a work issue. If someone has gotten to the point of crying, things have gone much too far.</p> <p> </p> <p>But he also cautioned that if it is a personal, outside of work issue, that isn’t something that is appropriate for him to get involved in or that he wants to be pulled into.</p> <p> </p> <p>Dawn Gagye agreed that there is certainly a personal line you don’t want to cross but it is important to lean into the situation to figure out where that line is and how you can help without crossing it and that a healthy organizational culture can make all the difference. </p> <p> </p> <p>I shared that crying could be a manifestation of several different emotions. Sadness of course but more often (at least in my experience) frustration or even anger. If I am at the point of tears in a work environment, I know I NEED to walk away immediately because my ability to be rational and edit what comes out of my mouth has likely disappeared.</p> <p> </p> <p>Atif wrapped us up by acknowledging that yes, it is important to address crying at work but if it is a common occurrence for someone to cry about everything, there might be more going on there.</p> <p> </p> <p>Have you had an experience, positive or negative, with crying at work? What have you seen be successful?</p> <p> </p> <p>Connect with the panelists: Racquelle Pakutz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/racquelle-pakutz/</p> <p>Owner of Zen Freight solutions where they do 3rd party transportation, the Founder of the podcast Trucker Talks, and an author and will be releasing her second book, Unleashing your soul level magic, in march</p> <p> </p> <p>Dawn Gagye: https://www.linkedin.co