Carl Jung, Feeling Seen, and The Workplace. Also Known As: Good Leaders Are Supposed To Care.

By Jillian O'Malior, Founder & CEO, New World Labs

PUBLISHED: December 9, 2025

Carl Jung said: “Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.”

Now, I could get into how deep that particular statement hits, especially 13 months into unemployment and the connection to loneliness, but I actually want to focus on one particular element of that statement. Because I believe this is at the core of not just bad leadership, but performative “good” leadership.

“Being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself.”

The things that seem important. The things WE deem important in our lives.

Because our personhood doesn’t stop the second we log into Slack or walk through the office doors. We’re still us, we’re still living our own rich, complex lives. And sure; a lot of us have accepted at some point (though maybe not anymore), that the mask of “professionalism” means quieting aspects of our personhood in order to conform, to appease, to blend. And I’m not just talking about what’s appropriate in a legal or ethical sense (because yeah: please leave that sh*t behind and maybe go to therapy). But the quirks of our humanity: the other aspects of our identity that are more personal, more individual, but are deeply embedded in the non-work aspects of our lives.

The Prevalence of Bad Leadership

Bad leadership is rampant, we all acknowledge that, right? The past year, the rollback of DEI, the constant cold and clinical layoffs, we’ve all seen these C-suite leaders come out of their shells to reveal: they were assh*les the entire time.

Rolling back work from home just to assume a semblance of control over their employees’ lives, appeal to their real estate investor shareholders, or use it as a mechanism for RIF (really, the weakest, most beta move in the book). Refusing to acknowledge that while the world around us has adjusted to a new reality of how people navigate life, forcing us back into a pre-Covid reality is like trying to stuff a croissant through a keyhole: it doesn’t work and it makes a f*cking mess (and yes: I borrowed that from Veep but cleaned it up slightly).

But bad leadership is gonna bad leadership. That will unfortunately always be a reality; they care about numbers and themselves and the money, but not people. You are barely a person to them. But we don’t really care about them right now. I’m more interested in talking about the other side here; the performative “good” leadership that on the surface seems for you, but ultimately struggles to see your humanity above the KPIs.

The Drag of Good Leadership

Let me start by telling you where this idea is rooted in. I saw a video awhile back from a woman who leads a team of people at her company. And she was talking about employees who come to her saying “hey, I need to leave early, my kid has a basketball game.” Or, “hey, I can’t come in today; my mom is going through cancer treatment and I need to take her to chemo.”

And in her video, she talked very clearly about “I don’t care. Take the time you need, as long as you get your work done, I don’t care. I don’t need to hear about why you’re taking time, it doesn’t matter. I trust you to get your work done, don’t tell me why. I don’t care.”

And in the comments, people were praising her:

“Yaaassss queen, this is the kind of leadership we need.”

“Me too! I don’t give a sh*t what you have going on in your personal life, it’s TMI. Just do your job and take care of your life.”

“Exactly! Live your life and do your job, we don’t need the details.”

A sea of comments, raising their glasses to the idea of not caring. Let people work, let people live, but don’t care about the overlap of the two so long as the work gets done.

And I couldn’t disagree more.

Because sure: on the surface the idea is right. Let people have lives outside of work and acknowledge that those lives occasionally overlap the work environment. Care about what’s accomplished, and let everything else be white noise.

But there’s something insidious to this: and it’s the phrase “I don’t care.” Because I am a big believer that our language, the words we use, are really important. So I will say this:

You. Should. Fucking. Care.

The Fallacy of Not Caring

I have had a number of leaders who have echoed that same sentiment: bring your full self! We don’t care that you have a life and need flexibility, so long as the work gets done. And we pat ourselves on the back, saying that we’re allowing people to be human beings while also being workers. We say that through not caring about their lives, we’re demonstrating that we do care.

Make it make sense.

Because I have led teams for a number of years. And the number one thing I’ve learned through that: I HAVE to care. I have to know, I have to understand. I have to care. And as an employee, I have to know my manager cares too.

Because our lives are never as neat as “I gotta take the kid to basketball on Wednesdays.” Or “my mom is sick and someone needs to be with her today.” Those happen, and those are the day-to-day, task-based realities of navigating life. And if you’re a leader who “doesn’t care,” then sure, you can find ways to navigate those. And you can look in the mirror and say “look what a good boss I am. I don’t care if people have things come up, I don’t micromanage, I don’t control and command lead.”

But if you genuinely don’t care, you’re missing something huge. Because here’s the thing, the little secret that we’re all trying to keep hidden: sometimes, SOMETIMES, life prevents people from doing their best work. Momentarily, temporarily, but it’s real. And if the only measure of someone’s value in the workplace is hitting every goal with precision every time, then we’re going to fail our teams. And that culture of “care by not caring” will crumble around us in real time.

When Not Caring Backfires

So, here’s an incredibly personal example of just how life and work can intersect in less than ideal ways, and how if you’re a leader who “doesn’t care,” that can become toxic.

Four years ago, I went through a divorce.

Mid-Covid, still in work from home.

For anyone who’s been through a divorce, you can imagine what that was like: living and working every day in a mine field, navigating custody discussions, and separation discussions, animosity and anger and the collapse of an identity you’d had for so long. And not even being able to have a real break from it, because there was no office to go to, no friends and coworkers to spend time with, to throw yourself into your work and a different environment, even for just a few hours. Wake up, stay in a house so thick with tension you can barely breathe, and attempt to turn it on and off over Zoom for 10+ hours a day. And because of circumstances, I had six months between “let’s end this marriage” and actually physically separating from each other.

