How to truly bring your whole self to work.

We all wear masks figuratively and lately it’s been literally too. It’s the adult version of a safety blanket. Masks allow you to only project who you want to be at any one point in time. Yet the past few years have very much highlighted the reality that we are not one-dimensional beings. Whether it was zoom calls featuring your kids or pets, or just life happening in the background, the idea of taking off those masks and embracing your one true authentic self is certainly gaining traction.

At Humanico we unreservedly applaud this notion. Being your whole self allows you to be you and for your strengths/superpowers to shine. When you aren’t trying to hide a part of you in the workplace that you may have in the past, the walls start to come down. It’s a little like wearing a comfy, broken-in pair of jeans versus haute couture - both are socially acceptable items of clothing, however one is freeing, the other restrictive. When you are truly comfortable in yourself, creativity improves, relationships improve, productivity improves and the additional benefit is that it rubs off on all you come into contact with.  

In addition to the comfort of allowing your true self to shine, it also allows your workplace to be mindful that you have other parts of your life that you bring to work too. To this end, the old adage ‘be kind to everyone you never know what they are going through’ is exceptionally true. Anyone at work may have had a restless night with a sick child, may have received bad news or conversely may be in such an amazingly upbeat mood thanks to an ‘outside of work event’ going their way. With any one of these scenarios and countless others, what is going on in the other parts of their lives will be brought to work in some form.   

To truthfully and openly bring your whole self to work you need to be in a psychologically safe environment, but do all companies have this? More so, do they know how to achieve this? We ask Adrianna Loveday, Founder and workplace psychologist at Kairos, to offer some insights and tips for companies grappling with this problem. 

Psychological safety means so many things. It's about creating a safe space for individuals to thrive and flourish. It's characterised by an environment of high trust, where leaders are perceived to “have our backs”, where different opinions are respected, where diversity is celebrated. The real magic happens when we can bring our whole selves to work, we can take risks, make mistakes and be vulnerable without the fear of being judged, shamed, humiliated or punished.

The idea of “bringing our whole selves to work”, is a concept that can be as amorphous as defining culture. It’s about the freedom to “add ourselves” to the job, essentially bringing our own personality, idiosyncrasies and passion to work. It can also be about crafting the unique job and working environment that you desire- with the aim of supercharging your engagement at work, and sense of psychological safety. 

When we bring our whole selves to work we are bringing everything, our emotions, our personality, our unconscious bias, our credibility, our goals and aspirations, and our values. 

Values are particularly important to highlight here. Often misunderstood and underestimated, values are preferences and priorities that reflect what’s most important to each of us. They make meaning possible and provide us with the motivation to act. They represent our truest, most authentic selves- masks removed. 

In the workplace, values are ubiquitous. They form the basis of organisational culture and a flourishing, mentally healthy workplace. Studies have also shown that an employee’s preference for a particular organisation, their capacity to truly thrive, and their subsequent tenure is, surprisingly, far more strongly influenced by values alignment than anything else. 

To align personal and organisational values, and to truthfully and openly bring your whole self to work, we might regularly ask ourselves: As an individual, when did I last evaluate my own priority values? As a leader, when did I last consider the values of my existing team, and seek to nurture these? 

Ultimately, organisations that operate with their values in a deliberate and organised manner and are able to effectively articulate and communicate them to their staff, create a distinct advantage for themselves over their competitors, especially when trying to create a psychologically safe environment that nurtures all talent — the good, the wild and the quirky. This also means celebrating the unique contribution that each individual provides, their unique way of looking at the world and approach to their work. 

Embracing the whole self and consistently anchoring back to values could be the key to organisational success and creating a psychologically safe environment for your people.

At Humanico, we truly believe that #everyonematters. YOU are awesome, and we encourage you to take the mask off and be yourself. After all, everyone else is taken.