William, I am so sorry that I am just catching up on this.  I just commented on another woman's post on BNET who was taking a strong stand that crying has no place in leadership.  I felt a little vulnerable offering another perspective.  It is so refreshing to have a community who is open to discussing this.

I actually wrote a post on my own site about this <a href="http://www.maryschaefer.com/see-u-sweat/" title="here." rel="nofollow">

I totally agree with Mandy's comment: "Thanks for not just taking a bold “all crying is OK!” stand here."  Agreed.

The relevant excerpt from my post is probably this:

"I’m not saying that all managers and leaders need to be as transparent as I was in that moment.  I felt very comfortable… I was going to say “comfortable with allowing myself to be vulnerable,” but that’s not entirely true.   I didn’t feel particularly vulnerable because I had decided that *I* was okay with me showing this.  And I was willing to take any consequences that might follow."

For me it was an integrity issue AND it would have been confusing and dishonest NOT to explain the situation to my audience.

EXCELLENT post, William.  Colleagues, you keep raising the bar!