So I opened up to my manager. I said “look, this is what I’m navigating. And I’m gonna be in it for awhile. And it’s hard, and I’ve never done anything like this before, and I don’t know what I’m doing here. But it’s hard, it’s really f*cking hard, and I need some grace.”

And he said sure. Do what you gotta do. I don’t care, so long as the work gets done.

So I worked. I tried to throw myself into everything I was doing. But I was trying to work in an environment I was trying to escape, and all of that bleeds over.

I’d log into Zoom calls 3 minutes late, wiping tears from my already puffy eyes.

I was distracted and jumpy in meetings, hearing someone pacing outside my home office while I was trying to walk through presentations.

I struggled to concentrate because I was being flooded with texts, emails, conversations that drained every bit of energy I had; all day, every day.

And my work started to suffer. Not the actual client work, not the deliverables or the selling, or the strategies or the decks. But my own role as a leader to my team. I wasn’t the happy, supportive “team mom” I had been before, looking out for everyone at every turn. I was withdrawn, defensive, suspicious, antagonistic; doing just the job on paper, nothing above and beyond. We were hitting our goals, we were keeping clients happy. But I was a shell. And people noticed. And that’s when “do what you gotta do, I don’t care” turned.

“Why are you off camera so much? That’s not appropriate.”

“Your team feels like you’re not as supportive, what is wrong with you, do your job.”

“This had typos, you’re slipping. You’re not living up to expectations.”

“I’m just so disappointed in you.”

I’d meet, I’d explain, I’d apologize. I took so much pride in my work ethic, my output, my ability to care for everyone, I was ashamed. I was met with “I told you; I don’t care. Just do what I want you to do; what happened to my right-hand woman?”

I saw my own divorce get compared to my manager’s previous health struggles; he was able to show up and still be there for everyone, so what the f*ck was wrong with me? Sure, breakups are hard, but it’s not like it’s life and death. Maybe I was just weak, self-absorbed, using it as an excuse.

It all culminated at the end of the six months with my performance review. Sitting in my new apartment, surrounded by boxes. Bags under my eyes, letters stacked up from the mediator going over custody and support and alimony requests, and I got hit with this:

“I don’t know, you’re just different now. What happened to the old Jillian? We want her back. You’re not the team leader we thought you were.”

And that was it. Pulled off the team, my former direct reports threatened with being fired if they talked to me or took one-on-ones, shuffled around with no real direction on how I was supposed to do a job, that only I could do, without being a part of the team that does the work, whispers and rumors I still catch wind of to this day. Isolated, defeated, ashamed. I still had the title, still had the work, was still delivering; but lost my place as someone who mattered, someone who the company believed in. Someone who deserved grace and compassion while navigating an incredibly hard personal time. Because even though I was hitting my goals, delivering for the company; the not-so-pretty sides of my humanity in those months shone through a little too brightly.

And yes: I wasn’t doing my job to my full ability. I wasn’t as strong a leader as I wanted to be. I was ashamed, I felt guilty, I still get twinges of that when I think of how I was showing up. I take so much pride in doing right by people, that knowing during a dark period of my life I was failing the people who counted on me, I’ll carry that with me forever.

But if I had the grace I needed, it would have been different. If I had a leader who had given me more than just “I don’t care, just do the work.”

If I had a leader who said “I CARE, what do you need? Where are the edges? How do we need to adjust to make sure the work gets done and you can take care of yourself?” If I had a leader who helped me take on the burden of being a person at the same time as being an employee. The ability to do my job better, faster would have been a natural outcome. Because I WANTED to do well, I just didn’t have the structure to do it.

Let’s Bring It Home, Carl

Because here’s the thing about work. Real work, meaningful work, the kind of work companies keep saying they want from their employees. It never comes from people who are scared. Who are isolated. Who are punished for being a little too human, a little too long.

All of our best work comes from stability, and safety, and knowing you don’t have to amputate parts of your life to perform. Leaders love to pretend that caring is some kind of slippery slope; that if they open the door to someone’s less than appealing humanity, suddenly they’re responsible for everything that spills out.

But dummies, that’s not how it works.

Caring isn’t coddling, it isn’t codependence. It’s calibration.

Caring is telling your people: “You don’t have to hide the things that shape you, you don’t have to fracture yourself in half just to remain employable. You don’t have to fight your hardest battles alone while still pretending nothing is happening to make the rest of us more comfortable.”

When leaders care, TRULY care, not the performative corporate-approved kind of care, something pretty f*cking profound happens:

People breathe. People focus. People return to themselves.

And in return, the work actually gets better.

Because they have the psychological room to do the job WHILE existing in their real lives. I didn’t need my manager to fix my divorce. I didn’t need him to shield me or solve anything.

I needed him to care enough about me AS A PERSON to adjust the structures around me so that I could still succeed while in the midst of temporary turmoil.

I needed him to see my humanity as something relevant, not inconvenient.

When you care about your employees as actual people, they don’t fall apart, they don’t take advantage of it. THEY RISE. And so does the work.

To Jung’s point, and the thing corporate culture keeps f*cking up: people don’t break from pressure alone. They break from silence, from disconnection, from being unable to express the things that matter most to them.

And the leadership that “doesn’t care” creates that silence.

But the leadership that does care? Breaks the silence. And the moment the silence breaks: the work gets better. The culture gets healthier. The humans on your team stop surviving and start contributing.

Caring makes good work possible. Even when people are navigating the depths of their own humanity.