“Having needs is not evidence of weakness – it is human.” I love this quote by Danielle Bernock because the employee experience is a critical extension of the human experience. So many of us have been taught the lie that professionalism=dehumanization, that we need to put on our workplace armor as Brene Brown calls it, and try and ignore our basic human biology, showing up as unemotional robots at work who can bury our needs, but it’s not possible to shut down our humanness when we go to work. Though most of us have tried. Our research found that 62% of people feel that expressing negative emotions e.g. that you are frustrated, concerned, bored, stressed, or overwhelmed at work is viewed as unprofessional.

For years, I bought into this mindset. I worked in a toxic environment that felt like Mad Men: Modern Edition—whiskey poured at noon to deal with impossible clients. Shouting matches and door slamming? Completely normal. And an unspoken rule existed that survival required toughness. Show no weakness. Be perfect. Don’t break a sweat. Kill or be killed.

The result? Burnout. Exhaustion. A sleep disorder that laughed in the face of melatonin. Strained work relationships. I could go on, but it wasn’t pretty and I watched everyone else drown in it too.

Our Needs Drive Our Emotional Experience 

Here’s what I know now: our needs drive how we feel at work. Through our research, we identified 28 core psychological, emotional, and social human needs—or, as we call them, motives. PURPOSE. SELF-ESTEEM. WORK-LIFE HARMONY. FAIRNESS. VARIETY. FLEXIBILITY. These are the foundation for thriving at work and beneath these motives lies something even deeper: how we want to feel at work—and just as importantly, how we don’t want to feel.

During a recent workshop, this exercise struck a chord: the team explored what they wanted to feel more of and what they wanted to feel less of at work, all through the lens of motives that were thriving or suffering. It sparked meaningful conversations about how meeting these motives creates a positive emotional experience—and how unmet motives lead to things like frustration, disengagement, or burnout. You can see below when motives are met we feel all sorts of good stuff at work and when they are neglected it takes a serious emotional toll. 

How We Feel Matters 

Having our motives met matters, because how we feel at work matters for our mental health and well-being and matters for everyone’s success because happy employees are high-performing ones. Daniel Goleman, author of “Emotional Intelligence” said it best, “The word ‘motivation‘ shares its root with ‘emotion’: both come from the Latin motere, to move. Our motives give us our aims and the drive to achieve them.” When we feel the things we want to feel we are more motivated, fulfilled, and successful. 

Ignoring our emotions is to ignore a significant part of being human, and it also puts our values at risk. If we want environments and relationships that uplift health and happiness at work, how can that happen if we tend to show up as lesser versions of ourselves? The virtues we value and try to exemplify in our personal life, such as compassion, trust, acceptance, kindness, and respect, are less likely to shine through when blocked by our protective armor at work. As I reflect back, I can see how true this was of myself. I felt I couldn’t show weakness, so I had little patience or compassion when others showed weakness and imperfection. I thought you should just be tough and deal with the stress or frustration, so I showed less kindness when others struggled. I was a cold, shutdown version of myself, which is not the person I was outside of my job, because I felt I had to be. And I’ve heard from too many others that they can relate. 

Permission to Be Human

Dealing with emotions at work isn’t always easy, but when we look through the lens of motives, it becomes less overwhelming and more constructive. Motives give us a framework—a way to better communicate, understand, and problem-solve.

So here’s the big takeaway: having needs at work doesn’t make you or your employees weak—it makes you human. We need to be able to bring our emotion-full human selves to work, but navigating the complexities of emotions at work can be tough. When we or others feel emotions like stress, frustration, or resentment, instead of ignoring them or letting them fester, we can pause and ask: What need isn’t being met here? Is it a need for appreciation? Clarity? Manager support? Greater work-life harmony? Once we identify the unmet motive, we can take actionable steps to address it—whether that’s having a conversation, setting a boundary, or rethinking a process that isn’t working.

Ask yourself—and your team—what kind of emotional experience you want at work and how everyone can support the human needs that drive us to make it happen.