Charlie Baker, the Republican governor of Massachusetts, broke down whereas talking in regards to the demise of his greatest pal’s mom.Mark Meadows
Charlie Baker, the Republican governor of Massachusetts, broke down whereas talking in regards to the demise of his greatest pal’s mom.
Mark Meadows, President Trump’s chief of workers, has been crying frequently in meetings with White House staff, while Andrew M. Cuomo, the Democratic governor of New York, has teared up on more than one occasion during his daily televised coronavirus briefings.
After Howard Stern asked Mr. Cuomo about it — “Yes” he has cried, the governor said — a local radio show revisited the subject. “I was a little surprised by the question,” Mr. Cuomo said, noting that his father, former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, was reluctant to admit he cried. His son was not. He had cried, he said, “about the death toll.”
Crying on the job, especially in politics, used to be considered a liability.
“We tend to like our leaders to appear confident and assured,” said Alicia Grandey, a psychology professor at Pennsylvania State University who has studied emotion in the workplace.
Crying has derailed political careers. “I used to say, Kleenex should sponsor me,” said Patricia Schroeder, a former congresswoman from Colorado, who somewhat famously broke into tears while cutting short a presidential bid in 1987, and was still receiving hate mail decades later.
Tears at work have long been discouraged: People who cry risk being perceived as less professional and less competent than their more stoic peers.
And crying has long highlighted the complicated dynamics of how people view emotion — and who gets to publicly express it. “Both genders seem weak when they cry, but for men it is much worse because it is so strongly against norms,” said Elizabeth Baily Wolf, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at Insead, a business school near Paris.
When a woman cries at work, she confirms the stereotype of women as emotional, hysterical, unable to perform under pressure. But when a man does it, he is defying the stereotype for men — strong, decisive — which can damage him even more.
“When I see a man cry I view it as a weakness,” Mr. Trump has said. As he told People magazine in 2015: “The last time I cried was when I was a baby.”(He recently described the death of a friend from the coronavirus as “a very sad thing.”)
But there are some subjects that are simply too heart-wrenching not to cry about, no matter one’s gender — and the current pandemic may be one of them.
The chief executive of Marriott gave an emotional broadcast to his employees that has been praised as a “lesson in leadership.”
“This is about the saddest thing we’ve been through,” said Marc Tell, the chief executive of a restaurant supply distributor in New York, who said he broke down during a call with his staff last week. He has run his company through four downturns and Sept. 11, he said. “Even the toughest guys on my team — and there are some tough guys — I know that we all cry in private,” he added. “So why can’t we cry together?”
David Schiesher, a therapist in Switzerland, by way of Minnesota, said he had shed tears with scared and anxious patients. “Expressions of emotion are not weaknesses,” he said.
Kathleen Buczko, the executive director of a nonprofit in Los Angeles, cried during a board meeting with her staff — and said that “I will cry again, I’m sure.”
“I think I’d be worried about anyone who hasn’t teared up in the last month,” said Brian Stelter, the host of the CNN program “Reliable Sources,” who recently described on Twitter how he had “crawled in mattress and cried for our pre-pandemic lives.”
‘They’ll cry for others’
Crying in public was as soon as seen as a power.
In line with Tom Lutz, the creator of “Crying: The Pure and Cultural Historical past of Tears,” it was widespread within the 18th century for upper-class males to cry — in reality, “they had been considered as brutes in the event that they didn’t,” he mentioned.
It was solely within the 19th century that the concept of male stoicism emerged, and it was not till the mid-20th century that tears had been used to counsel that “candidates for public workplace weren’t manly or secure sufficient” to be there, Mr. Lutz mentioned.
Which could assist make clear why, whereas little girls and boys cry equally when they’re younger, males are likely to cry lower than girls as adults — and much lower than girls at work.
There are myriad causes for that crying hole, together with cultural conditioning — it’s extra acceptable for girls to cry — and the truth that girls’s tear ducts are anatomically shallower, resulting in spillover, which makes their crying extra seen.
