Yep. We’re going to say it again: we don’t stop being human beings when we become employees (as a gentle reminder).

As humans, we all have emotions, which can sometimes manifest in some questionable approaches to employee to employee, supervisor to employee, and employee to supervisor behaviors, interactions, and exchanges. Have you noticed? As we’re fond of saying, there’s a reason for everything: emotions can get in the way of effective, concise and direct communication, which can then lead to our work environment becoming a place where feelings guide the professional space as opposed to thoughtful, intellectual, rational and intentional goals aimed at a common purpose and directive. Feelings can be illogical, mercurial, random and often incomprehensible. It’s just part of being human. As employees, however, we really need to be mindful of how feelings are very different from rational thought. Feelings are not analytical, impartial or judicious, all characteristics of a well run business.

The thing is (and not going all “kumbaya let’s give one another a hug” here), every single human emotion can be boiled down to two fundamental emotional sources: love and fear.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross says: “There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt.” (OK, a little kumbaya. To add a bit of gravitas, The Atlantic and The Harvard Business Review among others, have published articles discussing love and fear in business, but you take our meaning).

SO. How do these two disparate emotions manifest at work?