Why Do We All Put Up an Act at Work and Call It Professionalism?

Everyone. I mean literally everyone who has ever worked in a corporate environment has asked themselves a version of this question at some point in their life. I know because I have spent 15+ years inside companies large and small, non-profits and startups, C-suites and graduate programs, across Europe, Asia, the Americas. Everywhere I go, there is an expectation to behave a certain way that is far removed from who people actually are. It is presented as a natural and necessary part of work life. It gets more pronounced the higher up the ladder you climb. It is even taught, explicitly, in development courses, leadership trainings, job academies.

“Being professional” means wearing a mask. It means being a great actor: acting like you do not care when you care, acting like you have no feelings and no emotions. Pretending that the moment you walk through the office door, the so called right brain switches off and what remains is a purely analytical thinker, one hundred percent focused on the task at hand.

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