Archive - October 2025

The reverberating impact of unhappiness at work

An individual who’s unhappy at work may may well experience stress.  They may feel humiliated and may create strategies to preserve their dignity.  Those strategies may preserve or damage key relationships.  They may attempt to engage in open, honest conversations, which may entail further risk.  Is the style with which they’re led and managed characterised by a ‘JFDI’ approach – a myopic, transactional approach which may or may not use or abuse the power of the leader or manager – or by an approach which cares about, and seeks to understand, how they really are at a level beyond what shows on the surface?  A leader’s or manager’s approach often speaks volumes about the culture of the team, and about the system more broadly than this immediate relationship.  When psychological safety is present, unhappiness at work can be discussed constructively.  When you take a systemic perspective you may see more about the interrelationships that exist between the elements in the system.  A test of whether a team, organisation or culture functions in a healthy, balanced and safe way shows up in an environment characterised as BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Non-Linear and Incomprehensible).