What does it mean to bring your whole self to work?

Is it a privilege you earn?

More than 25 years ago, I first broke into tech by taking a job as the Admin for a VP of Marketing at a hardware company. After I had been there a while and established myself as a valuable player, another admin joined to support the VP of Sales. She didn’t fit in. Her vibe was off. She rubbed all the other admins the wrong way, and this was long enough ago and in a traditional enough company that it was the admins who controlled a lot of access to and positive responses from their bosses. It was causing issues for her boss because the other admins didn’t make much effort to advance her requests or do her any of the usual favors you might do a colleague.

Somehow, I was asked by the VP of HR to “have a chat” with this new Admin. Why me? I don’t even know. I did not feel set up for success; I’ll put it that way. But dutifully, I took her into a conference room and talked to her about how things worked most smoothly at the company and how she could perhaps have more success on her boss’s behalf. I’m sure I talked about one of my favorite subjects…invisible org charts that every company has…without calling it an invisible org chart. I tried to make it as friendly a “word to the wise” as I could manage.

From the outset, she leaned back in her chair, folded her arms across her chest, and shook her head slightly back and forth as I spoke. There was some serious body language going on. When I was done with my pitch for how we could all just get along better, she leaned forward and said, “This is me. This is who I am.” Accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders.

I felt put upon to have this conversation in the first place; it seemed way above my pay grade. I felt aggravated with her because, you know, I didn’t like her either. I sat right next to her and heard the high-handed way she spoke to people in person and on the phone. So, I did my version of a clapback and said,

“You know we’re not being paid to come and be ‘who we are,’ or at least not all of who we are. We’re paid to be the part of us that gets things done.” 

She shrugged some more and said, “I appreciate that you, at least, are here talking to my face.” I don’t remember if she said out loud, “…unlike all those other bitches.” But that was the subtext, clear as day.

That was my failed attempt at “coaching” back then. I think about it now and wonder how I would view (and handle) that situation today. And in an era where companies and leaders rush to assure people that they can bring their “whole selves” to work, I wonder if it’s any truer today than it was then.

Here’s what I know…there are few of us who won’t suffer trade-offs for being our whole selves.

I was listening to an episode of my friend Jen Marple’s podcast this morning where she’s sharing a master class on being seen, heard, and making impact. For Jen, the first step is to get clarity on who you are and who you want to be talking to. She shares her own experience deciding to stick with the tagline, “You’re Not Too Fucking Old.” She explains why she likes including the expletive in her tagline and what it means to her. And she admits that there were people who didn’t like it…who messaged her, who unsubbed, who criticized. Ultimately, she doubled down on it because she realized she doesn’t need to do business with everyone in the world. She needs to do business with people who need exactly what she feels most strongly she wants to give.

I have had much the same approach a Jen for most of my career, since I left the world of traditional high-tech…a world in which I often played a role of the kind of woman who could be successful in that environment. For me, it’s too complicated to try to be different personae in different arenas. I’m just one person, online and off.

That doesn’t mean I share everything. When “authenticity” was the big buzzword as brands got into social media, I used to advise that…

being “authentic” means that everything you say should be true, but you don’t have to say everything that is true.

My authentic self talks about things others might find taboo, and I don’t talk about things that some folks rely on to establish their personal brand. It only has to work for you. And for the people you’ve decided you want to be for.

I used to think we had to earn our right to be our whole selves by getting to a certain age, stage, (or level of rage). I realize now that the current generation of adults entering the workforce today are bringing their whole selves…and they are ready to experience the trade-offs now. (It honestly flummoxes the rest of us sometimes, right?)

It’s part of why lower-case ‘o’ optionality resonates with so many more people than we expected when we launched upper-case ‘O’ Optionality earlier this year.

What does it mean to you to “bring your whole self to work”? And have you become more or less likely to want to do that as your career progresses? Finally, have you felt more or less entitled to it as your career progresses?

Did you miss last week’s Conversationality with Optionality member

Joanna Bloor

? Here’s a little tidbit. You can find this and all our past full conversations in the Conversationality tab: