The Generation That Was Told to 'Get On With It'. And Why It's Struggling to Lead Now.

When I was young, there was no such thing as "mental health." Not in the way we talk about it now.

If you were sad, a well-meaning stranger would say, "Cheer up, it might never happen." Even when it had happened. Even when your whole world had just collapsed. I used to hate it when someone said that to me.

Boys were told, "Big boys don't cry." Girls were told, "Don't make a fuss."

And so we learned, early on, that our feelings were inconvenient. That vulnerability was weakness. And that the safest thing to do was swallow it, soldier on and never let anyone see you struggle.

And now, decades later, that generation is running companies. We're managing teams. We're sitting in boardrooms. We're interviewing the next generation of talent and we're baffled.

The Collision of Two Worlds

Here's what's happening in workplaces everywhere:

And it's not that these leaders don't care. Most of them care deeply. It's that no one ever showed them how to talk about emotions - theirs or anyone else's. They were taught to lead from logic and strategy, not from empathy and emotional intelligence.

So when someone brings feelings into the workplace, their nervous system panics. They go into "fix it" mode. They shut the conversation down. Or they avoid it altogether.

The Science Bit: It's Not Weakness. It's Wiring

This isn't a lack of compassion. It's neuroscience.

Our brains are wired by experience. If your formative years taught you to suppress emotion, then emotionally charged conversations can feel threatening. Not because they're truly dangerous or life-threatening in that moment, but because your brain doesn't know the difference between a real threat and a perceived one (like, what if this conversation goes really badly?). It reacts to both in exactly the same way.

When that happens, your nervous system goes into the classic fight, flight or freeze response. You might label the other person a "snowflake" (fight), try to change the subject or avoid the discussion altogether (flight) or shut down emotionally and disengage (freeze).

Your brain interprets that conversation as a threat to things like your status and certainty - two of the five core social domains of the brain. When these domains are triggered by threat (real or imagined), your brain shifts into mid-brain dominance, activating survival mode and prompting defensive behaviours.

That's why so many leaders unintentionally shut down conversations about mental health, wellbeing or feelings. It's not a lack of care or compassion. It's a learned protection pattern.

But here's the good news. Brains can be rewired. Conversations can be re-learned. And emotional intelligence can be built at any age and at any stage of leadership.

The Bottom Line

If you were raised in a world where feelings were a liability, you are not alone.

But the workplace has changed. And so has the world. The leaders who will thrive in the next decade will be the ones who evolve with it - not by becoming therapists, but by becoming emotionally fluent.

Because the truth is, the conversations you avoid are often the ones that most define your leadership and culture.