Nonetheless, the societal expectations of males in public life — particularly in politics — have historically been fairly clear on the crying entrance. Particularly, don’t do it.
“Crying is a nonverbal means of claiming, ‘I need assistance and help,’” Professor Wolf mentioned. Tears could make a pacesetter seem extra relatable and “hotter”; they’ll additionally make a pacesetter appear helpless and fewer competent, she mentioned.
The consequence relies upon largely on what judgment folks have already shaped of the individual doing the crying.
For proof, one could look to former Senator Edmund S. Muskie, whose 1972 presidential bid slid off the tracks after it was reported that he had cried in response to a newspaper report that criticized his spouse. (It occurred throughout a snowstorm, and a terrific debate ensued about whether or not it was a tear or a melted snowflake in his eye.)
“Folks had been asking me to go on TV and speak about my ‘breakdown’ — my breakdown!” Ms. Schroeder mentioned in an interview. “I used to be, like, ‘I ended for 3 seconds.’”
“Folks used to say, ‘We don’t need any person’s finger on the nuclear button who cries,’ she added. “I might say, ‘Nicely, I do not need any person with their finger on it who does not!’”
For years, Ms. Schroeder saved a “crying file” in her congressional workplace — with information clippings of public figures who had cried publicly.
The checklist included politicians resembling Gary Hart, a former Colorado senator, who cried when he visited his Kansas birthplace; and President Ronald Reagan, who, Ms. Schroeder mentioned, “used to tear up each time he noticed the flag.”
Her file has lengthy since been thrown out, she mentioned, however its present iteration might need included former Speaker John A. Boehner, whose prolific tears appeared to deliver political crying into the trendy period; the oft-emotional Joseph R. Biden Jr., the previous vice chairman; and even President Barack Obama, who wiped away tears whereas outlining more durable gun controls within the wake of the Sandy Hook bloodbath.
And there can be an entry, after all, for Hillary Clinton, who notably teared up in New Hampshire in the course of the Democratic presidential major race in 2008 after being requested how she was faring personally. (She gained the state’s major; a couple of pundit attributed that victory to her “uncharacteristic” show of emotion.)
“We now have very slim boundaries of acceptable emotional expression at work usually, and much more slim for our leaders, male or feminine,” mentioned Professor Grandey, the psychologist at Penn State.
So slim are these boundaries that they could boil right down to the literal quantity of tears. A tear or two — not a sob, Professor Grandey mentioned.
It additionally will depend on what the emotion is about.
Non secular tears are typically OK, as do heroic tears (assume: warfare, sports activities). Patriotic tears are usually welcome, whereas private tears are extra dangerous.
“In skilled life,” mentioned Mr. Lutz, the creator, “now you can cry to indicate empathy and concern, however you may’t cry as a result of your emotions are damage, or since you are annoyed, and even since you are indignant — nonetheless acceptable we would discover such tears in our family and friends. That is true for politicians as effectively: They’ll cry for others, however not for themselves.”
‘These are the issues that outline at the moment’s leaders’
All through the coronavirus disaster, Governor Cuomo’s briefings on the virus have featured updates on demise tolls and different exhausting info.
“This isn’t about emotion,” he mentioned final week, of his timeline for reopening his state.
And but, it’s exactly the sometimes uncharacteristic shows of emotion by Mr. Cuomo and different leaders which have earned them reward, typically in stark distinction to the management fashion of Mr. Trump.
(Notably, feminine leaders, who’ve been praised globally for his or her management within the pandemic, haven’t usually shed public tears.)
Pam Sherman, a management coach based mostly in Rochester, N.Y., mentioned she discovered Mr. Cuomo’s “genuine emotion” to be “required viewing” and indicative of a change in what folks need from elected officers.
“The times when a politician cried and it was over for them — that’s over, ” she mentioned. “Issues like empathy, vulnerability, emotional connectedness — these are the issues that outline at the moment’s leaders.”
In different phrases: the management traits that, historically, have been related to girls.