I cried in front of my new boss and I’m mortified

A reader writes:

My manager, Katherine, is a C-suite level executive who joined the organization eight months ago. She was previously my skip-level manager (former boss’s boss), but due to a large RIF/company restructuring four months ago, my former manager is no longer with the organization, and another colleague and I were asked to co-lead the remaining team, reporting to Katherine. Before the restructuring, I had met her maybe twice, and at the time of my recent performance review, this was my second 1-1.

Many of the projects I worked on last year are no longer considered company priorities after this restructuring. During my performance review, Katherine admitted that she had been unaware of much of the work I had described in my previous year’s goals (most of which are no longer team/department priorities) and instead shared general observations: positive qualities in curiosity and engaging with others, well-thought of in the company, but she felt like my confidence and communication was not where she would have expected it to be at my senior individual contributor-middle manager level and asked me to reflect on why, as she wants me to develop more tenacity and grit.

After some self-reflection, I scheduled a follow-up meeting and shared that I thrive in collaborative interactive team environments and that her observations may be tied to the previous siloed structure of our team (one thing she was unhappy about how the team had been previously structured) and how I had ended up essentially working alone for the majority of the past year, despite my efforts to find entry points into more collaborative work through my previous manager. To my utter surprise, after I finished sharing, I suddenly started crying! I think it was a combination of feeling under a lot of pressure to perform well given the company’s current shaky financials, the stress of all these recent changes, imposter syndrome, and acknowledging some of the frustration I had had over the last year.

Katherine was nice about it and said from what she knows about my previous manager, she can understand how these circumstances arose but wants me to develop skills to not acquiesce so easily in the future. I am looking for a therapist to help me learn to manage some of these stressors in my life, but I am mortified at the unprofessional-ness of crying (and concerned that Katherine, who has not seen me operate at my best so far, will think I cannot handle this role).

What, if anything, do I say when I speak with her again and how do I recover from this?

You are almost certainly not the first person to cry in Katherine’s office.

More people cry at work and in front of their managers than I think non-managers realize. Work is stressful and the stakes can be high and, in my experience, people who are conscientious are more likely to cry at work at some point. I used to keep a box of tissues prominently on my desk, and it’s not because I’m a jerk who makes people cry. Work just gets to people sometimes.

In this specific situation, it’s tougher because she was specifically talking about wanting you to develop more tenacity and grit, and so of course crying feels like the last thing you wanted to do in that moment. And that’s compounded by the fact you haven’t had much contact with her before now, so the two of you don’t yet have a strong relationship to put this all in context. But she’s also well aware that this has been a rough year in your company and for you — there have been layoffs and massive changes to priorities and your job has changed and you’ve been stuck working on your own and the company is still on shaky ground. Of course you’re stressed out. Of course the stakes feel high. If Katherine has even a small amount of emotional intelligence, she gets it.

The best thing you can do to feel you’ve put this behind you is to say something to her the next time you talk like, “I apologize for appearing emotional in our last meeting. I wasn’t expecting that to happen — just a weird physiological reaction! I really do value your feedback, and I appreciate you giving it to me.”

Say it in a matter-of-fact, breezy tone. The idea is to reassure her that you are not a delicate flower who will react strongly whenever given feedback, and to sort of reset the vibe between you since the last conversation.

From there, don’t dwell on it. Move forward in the relationship as if it didn’t happen and trust that she will too. As you get more experience working together, that more direct experience will be a far bigger contributor to her sense of what you’re like to work with and should pretty quickly eclipse this early conversation entirely.

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