Much has been written recently about kindness in the workplace. The tragic case of Chloe Moffat should give us all pause for thought.
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Hands up if you have ever rolled your eyes or at least given a wry smile at Gen Z’s therapy-inflected language or seeming obsession with their mental health. And yet the recent coroner’s report suggests that there was nothing ‘snowflake’ about what happened to Chloe Moffat.
For those who don’t know the background Chloe was a 26-year-old Personal Assistant at the treasury. She had worked there for nearly three years, apparently loved her job, had an exemplary record and was on course for promotion. She had even been awarded a performance bonus that she did not yet know about. On the morning of Tuesday 20th May 2025, she was found dead at her parents’ home. What happened in the preceding 24 hours should make us all stop and think. Culture is everyone’s responsibility. And we all have a duty of care to one another in the workplace.
Tenacity and dogged determination
Without the tenacity of her parents David and Claire Moffat, the coroner may well have simply returned a straightforward verdict of suicide and that would have been the end of the matter. However, their dogged determination to uncover the bigger picture and prevent this happening to others meant that the coroner was able to return a narrative verdict.
The coroner Anna Crawford concluded that Chloe Moffat died by suicide and that HM Treasury had materially contributed to her death through its handling of the disciplinary process. Chloe had an exemplary employment record and no previously identified mental health concerns but was unexpectedly confronted with allegations of misconduct which she denied; she became visibly distressed and feared that she would lose her job and that her career and reputation had been destroyed.
Shock and distress
The coroner also points out that the Treasury failed to follow its own written disciplinary policy, which would have made clear that even if the allegations were substantiated, the likely sanction was a written warning rather than dismissal. The coroner found that the shock and distress caused by the allegations, together with Chloe’s belief that she faced dismissal, contributed to her state of mind; she took her own life the following morning.
While any death is a tragedy, the loss of someone so young and seemingly vital is always exceptionally heartbreaking. Combine this with the fact that this was a suicide and the poignancy becomes almost too much to bear.
It seems that a couple of common personality traits may have combined in Chloe, causing her to be a little more vulnerable than most.
Chloe’s mother describes her as “A bright confident perfectionist.”
Perfectionism is not, in itself, a diagnosable personality disorder. Psychology generally treats it as a characteristic or process. Perfectionists are often successful, but at the same time perfectionism can cause heightened vulnerability when things seem to go awry.
Perfectionism is increasing among young people
What’s more, perfectionism among young people generally has been rising.
A meta-analysis by Thomas Curran at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Andrew Hill covered 41,641 American, Canadian and British university students between 1989 and 2016. They identified that perfectionism increased over the period. They have now updated that work. A major 2026 paper in Psychological Bulletin extends the dataset to 35 years of university-student data and concludes that the rise is accelerating.
Writing in the American Psychological Association’s summary of the new research, Curran describes perfectionism as a “public health risk,” as young people look towards a culture of increasing competition, economic insecurity, comparison and pressure to demonstrate one’s value.
Chloe’s father describes her as a people pleaser. Again, this is not a diagnosable disorder. It’s a trait that is not uncommon in the population as a whole, and not a bad thing per se. It’s consistent with the trait that psychology calls ‘sociotropy’ – a strong desire for approval, sensitivity to disapproval and conflict avoidance.
They may be common traits, but people pleaser and perfectionist may have combined to create a more pernicious effect for Chloe than they would’ve done for another colleague.
Emotional intelligence
Understanding this… imagining how the experience might feel for someone fundamentally different from ourselves…. That’s emotional intelligence. And that’s why it matters. The ability to take (what psychologists call) the “affective context” into account is a prerequisite of emotional intelligence. If anyone wants a definition of emotional intelligence – or at least one that’s defined by its absence – that is it.
Of course, the Treasury has its own published set of values that are explicitly about the way in which its people are treated: Collaborative; Integrity; Open; Appreciative.
These aren’t something buried in an old HR document. They appear in the Treasury’s 2025–26 Annual Report and Accounts published this month, under the heading “Our Values”, followed by, “At the heart of our actions and interactions…” And the Treasury says that it lives these values in the way it approaches its work and “in the way that we interact with each other.”
Its current People Strategy says its investment in wellbeing is intended to ensure “all colleagues can thrive in a flexible and empowering environment.”
Always a disconnect
It would be easy to take a cheap shot at the hypocrisy. But that’s not the point. There is invariably a disconnect between any corporation’s stated values and its reality on the ground. The point is that culture is always about small, specific, observable behaviours in the real world. That’s where it starts and ends.
Reading the room
Small things may just have made all the difference: A sentence to reassure Zoe that this was not likely to result in her losing her job. Or to let her know that she was entitled to come to the meeting with a colleague to support. Indeed, what if someone had paused the meeting and suggested to Chloe that she come back with a colleague for support? Or if somebody had just paused the meeting having sensed Chloe’s state of distress? What happened to reading the room?
Like values, culture only exists insofar as it manifests in what people actually do day-to-day. Small words of reassurance about the probable outcomes would not have been a breach of protocol.
Small, specific behaviours
Here’s a thought experiment. In a culture that is genuinely high on compassion, support, and inclusivity, what are the actual words you would hear leaders using?
“I sense this has really affected you. What’s going on for you right now?”
“You don’t seem quite yourself today. Are you okay?”
“How are you feeling about what’s just happened?”
“What do you need from me right now?”
At our leadership workshops, we encourage participants to go away and try these out. We encourage them to take a pause – thinking of what is going on for that colleague in the moment and ask themselves, “How would I want to be treated?”
Culture is always downstream of these small, specific behaviors. It is never the other way round. Culture is not generated by stating values or unveiling a vision of culture. This simply underscores the discrepancy and creates cynicism.
It is scarcely possible to imagine the anguish of David and Claire Moffat. It’s especially unsettling for those of us who have children who are about to embark on their working lives.
One of the thought experiments we often use at our leadership workshops is to ask participants to think of their children – or anyone they care deeply about from the next generation – and ask themselves, “What sort of boss would you want them to have?” Now ask yourself whether you’re living up to that standard every day.
To find out how we can help leaders in your organisation to be more impactful, influential and persuasive visit www.threshold.co.uk
