Leadership, Masculinity, and the Cost of Emotional Restraint By Thomas McCormack

By Thomas McCormack

Across Ireland and the United Kingdom, leadership roles continue to be predominantly held by men, particularly at senior executive and CEO levels. In Ireland, men occupy approximately 68% of senior executive roles and over 80% of CEO positions within large organisations (Central Statistics Office [CSO], 2025).  Similarly, in the United Kingdom, men continue to hold the majority of leadership positions across FTSE 350 companies, despite increasing representation of women at board level (FTSE Women Leaders Review, 2025).  These patterns highlight that while men remain structurally overrepresented in leadership, many organisational leadership cultures may still reinforce narrow expectations around masculinity, emotional restraint, authority, and performance. Leadership therefore often is unintentionally being limited by social constraints related to manhood. 

On reflecting on my experience of growing up as a man in Ireland in the 1990s, I started to notice that some of the unspoken rules and dynamics I experienced when I was very young continued right through to the present day. To think about it from different perspectives, I brought to mind some of the characters who still stick in my memory.

• What was different about us?

• Who was more accepted?

• What allowed some people to get away with less hardship, while others appeared to experience more?

• Who got “free passes” along the way, and why?

• And who didn’t even expect them?

• And maybe the bigger question underneath all of it was this: what exactly were we all learning about being a man without anyone ever saying it out loud?

This curiosity, and the conversations I had with Síle about identity, systems, patriarchy, oppression, began to reveal some very obvious patterns, along with others that I am glad to have illuminated within myself. I found that due to the current discourse I find myself confused about how to be a good man and how to own my privileges in a constructive way while also wanting to be freer within myself. 

The biggest surprise was realising that some of the dynamics that played out in my earliest years, from the age of five onwards, some in my favour and others not so much, still play out in almost every room where men are present.

Once I started noticing the patterns, I could not stop seeing them.

The pressure to not look weak.The pressure to appear capable all the time.The subtle social rewards attached to confidence, toughness, humour, emotional control, or being able to “take it”.The way boys and men often monitor each other socially without directly speaking about it.

There are benefits, of course, but in my opinion, the costs are far too high to continue. Below are some of those experiences, outlined and supported by research.

For many men, leadership has traditionally been associated with competence, decisiveness, resilience, and responsibility. Across Ireland and the UK, boys and men are often socialised into unspoken rules about masculinity, emotional control, belonging, and status from an early age (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). These experiences can shape how men engage with leadership, workplace relationships, networking, vulnerability, help-seeking, and professional identity throughout adulthood.

Research suggests that many men learn to prioritise performance, self-reliance, and problem-solving as ways of maintaining belonging and credibility within social and organisational environments (Seidler et al., 2016). 

While these qualities can support resilience, accountability, and action orientation, they can also create pressure for men to suppress uncertainty, emotional needs, or relational vulnerability in professional settings. Within workplaces, this may influence how men experience employee engagement, leadership development, mentoring, collaboration, and psychological safety.

I think this is where many men experience a tension they rarely speak about openly.

A lot of men genuinely care about people. They want to support their families, their teams, their friends, and the people around them. They want to lead well. They want to be dependable. But many have also learned that too much openness can come at a social cost. You can care, but not too visibly.You can struggle, but preferably privately.You can support others emotionally, but saying you need support yourself can feel very different. This is where I feel Leadership in Tune by Ciarán Casey offers something deeply important for us as men, while Ciarán didn’t write it for men, he wrote it for leaders, as a man reading it, I can’t but connect it to the experience of being a man. 

The book creates a bridge between traditional understandings of leadership and the growing recognition that high performance, sustainable leadership, and healthy workplace cultures rely upon relational intelligence, social intelligence, emotional awareness, and connection. Rather than positioning these skills as weaknesses or “soft skills”, the book reframes them as core leadership capabilities that strengthen trust, communication, engagement, and long-term effectiveness.

What struck me reading the book was not that it asked leaders to become different people, but that it gave language to capacities many leaders and men already had but rarely felt safe to express openly.

In a very effective way, Ciarán’s book bridges a gap between skills that men were always able to do, but never had social permission to engage in, without it coming at a cost. His examples, coming from lived experience and framed in a very practical and relatable way, allow men to see they can expand their skillsets, feel grounded in why they are doing it, and at the same time stay centred on who they are as men.

In many ways, it felt less like the book was rejecting masculinity or traditional ideas of leadership and more like it was expanding the possibilities within both. Obviously Ciaran was not writing about men but leadership, but as a man reading it, I obviously was reading it from the experience of a man. Being a man and being a leader, you could argue that the relational skills that are good for leaders are good for everyone, and I agree however I also felt the book, while unintentional speaks to the needs and wants that men have and the gap between permission to be oneself and the false ideas of what being a man or being a leader creates. 

Ciarán speaks about leadership as something that happens in the space between people, and that really landed with me because so much of what men experience socially is also relational, even if we do not always describe it that way. The silence between men. The banter. The pressure to fit in. The fear of embarrassment. The reluctance to ask for help. The loyalty. The emotional restraint. The protectiveness.

Most men already understand relational dynamics deeply. We just often learn to navigate them indirectly rather than speak about them openly.

Importantly, Leadership in Tune approaches these conversations in a way that feels psychologically safe and accessible. Many men already understand relational leadership instinctively through experiences of teamwork, loyalty, responsibility, pressure, protection, and care for others. However, the language associated with emotional intelligence, relational awareness, or vulnerability may feel unfamiliar because many men have historically been socialised to avoid these conversations publicly (Cleary, 2012).

