Sharing personal information can lead to connection and empathy, but blurring personal and professional boundaries can sometimes be detrimental to the quality of our workplace relationships. It's essential to maintain boundaries rooted in self-respect and protection of our well-being.
We all face personal challenges, and at times it can be difficult to separate work and home lives. Many times, they can have a direct impact on each other. While sharing personal issues with a manager may be necessary to understand and address performance issues, oversharing with peers can lead to the sharer feeling exposed and anxious, and the recipient feeling overburdened and uncomfortable.
Before sharing, it’s important to ask yourself a few questions:
- Is this the right person to speak to?
- Why do I want to share this information with this person?
- What outcome do I hope to achieve?
- Is this appropriate?
- How could this impact our relationship going forward?
We often hear about the need to be ‘authentic and vulnerable’ in the workplace. But what does that mean? As Dr. Brene Brown puts it in her book Dare to Lead, “Vulnerability without boundaries is not vulnerability… vulnerability is not self-disclosure.”
It is important to differentiate between vulnerability and oversharing. Sharing with purpose, personal boundaries, and within the right context, protects privacy and prevents manipulation or sympathy-seeking behaviour. Oversharing can lead to workplace gossip and unwanted attention, so it’s crucial to only share when it will help resolve an issue with the right support and resources.
On the other hand, undersharing personal issues can negatively affect both overall wellbeing and work performance, and lead to burnout. Employees who don’t communicate struggles may be misunderstood by managers and team members, resulting in a lack of support. Emotionally intelligence leaders should be able to recognise these signals and create an empathetic, ‘psychologically safe’ environment where employees are comfortable sharing.
KOTA training programmes explore oversharing and undersharing, and how either may lead to self-sabotaging behaviours at work for the employee. We also address how leaders can be more emotionally intelligent and provide a better work environment for struggling employees. To find out more about our training programmes and how we can help you build a better bottom line, book in for consultation.