Not Everyone Wants to Feel the Same at Work
Not Everyone Wants to Feel
the Same at Work
Zurich (Switzerland) — December 2026
We don’t all want to feel the same way at work.
For over a century, the workplace has been shaped by a simple assumption: emotions don’t belong there. But they do. And whether acknowledged or not, they shape how we work and how we lead.
Our research at the UZH Center for Leadership in the Future of Work shows that emotions are not just present at work -- they are pivotal to performance. Teams that foster a positive atmosphere are more productive, more creative, and more resilient. But here’s the twist: not everyone wants to feel the same emotion at work.
Some want to feel proud. Others relaxed. Some thrive when they feel challenged or competent. This diversity of emotional preferences led us to develop the concept of “emotional fit” -- the degree to which people can feel the way they want to feel at work.
The implications seem profound. Our research begins to show that emotional fit predicts not just happiness, but performance and health-related behaviors. It challenges us to design work and teams in ways that acknowledge emotional diversity.
💡 Workplaces of the future don’t just be more digital. They’ll also need to be more emotionally intelligent.
Thanks to Florence Bernays, PhD, Leon Bach, María Díaz Macías, and Moritz Remund for your fantastic work on emotions at work. And thanks to journalist Thomas Gull for turning our research into a compelling story:
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