Research consistently demonstrates that psychologically safe workplaces improve learning, collaboration, innovation, employee engagement, and organisational performance (Edmondson, 1999). However, many workplace cultures continue to reward certainty, emotional restraint, self-sufficiency, and dominance, particularly among men (Robertson et al., 2015). This can create tension for men who want to be effective leaders, support others well, progress professionally, and maintain high performance while also navigating concerns about identity, credibility, and vulnerability.

That balancing act is real for many men.

How do you remain respected while also being human?How do you lead people well while carrying pressure privately?How do you ask for support in environments that still quietly reward self-sufficiency?How do you expand emotionally without feeling like you are losing status, credibility, or belonging?

One of the strengths of Leadership in Tune is that it recognises the reality of these tensions without judgement. The book acknowledges that for many men, there can be genuine perceived risks attached to vulnerability, asking for help, emotional openness, or expanding beyond restrictive masculine norms. These concerns are not simply individual issues; they are shaped through social experiences, workplace cultures, peer dynamics, and expectations around masculinity and leadership (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005).

I think that distinction matters.

The book does not shame leaders for adapting to systems they were socialised within. Instead, it creates space to reflect on whether some of those adaptations are still serving us, our workplaces, our relationships, or our wellbeing. Rather than rejecting masculine identity, the book expands it. More room for masculine identity, that also leaves room for other identities to take up space and collaborate alongside it.

The book creates permission for men to recognise that relational leadership is not the opposite of strength, ambition, accountability, or performance. Instead, it demonstrates that skills such as listening, reflection, emotional regulation, trust-building, empathy, communication, and social awareness strengthen leadership effectiveness and workplace relationships. Research increasingly supports the idea that emotionally intelligent leadership contributes positively to employee wellbeing, engagement, team functioning, and organisational outcomes (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2008).

It also speaks to an important workplace reality: many men want to contribute positively, support others, and lead well, but may not always have had psychologically safe environments in which to develop these capabilities openly. Men are often encouraged to “get on with things”, solve problems independently, and prioritise the needs of the group or organisation over their own emotional wellbeing. While this can create strong loyalty and commitment, it can also contribute to stress concealment, burnout, isolation, and difficulties seeking support when needed (Oliffe et al., 2020).

What I appreciated most was that the book stayed grounded. It did not feel preachy. It did not feel performative. It did not talk down to men. It felt more like someone saying: there are other ways to lead, connect, communicate, and relate that do not require you to abandon who you are in the process.

In this sense, Leadership in Tune acts as both a permission slip and evidence. Evidence that social intelligence, relational intelligence, and emotional awareness are not separate from leadership but central to it. Evidence that expanding emotional vocabulary and relational capability does not weaken leadership identity but strengthens it. And permission for men to develop broader, healthier, and more sustainable understandings of what effective leadership can look like within modern workplaces.

For men navigating pressure, responsibility, hierarchy, and performance expectations at work, this matters deeply. The book offers a psychologically informed and strengths-oriented pathway towards leadership that supports both organisational performance and human connection.

When considered from the perspective of masculine development, this book offers something that goes beyond the workplace; it creates a bridge that ripples into the fabric of society itself.

Because maybe this conversation is bigger than leadership.

Maybe it is also about the kinds of men our cultures reward.The kinds of men who quietly disappear into stress and isolation.The emotional lives men feel allowed to have.The versions of masculinity workplaces still unintentionally reinforce.

If men had clearer and more relatable ways to expand their views of leadership, remain grounded in why, recognise the risks involved but understand them to the degree they are necessary, what else could this benefit?

Leadership in Tune and my own developing in anti-oppressive practices has started to open up questions for me about the constraints of identity on all on all of us, and as a man, starting at home, understanding how both the privileges and the constraints my identity triggers need to be unpacked so that I and others can be with our identity, rather than perform it.

References 

Casey, C. (2026). Leadership in tune: Cultivating impact through connection. ELIS Institute.

Central Statistics Office. (2025). Gender balance in business survey 2025. Government of Ireland. https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-gbb/genderbalanceinbusinesssurvey2025/ 

Cleary, A. (2012). Suicidal action, emotional expression, and the performance of masculinities. Social Science & Medicine, 74(4), 498–505. 

Connell, R. W., & Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005). Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender & Society, 19(6), 829–859. 

Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. 

FTSE Women Leaders Review. (2025). FTSE women leaders review report 2025. https://ftsewomenleaders.com/progress/ 

Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. R. (2008). Emotional intelligence: New ability or eclectic traits? American Psychologist, 63(6), 503–517. 

Oliffe, J. L., Rossnagel, E., Bottorff, J. L., Chambers, S. K., Caperchione, C., & Rice, S. M. (2020). Community-based men’s health promotion programs: Eight lessons learnt and their caveats. Health Promotion International, 35(5), 1230–1240. 

Robertson, S., White, A., & Gough, B. (2015). Promoting mental health and wellbeing with men and boys. In T. K. McNamara & J. Barry (Eds.), Men’s health in Ireland and the UK (pp. 121–138). Routledge.

Seidler, Z. E., Dawes, A. J., Rice, S. M., Oliffe, J. L., & Dhillon, H. M. (2016). The role of masculinity in men’s help-seeking for depression: A systematic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 49, 106–118.