By the end of last summer, a product manager named Lila was barely holding it together. Her child had been sick for weeks, her father was recovering from surgery, and a key launch deadline was slipping out of reach. When she finally admitted to her team during a weekly check-in that she was feeling overwhelmed, her manager responded with a smile and said, “Let’s focus on the positives, you’ve got this.”
Lila did not feel supported. She felt dismissed.
The workplace was not hostile. In fact, it prided itself on optimism and high morale. But that kind of forced optimism, what psychologists and mental health clinicians call toxic positivity, had the opposite effect. Instead of creating space for honest conversation, it shut it down.
The Culture of “Good Vibes Only”
Toxic positivity is the belief that people should maintain a positive attitude regardless of how difficult their circumstances are. While it is often unintentional, this mindset becomes harmful when it leads to emotional invalidation. In workplace culture, this can look like reflexively responding to distress with phrases such as:
- “Everything happens for a reason.”
- “Stay strong, it’ll get better.”
- “At least you still have a job.”
The problem with these messages, according to Dr. Susan David, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School, is that they suggest some emotions are more acceptable than others. “When positivity is used to cover up or silence the truth,” she writes, “it becomes toxic” (David, 2017).
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In a widely shared article in Harvard Business Review, David calls out the corporate tendency to treat unpleasant emotions as a threat to productivity rather than a signal for support. This is particularly common in high-pressure environments where resilience is prized and emotional openness is often seen as weakness.
Why It Affects Women Disproportionately
The burden of toxic positivity often falls more heavily on women. Studies have shown that women are more likely to be tasked with emotional labor—managing not only their own feelings, but also the moods and needs of their coworkers (Hochschild, 1983). They are expected to stay calm, be encouraging, and maintain cohesion, even while navigating stress or burnout.
In a 2023 global survey by Deloitte, nearly half of working women reported feeling burned out. Yet only a third said they felt comfortable discussing their mental health with a manager. Many cited fear of being perceived as unreliable or “too emotional” (Deloitte, 2023).
Toxic positivity reinforces those fears. When women open up about real-life pressures—caregiving, health, grief—and are met with blanket reassurances instead of empathy or flexibility, it sends a clear message: your feelings are not welcome here.
The Cost of Emotional Suppression
Beyond morale, the effects of emotional suppression are real and measurable. In a foundational study, psychologists James Gross and Oliver John (2003) found that people who routinely suppress emotions report lower well-being, higher stress, and more conflict in relationships. Over time, this can lead to physical and psychological exhaustion.
Emotional honesty, on the other hand, builds trust. “Allowing space for full emotional expression makes teams more resilient, not less,” says Dr. Marc Brackett, director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. “You cannot manage what you do not understand, and you cannot understand what people are afraid to say” (Brackett, 2019).
Two Stories, One Pattern
Lila’s experience is not unique. In a financial services firm in Chicago, another woman—let us call her Tara—had been managing back-to-back losses: a miscarriage, a canceled vacation, and an aging parent in a care facility across the country. She shared some of it, cautiously, during a performance check-in. Her supervisor nodded, then changed the subject to Q4 projections.
She later said, “It felt like there was no place for my reality in that conversation. I learned to keep it to myself.”
What both Lila and Tara needed was not pity or leniency. They needed acknowledgment.
Building Emotionally Honest Workplaces
There is no need to abandon optimism. But optimism that does not allow room for discomfort or complexity becomes shallow. Experts suggest several small but powerful shifts for leaders and peers:
- Replace cheerleading with curiosity. Ask “How are you really doing?” and be prepared to hear a real answer.
- Validate, do not fix. Responding with “That sounds really hard” does more than saying “You’ll get through this.”
- Model vulnerability. Leaders who are open about their own limits create permission for others to be real.
These are not soft skills. They are survival tools in a workplace landscape where mental health, burnout, and emotional fatigue are rising concerns.
The Bottom Line
Toxic positivity may wear a friendly face, but it often delivers a cold message: Your emotions are too much. Please smile instead.
It is time to replace that message with something better. Not endless cheerfulness, but honest presence. Not forced brightness, but quiet support. Not “Good vibes only,” but “All feelings welcome.”
Because when people feel safe to speak the truth—even when it is hard—they can show up fully, work better, and stay longer.
References
Brackett, M. A. (2019). Permission to feel: Unlocking the power of emotions to help our kids, ourselves, and our society thrive. Celadon Books.
David, S. (2017). Emotional agility: Get unstuck, embrace change, and thrive in work and life. Harvard Business Review Press.
Deloitte. (2023). Women @ Work: A Global Outlook.
Gross, J. J., & John, O. P. (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 348–362. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.348
Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. University of California Press.
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