12 When You Don’t Feel Comfortable Being Yourself at Work
by 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 ...
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