To what extent is it really OK to be human in the workplace?

Welcome to this week’s Discuss HR.

Today we see the return of regular columnist Dorothy Nesbit who has written a rather topical article.  It won’t have escaped your notice that emotional intelligence is cropping up on a regular basis and this week Dorothy looks at why many of us find it hard to be ourselves and express our feelings within the workplace. (Ed Scrivener)

To what extent is it really OK to be human in the workplace?

We all agree (do we?) that emotional intelligence has a significant role to play in the workplace.  Words like “authenticity” and “integrity” are widely used and have a strong appeal with organisations looking to recruit people who display these qualities.  At the same time, in many organisations, people hold the belief that they have to show their best side in order to succeed and invest time and effort into creating a professional mask and identity.  To what extent is it really OK to be human in the workplace?

As early as 1973, Dr. David McClelland published a paper, Testing for competence rather than for intelligence, in which he argued that classic aptitude tests (the type that might, for example, predict performance in school exams) were a poor predictor of later performance in the workplace.  He posited the idea of testing for competencies – those attitudes, traits or behaviours that differentiate the more outstanding performers in a particular job.  McClelland’s ideas have since been widely tested in the workplace even whilst scientists have been making significant discoveries into the workings of the brain.

Daniel Goleman, himself a student of McClelland, has been widely credited with coining the term “emotional intelligence” and his book Working With Emotional Intelligence outlines a model for effectiveness in the workplace which draws significantly on the work of McClelland and others.  Emotional intelligence recognises that our effectiveness in the workplace reflects our ability to tune in and respond to the full range of information available to us, including our own emotions.

You might expect, then, a growing trend towards encouraging authentic self- expression in the workplace.  You might also expect that this would lead to higher levels of engagement at work.  You might even expect that this would be desirable to employers:  higher engagement leads to improved work outcomes as a result of increased discretionary effort.  But is it really so?  Working (as I do) as a coach to senior leaders I notice how often I am party to the sharing by clients of thoughts, feelings, desires that they hesitate to share with colleagues, even whilst they wish their colleagues would understand them better.  Surely there’s some paradox at work when all the research points to the benefits of such sharing and still, it’s not happening?

"I don't know how, but I'm not asking for help"

Reflecting on my own experiences, I see some clues as to why this might be so.  A first clue lies in my experience of joining the workplace:  one thing I took from my upbringing was the idea that there was a “right” and a “wrong” answer to everything – and the idea that often I was wrong.  I entered the workplace (as much as the rest of my life) with a fear of learning that yes, I was indeed wrong.  This did not make it easy for me to share my fears and to seek the help and support I needed early in my career.  It also took many experiences for me to learn, finally, that I was not alone in putting on a brave –but not entirely authentic – face.  For a while, it seemed to me that everyone had it sussed – everyone but me, that is.  I wonder how many others would share similar experiences of hiding their human face because their upbringing and education has not prepared them to show themselves fully at work.

Later, I learned of a second challenge when it comes to the authentic sharing of our human selves:  it’s actually rather hard work!  Perhaps the first experience I had of working in an environment in which such sharing was encouraged was as a volunteer, supporting Ian McDermott and his colleagues in training large groups of people in neuro-linguistic programming (or NLP).  This was set up with the expectation that, as a member of the support team, I would have as much learning opportunity as participants.  Team members were allocated a learning partner, for example, and supported by their coach and their team leader.  I used to love the morning “huddle”, in which we came together at the beginning of the day to check in and to prepare for the day ahead.  I felt supported in being myself as well as relishing an environment in which people were looking out for my successes.  This was quite new to me.  At the same time I quickly learned that, as much as it was safe to share what was going on for me, the invitation was always for me to learn.  This was quite different from what I often experienced in the workplace where the invitation was to collude.  This was the difference between “yes, your colleague was in the wrong” and “so what’s the learning for you?”  I came to welcome this approach which led me quite quickly to recognise my love of coaching and still, it required of me a willingness to take responsibility for myself and for the quality of my experience which was new to me and for which, initially, I was ill-prepared.

Be yourself...

A third reason why it can be hard to be fully human in the workplace is this:  it’s not always fully welcomed by others.  This can be a little circular.  It takes trust, for example, both to share ourselves fully and to receive each other as we share.  As part of my own practice I am a student of Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication and make it my aspiration and my discipline to share my feelings, needs and observations and to make clear requests as well as to seek to connect with the feelings and needs of others.  Recently I fielded a request from a colleague and decided to explore the request with her so that I fully understood it before saying yes or no.  This was received as a criticism which was not my intention.  Suddenly, I found myself seeking to handle a conversation with someone who was acting on an inference (that I was criticising her) as if it were true.  Oftentimes, in the workplace we find that our open and honest self-expression is not received with a glad heart by others.

Perhaps a fundamental reason why we struggle to be fully human in the workplace is that we don’t know how.  As a broad generalisation, Western cultures sponsor rational thinking heavily and discourage the expression of other aspects of our experience such as bodily sensations (our gut reaction) and feelings.  Since those from whom we learn come from this background they are not always good teachers when it comes to being fully human.  This can present a particular challenge for those of us who enter the professions likely to be reading this article – including members of the HR profession, trainers, consultants, coaches.  Many people are drawn to these professions precisely because (like me) they didn’t thrive in the environments they grew up and they want to see something different.  At the same time, they lacked role models from whom to learn and face the risk of hypocrisy as they seek to educate others whilst overlooking (or struggling with) their own limitations.

I’ll be expanding on these thoughts at my blog.  In the meantime, I wonder, what has been your experience of being fully human in the workplace?  And what do you aspire to at work when it comes to being fully human?

About the author:

Dorothy Nesbit, Leadership Coach, unleashes innate leadership potential through powerful, compassionate and authentic relationships.
Blog | Website

Addendum
Our regular columnist and next week's writer John Hepworth has an assoication with the Occupational Psychologists JCA, who recently produced the following report about Emotional Intelligence that may be of interest to our readers.

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Discuss HR is the blog for Human Resources UK, the leading LinkedIn group for those involved with HR in the UK.  Next week’s Discuss HR will be published on Thursday 30^th June and will be written by HR Consultant John Hepworth.