Positive thinking has genuine value. The ability to reframe difficulty, maintain perspective under pressure, and hold onto a sense of possibility are all real and useful capacities. But there is a version of positivity that curdles into something else entirely, and experts say it is doing particular damage to women at work.

Toxic positivity, as business leader Satyen Raja describes it, is "a facade of relentless optimism that discourages genuine communication." It is the culture that responds to burnout with encouragement to stay positive. The environment where expressing frustration marks you as difficult, where negative feedback is unwelcome, where overly optimistic targets are set with no acknowledgement of the gap between aspiration and reality. It looks, on the surface, like a supportive workplace. What it actually does is make people feel that their real experiences have no place there.

Positive psychology coach Elle Mace is specific about how it shows up. "If there's an overarching need to be positive and upbeat at work, even in the face of personal issues, or if you're made to feel like you're not a team player when you're frustrated, your workplace could be suffering under the burden of toxic positivity." The tell, she says, is in how negative emotion is handled. Not whether it exists, but whether it is allowed to.

When it is not, the consequences are significant. Raja is direct: "We not only invalidate the real struggles and feelings of our team members but also risk creating an environment where people feel isolated in their true experiences, unable to share for fear of being perceived as negative." That isolation tends to result in higher turnover, as employees leave environments where they cannot be honest, taking with them institutional knowledge and the kind of personality and culture that is impossible to replace through a job listing.

Women, both experts agree, are disproportionately affected. The reasons are structural rather than individual. Societal and cultural pressures have long emphasised the importance of women being nurturing, agreeable and resilient, says Mace, with traditional gender roles, workplace dynamics and social media all reinforcing the expectation that women maintain a facade of positivity regardless of what they are actually experiencing. "The pressure to be the strong woman or the perfect caretaker can result in emotional exhaustion, hinder genuine connections, and exacerbate mental health issues."

In a professional context, this translates into something particularly damaging: the fear that expressing a concern or admitting a difficulty will affect how you are perceived, and by extension, how you progress. "For women, who may already face unique challenges in the workplace, toxic positivity can be particularly harmful," Raja says. "It stifles their ability to express concerns, fears or challenges openly." When women suspect that speaking honestly might cost them a promotion or alter how they are regarded by leadership, the rational response is silence. The cost of that silence, accumulated over time, is both personal and professional.

The fix, both experts argue, belongs primarily to leadership rather than to individuals. Raja makes the case for training programmes that give leaders the tools to build cultures of authenticity, to prioritise understanding and empathy over the performance of optimism. "By focusing on genuine connections within their teams, leaders can foster a more dynamic and authentic workplace culture," he says. "This helps teams reach better solutions, as employees feel empowered to contribute their real thoughts and ideas."

Mace's practical recommendations are specific. Regular check-ins and open-door policies create the conditions for people to raise concerns without fear. Shifting the focus from positivity to problem-solving is the more substantive change: when something goes wrong, the question should be what can we do to address this, not how do we reframe this as an opportunity. Acknowledging the emotional and mental work involved in navigating difficulty, rather than only celebrating outcomes, builds the kind of psychological safety that actually retains people.

"Creating an environment where negative feelings are accepted and explored can lead to stronger team dynamics, greater innovation, and a healthier, more balanced workplace culture," Mace says. The irony of toxic positivity is that the workplaces most committed to it tend to produce the least of what they are ostensibly optimising for: genuine engagement, creative thinking, and people who want to stay. Authenticity, it turns out, is a more effective business strategy than forced optimism. It is also, for the women navigating it, considerably less exhausting.