India’s Chandrayaan-2 achieved a lot except for the soft landing on the moon that could have facilitated a 100% achievement of the plans. However, the emotional exchange between ISRO chief Sivan and Nation’s chief Modi has sure created a debate on soft skills with opinions on social media saying that a ‘man’ who leads an organisation, should probably not cry in front of others.
We are all, in some way or the other victims of conditioning. Some of which is irrelevant and obsolete with evolution and progress. We have not shed our jaded conditioning as we progressed. Ironical but true. Probably some of this conditioning came from “Men went to work, women did not”.
This fact has changed dramatically over decades but the behaviour has not been realigned.
And that’s because there has not been an active awareness about the same and it is such a deep conditioning with so many fancy inferences drawn from it, that it feels self-defeating to realign.
The contradictions in what is being peddled to people as DO’s & DON’T’S of leadership behaviour is adding to the behavioural chaos. Who should cry, who should not, what it should mean and how should it be labelled!
EI & empathy is being defined as a must have skill for leaders. Expression of EI includes one’s ability to understand one self and the others, as well as being able to express this understanding without fear of being judged or mis-read. Combine this with the conditioning of “men should not cry”. This is a contra. But in the ‘cry category’ there is no taboo on women. And that’s why probably their EI is a natural extension of who they can freely be. It is often stated that women are better at EI.
Time for this gender stereotyping to go.
There is a right time and right place for everything.
Wisdom is in choosing this well. Leadership is in choosing this well.
Men & women leaders are both capable of emotions and are both equally capable of expressing them. A combination of “fearlessness” and “wisdom” differentiates why some choose to cry vs others who don’t.
And the ‘situation’ is where the choice is exercised. In a room full of strangers not connected by emotion, crying is not an expression that may be understood by all.
In a one to one, tears can speak more than a million words because the other person understands the context.
In a team meeting tears shining within the eye of a man or a woman is beautifully understood by each one around and you would see how this really binds them in this moment of sharing, letting each other’s guard down and trusting.
It indeed needs greater courage to express your self and your emotions to others, be it a woman or a man. More so a man because it needs him to break the conditioning, break all the perks attached to the conditioning, be at ease with who he is, be able to share what he feels rather than gulp that uneasily down his throat time and again.
I have seen strong men care & cry. Cry with happiness, cry in anger, cry in pain. And what did we think of these men? Not even once as “weak. They came across as fearless, trust worthy, humane and secure in the way they are. Yes, that’s the outcome.
And what did it do to these men? It made them feel liberated from the clutches of conditioning, the ability to express, to belong, to be loved and show they care and know that they are not judged by others. In this moment of experience is when they too realise how much of a burden they have taken off themselves and men around.
Wise men and strong men can choose to cry. It is time to drop the old conditioning, time to liberate the men and allow leaders, both men & women to choose to express their empathy, emotions and emotional intelligence in ways they wish to and if that means a tear escapes down your cheek, so be it. It is your moment of liberation and you are loved more for it. You are stronger and not weaker with it. You have started a momentum for others to be inspired, to let go of the old garbage and peel off layers of lies. Be fearlessly what you truly are.
