I’ve been working on a project lately that has me thinking a lot about humanness at work. It’s also at the foundation of my book, Leave It at the Door?: A Self-Coaching Conversation for Showing Up in Career, Business, & Beyond.
This week, while doing a quick scroll, I came across this familiar saying:
“Be so completely yourself that everyone else feels safe being themselves too.”
I loved it. But I also thought…okay, what does that actually mean for a manager on a Tuesday afternoon when someone walks into your office with a problem, especially when you’re having a rough day yourself?
Because “be yourself” can sound pretty fluffy and generic when we’re talking about managing people and the workplace. And being yourself can also give way to some blurred-line vibes. That was a navigation point for me throughout my years working in HR: figuring out how to be myself while also being responsible for doing my job.
We’ve also become very comfortable with workplace buzzwords like authenticity and even the very common word performance. We generally know what we mean by them in a professional context, but I think we sometimes forget to consider their shadow side.
I love the concept of authenticity and use the word often, but I’ve begun to wonder what it may mean to others when I use it. Authenticity doesn’t mean a free-for-all where whatever I feel or think in the moment gets a pass. It doesn’t mean “this is just who I am” becomes a shield from accountability. Authenticity can become self-serving when we use it to excuse poor judgment, a lack of accountability, or behavior that negatively affects other people.
And performance can become its own kind of mask. We can become so focused on appearing capable, polished and in control that we lose sight of the actual substance of the work, like making decisions, having difficult conversations, owning mistakes, solving problems and helping other people do their jobs well.
I also don’t think being yourself or being “authentic” means oversharing. It doesn’t mean saying whatever comes to mind. And it certainly doesn’t mean turning your workplace into a personal therapy session without the copay.
Being yourself and embracing your humanness, especially in a managerial role, requires accountability and a high level of responsibility. In fact, I think those requirements may be part of the reason some managers avoid the human moments altogether. It can feel easier to hide behind the role than to get real with yourself and your team.
To me, getting real as a manager means being human enough that the people around you don’t feel like they have to constantly manage your reaction.
And that starts with some pretty small things.
Say, “I’m not sure.” Not every time followed by a long explanation about how you’ll figure it out. Sometimes just, “I don’t know. Let me think about that.”
Admit when you got something wrong. “I gave you the wrong direction yesterday. That’s on me.” Don’t give a five-minute explanation about why you made the mistake. Just own it.
Let people see you think. You don’t have to have an immediate answer to every question or perform your way into the character of an expert. Sometimes, “That’s a good question. I hadn’t thought about it that way,” is a much more powerful response than trying to prove you already had the answer.
And perhaps most importantly, pay attention to your reaction. A manager can say, “I want you to come to me with problems,” while their facial expression, tone or first response communicates something entirely different.
People pay attention to that. Saying and doing are two different things. If the pattern becomes that people come to you and experience some form of backlash, even in a small way, you aren’t living up to your own hype. If the first time I bring you a problem you look irritated, sigh, immediately start asking who caused it, or make me feel like I should have solved it myself, I’m going to think twice before bringing you the next one.
You may have told me I can be honest. Your reaction told me whether I actually can.
The same thing happens with disagreement. If you want people to challenge your thinking, try asking, “Tell me what I’m missing.” And then listen without immediately explaining why you’re right. Admittedly, that’s harder than it sounds.
Managers often feel like they have to perform competence. We think we’re supposed to walk into the room with the answer, know exactly what to say, never show uncertainty, never make a mistake and somehow have everything under control.
But that performance can create distance. If I’m sitting there thinking my manager has it all together, I may start performing as if I have it all together too. I may hesitate to ask a question, admit I’m unsure, disagree, or say I need help because I’m worried those things will be interpreted as incompetence. Eventually, I may stop bringing forward the questions, ideas and mistakes that could actually help us do better work.
That’s the scary turning point where giving feedback or sharing ideas is replaced with silence, and people start to notice. And that’s also the irony.
The more sincerely human you allow yourself to be, the more room you may create for other people to be human too. Not a performance of humanness but getting real with yourself and your team.
You can be excited about something. You can say, “That disappointed me.” You can laugh. You can admit you’re still figuring something out. You can say, “I handled that conversation poorly.”
Being professional doesn’t require being emotionally blank, and being a good manager certainly doesn’t require pretending you have everything figured out. Your team doesn’t need you to be perfectly human. They need you to be human enough that they don’t feel like they have to be perfect or put on a performance around you.
So this Monday, think about your own reactions. When someone makes a mistake, what do they experience from you? When someone disagrees with you, what happens? When you don’t know the answer, what do you do? And when you get it wrong, are you willing to let people see you own it?
Because those little moments are teaching your team something. Not just about you, but about what it actually means to truly show up at work. And maybe that’s where humanness becomes more than a workplace buzzword. It becomes something that lifts everyone up, including you.
