Confession of a Executive Psychologist: all emotions allowed, just not at work. Or are they?

There's a quote I love from Dr. Becky Kennedy (clinical child psychologist and author of Good Enough Now),

All emotions are allowed. Not all behaviours are allowed.

I know it. I use it. My daughter is four. When she's furious — and she gets furious — I tell her: you're allowed to be angry. You're not allowed to hit me. When she falls apart — and she does — I tell her: you're allowed to be sad. But crying so loud the neighbours can hear you isn't necessary.

She's four. She's learning what to do with what she feels.

And then I go to work. And I sit across from leaders — 45, 52, 58 years old — who never got that message.

Emotions are having a moment in my field. Psychological safety. Emotional intelligence. Vulnerability as leadership. The language is finally there.

And still — every week — I watch leaders struggle. Not because they don't believe in it. Because no one ever taught them what to actually do when an emotion shows up.

Someone cries in a meeting. The room goes stiff. Someone names their fear. It gets optimism-ed away. Someone is visibly angry. It gets labeled "difficult."

No one said emotions weren't welcome. But everyone felt which ones were.

So I want to ask the honest question. Are all emotions actually allowed at work?

Not as expression. I don't think so. Context matters. Power matters. Stakes are real.

But all emotions need to be allowed in you. As information. As signal. As data about what's actually happening — in the room, in the relationship, in yourself.

Because the emotions you don't let in don't disappear. They escape. In you. And in your people.

The sudden outburst in the meeting that surprises everyone — including the person having it. The colleagues who disappear to the hallway to say what they couldn't say to you. The tension that lives in a team for months with no name.

That's not dysfunction. That's emotions that had nowhere to go.

You are in the front row. You see it before anyone else does. But only if you've learned to recognize it — in yourself first.

The executive who hasn't allowed his own fear doesn't see it in his team. He talks it away. The one who has never sat with her own grief tells others to move on. The one whose anger is always managed before it's even felt labels yours as a problem.

You can't hold in others what you've never allowed in yourself.

All emotions allowed at work? Maybe not as expression. But as information — in you — always.

Your team already knows not to hit. But if they can't bring it to you — they'll take it to the hallway. That's not emotional safety. That's suppression with better manners.

I tell my four-year-old: you're allowed to be angry. You're not allowed to hit me.

She's four. She's learning.

I wonder if anyone ever told you the same.