Bad things happen: 

A cancer diagnosis. Divorce. A child struggling with addiction. A parent with dementia.

What’s the move at work, though? Depending on your role, status, and workplace culture, deciding what and how to navigate a tough personal time in the work environment can add stress to an already overwhelming time. 

Being comfortable being ourselves at work, not hiding what’s going on and what’s important, is a value many people share. (This is one definition, of many, of the popular term “transparency.”)

Yet there are good reasons NOT to tell people at work what we are going through. Let’s start there: 

• It doesn’t feel safe. When there are interpersonal power struggles in a work culture, it puts our status and relationships at risk to be less than perfectly okay and on top of everything. In a top-down management culture, we have to worry about the extra scrutiny of our performance.

• We don’t want to bum people out or burden people with our situation. When we don’t want people to do anything special for us, we don’t want to put that idea in their heads that they should. 

• We don’t want the attention. We don’t want the questions or pitying looks, at least from certain people. We don’t want our business on the grapevine.

At the same time, there are many benefits to being transparent in this way, why it’s good to share our struggles:

• It’s honest. We don’t want to hide. People at work are an important part of our lives. 

• We get help! We can’t take care of ourselves if we don’t tell people what we need. Everybody needs help sometimes. 

• It’s helpful to others. If we all pretend everything is fine all the time, forever, that’s not only fake, it doesn’t allow anyone to be honest, ask for understanding, explain their exhaustion or bad mood.

• It builds trust. Simon Sinek and others talk about this: Asking for help builds trust faster than giving help.

• It’s tiring and a burden to keep important stuff to ourselves. Good stuff, too, but particularly the tough stuff wears us down when we keep it a secret.

Ideas for what to do

• Consider: What do I need? See what specific requests, allowances, small compassions will help in the tough time. In my recent tough time, I decided to take on more consulting projects than teaching and speaking projects. This balance in 2024 of more time off-stage, so to speak, than onstage worked out great for me in 2024. Other examples: A regular lunch date (in person or virtual) with your work besties, extra check-in chats with your boss, an urgent PTO request, a request for work-leave time, a modified schedule.

• Then, think about who you want to share your news with, to get what you need and want. Your boss, your work besties, everybody on your team, HR.

• Last thing, important thing, before you make a move: Do a quick power analysis of your teams and overall workplace culture. Are there risks to your reputation and effectiveness in telling people about your tough time? There shouldn’t be, and often there are. 

• If there are risks, find someone to weigh up your needs and options. Lots of people can help, including our boss if that relationship is strong and trusting, a mentor, a work friend, a friend outside of work. 

• Finally, do the things that will help you. For me, I have shared my big life changes related to my divorce with team members and clients over time, over the past 12 months. Pacing out the news has been helpful. And what I say depends on each relationship and my reasons for sharing. When I don’t want anything from the person, I say “I’m getting lots of support. I’m going to be okay.” Which is a great thing for me to be able to say, and to hear myself saying. Which leads me to the last point …

• Give yourself time to pause and be grateful for the help you receive and for every person who responded with kindness when they found out about your tough time.

There’s a balance to strike here: 

Work isn’t group therapy. It’s work. We work to pay our way in the world, and to contribute our unique skills, wisdom and talents to the goals of the organization. We don’t want to get in the way of the team’s progress. At the same time, we all benefit when we can be honest about the tough times that happen in everybody’s lives. We build trust, and make each other stronger and wiser