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In A Nutshell
- A review of 73 pandemic-era studies found that negative emotions like fear and frustration sometimes made workers more productive, helpful, and safety-conscious, not less.
- Only half of the relationships between negative emotions and workplace outcomes were harmful. Eleven percent were actually beneficial.
- Leadership was one of the strongest factors in determining which way things went. Bosses who showed empathy and composure helped workers channel difficult feelings productively; those who dismissed distress or fixated on finances made things worse.
- Brief, momentary negative emotions were far more likely to produce positive results than emotions that lingered over weeks or months.
When the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, workers were scared, frustrated, and overwhelmed. Many managers responded by trying to stamp those feelings out. Stay positive. Focus on the numbers. Keep moving. Now, a review of pandemic-era workplace research suggests that approach may have been the wrong one. What determined whether fear and anxiety hurt or helped employees had less to do with the emotions themselves, and far more to do with how bosses responded to them.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Zurich analyzed 73 studies conducted during COVID-19, a period that flooded workplaces with negative emotions on a scale rarely seen in modern history.
Their findings, published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, show that negative emotions at work aren’t always harmful. Under the right leadership conditions, those same feelings can push workers to perform better, help colleagues, comply with safety rules, and stay engaged. The difference between a crisis that breaks a team and one that brings out its best may come down to what a manager does in the room.
That challenges an assumption that has dominated workplace psychology for decades, what researchers call the “symmetrical assumption,” the idea that negative emotions reliably produce negative outcomes. The pandemic turned out to be a live test of that assumption. The findings challenge it.
What Researchers Found About Negative Emotions at Work
To build their dataset, the team screened more than 2,200 published studies, ultimately selecting 73 that met strict criteria: each had to measure emotional experience during the pandemic, involve workers, and track concrete outcomes. Those 73 studies reported 100 individual investigations drawing on samples from 20 countries.
The results cut against conventional wisdom. Only half of the relationships between negative emotions and workplace outcomes showed harmful effects. About 35 percent showed no effect at all. And 11 percent showed that negative emotions actually produced a benefit. Fear, frustration, and anxiety were not uniformly destructive. Whether they helped or hurt depended heavily on context, and leadership was one of the most consistent factors in the data.
Timing mattered too. Emotions captured as how someone felt “right now” or on a given day showed positive effects in nearly 24 percent of cases. Emotions that persisted over weeks or months were far less likely to produce anything useful, which suggests a practical reality for managers: a boss who quickly acknowledges an employee’s distress may be working with human nature, not against it.
How Leadership Shapes Negative Emotions at Work
Leaders who expressed empathy, acknowledged distress, and stayed composed consistently helped workers channel difficult emotions productively. In one study, employees whose supervisors demonstrated compassion and care reported more gratitude and said they were more willing to speak up at work. Another study found that leaders who combined their own fear of COVID-19 with expressions of warmth were more effective at promoting team collaboration than leaders who felt equally afraid but showed none of that warmth.
The coping strategies leaders modeled mattered just as much. Bosses who focused on solving concrete problems helped sustain team confidence even when morale was low. Those who minimized or dismissed employees’ feelings had the opposite effect. Teams whose leaders downplayed distress reported lower collective confidence in their ability to get the job done.
The financial fixation problem was particularly clear in the data. Bosses who kept hammering on financial performance during the crisis made their workers’ anxiety worse, blocking goal progress rather than enabling it. Leaders who shifted focus toward employee well-being helped redirect that same anxiety into productive action. One study linked CEO expressions of concern for employees during the early months of 2020 to stronger stock performance during that period, though the researchers noted that longer-term effects are still being explored.
Some studies also found differences tied to gender. Male leaders showing anxiety were more likely to exhibit dismissive or hostile behavior toward employees, while female leaders showing anxiety did not show the same pattern. Researchers attributed this tentatively to differences in how men and women in leadership roles tend to regulate and express difficult emotions, though these findings are likely context-dependent and warrant further study. Leaders who felt financially insecure were also perceived by their teams as less ethical, an effect tied to anxiety eroding judgment and consistency.
What Workers Themselves Brought to the Table
Leadership was not the only factor. A worker’s own ability to self-regulate played a significant role in whether a difficult emotion became fuel or a liability. Workers who could calm themselves before reacting impulsively were better able to keep fear or anger from driving their decisions. Those who could stay focused on their goals despite feeling lousy tended to maintain their performance. Workers with stronger analytical skills were better equipped to spot COVID-related misinformation even when emotionally distressed.
Organizational practices shaped outcomes too. Companies that offered flexible work arrangements, kept communication open, and sent messages emphasizing how employees’ work benefits others helped buffer workers against anxiety’s most damaging effects. Workers in those environments were better able to manage their emotions and stay productive, according to the researchers.
The Leadership Takeaway on Negative Emotions at Work
None of this argues for manufacturing stress or letting anxiety run unchecked. Chronic negative emotions were harmful across study after study, and the researchers are clear that the goal is supporting employees in managing difficult feelings, not creating more of them.
A scared, frustrated, or anxious worker is not necessarily a lost cause. With a boss who responds with steadiness and genuine support rather than pressure or dismissal, that same worker may turn out to be one of the most motivated people in the room.
Paper Notes
Limitations
This review drew exclusively on research conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving open the question of whether the findings apply to other types of workplace disruptions or to everyday work stressors. The researchers believe the model likely holds across other disruptive contexts, but that remains to be tested. None of the studies directly measured physiological responses such as stress hormones or cardiovascular indicators, so the full biological picture is not captured here. Some contradictory findings also surfaced. Highly conscientious workers sometimes fared worse emotionally during the pandemic, while in other studies, self-discipline aided effective regulation. Timing may explain some of these apparent contradictions, but further research is needed.
Funding and Disclosures
Funding was provided by the University of Pittsburgh School of Business and awarded to lead author R. David Lebel. Jochen I. Menges holds a primary appointment at the University of Zurich and is also a professor of leadership at Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge. The authors report no conflicts of interest.
Publication Details
This review was authored by R. David Lebel and Jordan Sanders of the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Business, and Jochen I. Menges of the University of Zurich. It was published in 2026 in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 1–15, under the title “Beyond Positivity: A Review of the Functional Outcomes of Negative Emotions at Work.” DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000422. An earlier version of this work was presented at the 2023 Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts.
