We’ve all inappropriately handled our emotions at work. We’ve either stuffed our emotions when we should have shared them or we’ve spewed emotions when we should have stayed silent. Venting in the workplace is important but there are things to consider: should you vent to coworkers? The boss? Your direct reports? Your spouse? Below are six best practices for employees to consider when working through an awkward or confusing issue. May these thoughts help you, your team and your organization move towards a healthier place.
1. Venting is Healthy
Unprocessed emotions don’t resolve on their own. They usually fester and become more toxic over time. I’m starting with this baseline because some of us were raised to bottle all our emotions. This is not beneficial! First of all, realize that venting is healthy for yourself and others. It allows you to move on and prevents you from lashing out.
2. Vent Up
Venting is healthy. But, venting in every direction is not healthy. Venting should strictly go in one direction in organizations—up to your manager. Bring emotional concerns that you have not been able to resolve on your own to your manager. They will help you work towards resolving them. Remember, the first step to solving an issue is acknowledging it. This principle applies to emotional issues as well.
Manager Pro Tip: Aim to have a thick skin and soft heart while helping a direct report process their emotions—some of their emotions will be directed towards you. If you respond defensively or wounded, then the issue won’t get resolved. They will be less inclined to approach you later regarding a different issue.
3. Continue Venting Up
If you have vented to your manager repeatedly, and no movement or action has been taken for a period of time, then continue venting up by asking that their manager be brought into the conversation to help resolve it. This should be a last resort. Hopefully you don’t have to use this tactic but sometimes it needs to be considered.
Employee Pro Tip: If you put into practice the second and third healthy practices just mentioned, then you will naturally avoid the fourth and fifth unhealthy practices that follow below.
4. Don’t Vent Sideways
Venting to your manager is healthy. Conversely, venting to your coworkers is unhealthy and creates a toxic workplace pretty quickly. Avoid looping coworkers into your work conflicts, even if they are your friends.
Coworker Pro Tip: If a coworker starts venting to you, the best thing to do is encourage them to express their concern to their manager. This may feel awkward the first time, especially if you’ve listened to venting in the past. But if you stop them from venting a first time, you usually don’t have to do it a second time.
5. Never Vent Down
If venting sideways is unhealthy, then venting down is very unhealthy because of the influence you have over the staff, interns or volunteers that report to you.
6. Protect Your Spouse
When I started working for a church almost twenty years ago, I asked a seasoned mentor how he maintained a healthy marriage after decades in ministry. He said he protected his spouse. He purposefully shielded his wife from the majority of problems at work. If he didn’t, it may have compromised her ability to grow at the church she attended.
Organization Pro Tip: Don’t try to impose a zero tolerance policy for spouses sharing. This is not realistic or healthy. It won’t be followed! Instead it will cause unnecessary resentment in your employees towards an overly controlling organization. In the end, it is best to point out the potholes when traveling down the road of venting with spouses. Then encourage your staff to navigate accordingly.
Spouse Pro Tip: If you and your spouse both work for the same organization then you should exercise additional caution because the ripple effect can impact both of your jobs.
Sweeping emotions under the carpet is not healthy in our personal or professional lives, but neither is the opposite extreme of oversharing emotions. Hopefully these six guardrails help you, your team and organization express themselves in a healthy manner.
If you’re looking for coaching on this topic beyond this article, my email is in the bio below. I would love to help you determine the obstacles you’re facing and help you overcome them. I would love to help you win.
