When You Don’t Feel Comfortable Being Yourself at Work

Author: Dorie Clark

Sometimes the corporate cultures in which we find ourselves don’t match our personalities. Occasionally, that can lead to healthy creative friction; other times it creates painful pressure to conform. That was the situation facing one of my executive MBA students. “I’m having a problem at work,” she told me. “I keep getting feedback that I’m distant, and I think it’s harming my career.” The reason she was getting that response, she admitted, is because she was acting aloof. “I’m not sure how to be my real self at work,” she said.

Many of us face similar problems. In her case, she was a free-spirited Burning Man devotee who found herself working for a buttoned-down corporation. The pressure runs the other way, too: In an episode of the podcast Startup, a Gimlet Media staffer admitted that he felt out of place as a regular churchgoer amid his liberal, secular colleagues in Brooklyn.

In some instances, it pays to keep your opinions to yourself; it’s probably best not to engage a coworker whom you know to be your ideological opposite in a conversation about a presidential election. But when it comes to your fundamental identity rather than your opinions, hiding or downplaying things can actually be detrimental to your career in the long run. As Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Karen Sumberg’s research has shown, out LGBT workers are more successful than their closeted counterparts, likely because they don’t have the added stress of managing their identities on top of the work they’re expected to perform. And Deloitte research shows that covering, or playing down differences at work, also has deleterious psychological consequences.

So how do you know when it’s safe to be your authentic self at work? As an openly gay consultant who has worked with more than 100 clients over the past decade, from Fortune 500 companies to government agencies and international NGOs, I’ve identified four questions that are useful to ask yourself.

What’s Your Evidence for Believing You’ll Be Penalized?

Have you actually seen others receive professional punishment for being themselves? We might believe we know how a certain action or disclosure would be received, but it’s important to remember that unless you’ve seen direct evidence, it’s only conjecture. That grizzled, macho supervisor maybe actually be a PFLAG member with a gay brother. And even if you’ve heard about negative consequences in the past, it’s also possible that circumstances have changed. For example, with 46% of 30-to-49-year-olds sporting tattoos, employers—even if they dislike tattoos personally—may have realized they can’t afford to rule out nearly half their applicants.

What’s the Worst That Could Happen?

It’s also important to understand the ramifications if you do decide to show your authentic self at work. For some categories, the consequences are serious and should be evaluated carefully. (For instance, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that religious organizations have wide latitude in their employment policies, and may be able to fire gay employees.) For others, the implications may loom larger in your imagination. Would they fire you if they knew you enjoyed attending Burning Man? Probably not. Would it cause them to think you “weren’t a cultural fit,” slowing down your career progress? Possibly, but you also have the opportunity to demonstrate in other ways, such as being excellent at your job and building good relationships with colleagues, that you actually do gel with the corporate culture (provided it’s one that you’d like to stay with).

What Would You Do Differently If You Were Your Real Self?

“I can’t be my real self” is a painful yet amorphous feeling. Pinning down the specifics is useful, however, because certain elements of self-expression may be easier to attain than you think. Consider how you would dress, speak, and act differently at work if you were being your true self. How does that compare with your behavior today? You may still need to wear a suit for work events, for instance, but there’s likely room to showcase your creative flair with colorful socks or interesting neckties.

It’s also quite possible that your coworkers will respond positively to seeing more of your genuine interests and personality. As I describe in my book Reinventing You, former vice president Al Gore was lambasted in the press during the 2000 U.S. presidential race for his campaign’s decision to position him as a podium-banging populist crusader rather than his naturally wonky self. He was derided as wooden and inauthentic, and it was only when he returned to his love of environmental policy with the release of the 2006 global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth that he again found his stride.

Is There a Way to Conduct a Pilot?

Finally, if it feels risky to go all in on being yourself at work, think about a small experiment you could try to test the waters. For instance, if you’re naturally funny but tamp down your humor at work because “it’s not done” at your company, try cracking a few (carefully chosen) jokes one day. See what sort of response you receive. Did others seem to notice? Did you receive any feedback, positive or negative? Turn to a trusted colleague to ask their opinion.

If the response was negative, you’ve gotten useful information. Fortunately, a small pilot almost certainly won’t hurt your long-term career prospects; you can always go back to showcasing your more serious side. But if the response was positive or neutral (i.e., no one really cared), then you can continue your experiment for a week and keep monitoring the reactions. You may, in fact, inspire others and lighten up the entire office with your behavior. It’s possible that the somber demeanor wasn’t a requirement, but merely a habit that everyone followed in lockstep.

As an independent consultant I have the luxury of telling clients who don’t like the “real me” to find another adviser. But over the course of my career, I’ve also worked in enough jobs and industries to know that, unfortunately, circumstances and economic necessities sometimes dictate that we stay in a job that requires hiding our true selves. That’s a damaging situation that should be the exception rather than the rule. If you feel you can’t be yourself at work, sometimes that may really be true. But it’s important to question our assumptions, because we may discover there’s more leeway for self-expression than we had previously imagined.