Anxiety at Work: Why ‘How Are You?’ Isn’t a Real Question

Anxiety at work is not just a private struggle to manage at home; it is an organisational reality with a real operational cost. When workplaces treat “How are you?” as a greeting rather than a genuine question, people learn to hide what they are carrying, and that silence shows up as missed deadlines, avoidance, perfectionism, and good people quietly leaving. Naming anxiety as normal, rather than a character flaw, is where healthier and higher-performing cultures begin.

We’ve built workplaces where “How are you?” is a greeting, not a question. Where asking for support feels like career suicide. Where anxiety is treated as a personal problem to manage at home, not an organisational reality to address at work.

The cost of anxiety at work isn’t just human, it’s operational

Here’s what the research shows, and what leaders working with anxiety tell me repeatedly: the cost of unacknowledged anxiety isn’t just human, it’s operational. It shows up in missed deadlines, avoidance, perfectionism, and talent walking out the door because they couldn’t say they were struggling.

This is where psychological safety does its quiet work. When people feel safe enough to say they are struggling, the struggle stops leaking out sideways as dropped work and unexplained exits. When they don’t, the anxiety doesn’t disappear. It goes underground and gets more expensive, both for the person and for the team around them. Most of what looks like a performance problem is really an unspoken one.

What leaders can do about anxiety at work

So here’s a small challenge. This week, create one conversation, in a team meeting, a 1:1, or a leadership huddle, where you name anxiety as normal, not shameful. Ask, “What’s making this hard right now?” and actually wait for the real answer.

The point isn’t to become a therapist or to solve everyone’s problems in a stand-up. It’s to notice, to listen without rushing to fix, and to make it safe for people to be honest about a hard week. Do it more than once, and model it yourself. Then it becomes part of how the team works, not a one-off gesture. This is the slow, human work of humanising the workplace. It sits closer to ordinary workplace stress management than to anything clinical.

Because until we stop treating mental struggle as a character flaw and start treating it as part of the human experience of work, we’re not building high-performing cultures.

So it’s worth asking honestly: in your team, is “How are you?” a real question, and does anyone feel safe enough to answer it truthfully?

Written by Sneha Shah, psychologist, co-founder of ISRA, and one of only 17 Heal Your Life® Master Trainers worldwide, with 19+ years of experience across 40+ countries.

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