Redefine What ‘Professionalism’ Means

“Professionalism” encompasses the broad set of shared beliefs and expectations about how people within an industry or workplace should interact with one another.

Our conversations about professionalism tend to proceed like a garden that has been allowed to grow without controlling for weeds or pests and is then subject to endless debate over whether the result is “good” or “bad.” But that has never been the right conversation, because context matters: Are your organization’s professional norms good or bad for your particular workplace?

While some norms are common to many workplaces — such as following through on commitments, treating colleagues with respect, and communicating appropriately — professionalism has no single definition. It varies across regions, cultures, sectors, and industries. But as a set of norms for differentiating wanted (“professional”) from unwanted (“unprofessional”) behaviors, professionalism is inherently about excluding some for the benefit of the whole. When defined well and fairly, professional standards can effectively guard against harmful behavior while creating a shared sense of identity among people from a range of backgrounds, compounding their individual efforts into collective impact. But, defined poorly, professionalism can divide and distract teams, systematize active discrimination, and discount — or even incentivize — detrimental behavior.

Every leader has the responsibility to create a version of professionalism designed for their unique workplace context. By incentivizing helpful behaviors that bring the best out of every person and disincentivizing harmful behaviors that impede performance, leaders can design a bespoke code of professionalism that serves people rather than functioning as an obstacle. Here’s how to lead a collaborative process of rethinking their workplace’s approach to professionalism, regardless of geographic region, sector, or industry.

Define success for your unique context. Take a step back to see the bigger picture. Ask your workers and key partners to share with you what they believe success looks like for your workplace.  Defining the outcomes that matter most to your organization grounds everything you do in a “why” that goes deeper than “because a leader said so.”

Identify deal-breaker behaviors. Imagine an employee who is highly effective at delivering results — but the way they do it is egregious enough that it compromises their own, or possibly their entire team’s, success.  But deal-breaker behaviors aren’t universal and may vary across cultures or industries. The practice of identifying your organization’s particular deal-breakers is powerful precisely because it can reveal cultural norms or shared beliefs so deeply held that they’re practically invisible. Discuss this as a group to identify where your key partners might agree or disagree about what behaviors constitute deal-breakers.

Identify the minimal expectations required for success. This is the most uncomfortable step. If professionalism is up to us to define, we might want to define it aspirationally, as the highest expectations we can set to be the best version of ourselves.  But no person is perfect in any setting, to say nothing of the workplace. As a pragmatic tool, professionalism is best used to define the minimum standards of behavior that we expect from our colleagues, one step above our deal-breakers.  

Understand the gap between expectations and reality. Ask your key partners what behaviors are really rewarded or punished in practice. You may find that aspirational norms have unintended consequences.  Gaps have a real cost, not just to people but in terms of your ability to align your actions with how you defined success in Step 1. If these gaps represent behavioral shortcomings of your starting point of “passive professionalism,” closing them will help you establish a far more functional and beneficial definition of professionalism, tailor-made for your context and directly linked to your organization’s success.

Incentivize what you want, and discourage what you don’t. Professional norms are not rigid policy but a means to an end. Your particular definition of professionalism can help ensure that everyone in your workplace is rowing in the same direction, is protected from abusive and harmful behaviors, and can expect the same standard of mutual respect throughout the workplace.  If old norms are no longer contributing to success, or new norms are needed to reach success — or both — it’s not enough to simply declare a policy change in an email or during a team meeting. Leadership has to align their behaviors — particularly their informal rewards and rebukes — with the professional norms they’ve defined.

Professionalism will always be a potential source of debate as times change and work evolves. Be open to revisiting what you consider professional behavior and asking yourself whether your norms are most effectively serving their purpose: empowering your people. When in doubt, it’s time to reset.

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