SHRM26 Debrief · Health & Wellness · #2850

"F* The Tough Guy Show": Helping Men (and Everyone) Move to Healthier, More Inclusive Ways of Working

with Ed Frauenheim

▶ Watch on the SHRM portal ~59 min, distilled

masculinitypsychological safetyburnout

"The tough guy show is the pressure that we feel to act as if everything is fine all the time."

What it was about

The 'tough guy show,' confined masculinity's stoic, self-sufficient, always-on toughness, damages men, teams, and organizations by killing psychological safety, collaboration, and belonging. Replacing it with 'liberating masculinity' and six practices (the six Cs) builds healthier, more inclusive workplaces.

By the numbers

men are four times more likely to take their lives than women

gender gap in suicide rates

roughly 120 excess deaths in America every year

attributed to toxic workplaces, per Stanford scholars (Jeffrey Pfeffer, "Dying for a Paycheck")

42% more likely to complete a goal if you write it down

research cited on the power of writing down goals/action plans

Key notes

Recognize the tough guy show as a script: the pressure to be stoic, invincible, and self-sufficient at all times. Name it explicitly with your team so it can be discussed rather than silently performed.
Practice the six Cs (curiosity, courage, compassion, connection, commitment, contemplation) as a personal and team development framework for moving from confined to liberating masculinity.
Build psychological safety by modeling vulnerability yourself first — leaders who admit struggle make it safer for others to speak up with ideas, questions, or concerns.

The contrarian takeThe speaker argues toughness itself isn't the problem: situational toughness is necessary. What causes harm is treating toughness as a mandatory, constant performance. He reframes vulnerability, crying, admitting mental illness, asking for help, as a form of strength rather than weakness, and notes that women in leadership face a double bind where both emotional expression and firmness get penalized.

Take this back Monday

Do this for your team

Run a team self-assessment on the six Cs (curiosity, courage, compassion, connection, commitment, contemplation) and have each person write one action to close their gap.

Say this in your next leadership meeting

53% of workers report burnout, and toxic "tough guy" cultures contribute to roughly 120 excess deaths a year — psychological safety is a retention and health issue, not just a nice-to-have.

Watch out for

Assuming toughness must be constant rather than situational, which sets people up to feel like failures against impossible superhuman standards.
Treating vulnerability or asking for help as weakness, which suppresses disclosure of mental health struggles until they become crises.
Stereotyping who is or isn't performing the tough guy show based on appearance (e.g., assuming a bearded, muscular man embodies it), which perpetuates the same confined categories being critiqued.

Fun fact · Ed Frauenheim

He co-authored a study of 10,000 managers and 75,000 employees for his book A Great Place to Work For All.

If this landed, see these

↳ Go deeperFrom Stigma to Support: How HR Shapes Employee Mental HealthGives managers the actual script, notice, ask, listen, connect, for modeling that vulnerability.⇄ The counterpointEmotional Intelligence Is a System Skill That Makes Work WorkSays the fix isn't personal vulnerability work, it's repairing the broken system underneath.✦ The unexpected oneFrom Typewriters to TikTok: The Power of Generational Wisdom within Modern LeadershipSwaps masculinity scripts for generational scripts, same fix: frustration to fascination.