Does Being Professional Mean You Have to Fit a Mold?
And Not Just in Appearance
When I first started out in the real world two decades ago, the rules for professionalism seem to be centered around three things:
How you dress
no tattoos
no cursing
The thought of wearing jeans to work every day or exposing tattoos up and down your arm were taboo in the workplace.
And God forbid you say a four letter word in the presence of anyone else.
Beyond Appearance and Language
There were also some unspoken rules around personality, but they were things that we never considered changing. For example, using or an emoticon (if you don’t know what an emoticon is, then I have aged myself). Or “lol”. Every email we wrote sounded like a paper being written for school. Devoid of any emotion or personality.
Without really knowing it, we were shoving our personality into the same mold that we shoved our appearance and vocabulary into.
As a decades went on, doing things like having exposed tattoos or wearing jeans to work daily suddenly became a thing. There are some workplaces that still insist on uncomfortable slacks, and toe-crushing shoes… but finally there are some leaders that see the value in an employee beyond the color of their socks and their hairdo.
New Horizons
Now the focus on personality is finally coming into the light. How much of our personality are we really allowed to share?
Are we allowed to use emoticons or emojis?
Are we allowed to say “lol” or make any jokes with coworkers (obviously without offending them or others)?
Are we allowed to say “crap” in an email when something goes wrong?
Or even something as ridiculous as how many exclamation points in an email is too many?
There are still far too many rules around how much of who we are is allowed to shine through.
Limitations on “Personality”
And before someone goes off the handle, I’m not saying that we should be allowed to be complete assholes to other people just because we claim it’s our personality.
But what I am saying, is that the world could use a little bit more authenticity and humanity in the workplace.
After all, we always talk about how much work can affect our personal lives, but we forget that it’s a two-way road. The events in our personal lives have greatly shaped who we are - as long as we are not hurting others, what’s the harm in being who we truly are at work?
We could build more bridges, build more relationships, become more relatable… and (God forbid) show our struggles and limitations with others in such a way that people understand where we’re coming from and why we’re struggling at work that day.
So thank God for being able to wear jeans and show our tattoos. Let’s not be afraid to show part of our souls.