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Authenticity is more than a buzzword — it’s an invitation for self-awareness. Many of us can’t just turn on authenticity, especially in the workplace, where we’ve crafted our professional personas by integrating mores over the course of our careers.
First, we have to shed some of our protective layers and open ourselves to the vulnerability that nurtures change. This can be challenging, especially at work. In a piece she penned for the Harvard Business Review, Emma Seppälä emphasized that vulnerability doesn’t mean weakness: “To the contrary, it implies the courage to be oneself. It means replacing ‘professional distance and cool’ with uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. Opportunities for vulnerability present themselves to us at work every day.”
When we feel safe, comfortable, and well-supported in our workplaces, conflict can present this kind of opportunity. Like all learning experiences, disagreements can churn up raw feelings. Conflicts can seem frustrating, stressful, absorbing, and challenging. But that doesn’t mean we should make it our default to always veer away from them, or rush towards them. Engaging in reflective, respectful, productive conflicts can benefit us, our teams, and our institutions.
Here’s how pursuing productive conflict can invite us to become our more authentic selves.
What Does Workplace Authenticity Entail?
Being ourselves at work means feeling comfortable enough to fully engage: “True authenticity is about acting and relating in a way that is grounded in values and moral prerogatives, and tacitly embracing one’s unique preferences for how to perform work,” explained Dr. Tim Jansa, higher education consultant and professional leadership coach. “The ability to be authentic at the workplace also means that employees do not feel compelled to take on a different persona simply to fit in, conform to organizational or managerial expectations, and stay out of trouble.”
Feeling safe in our professional environment invites confidence when it comes to voicing concerns, suggesting ways to improve processes, clarifying expectations and goals, asserting needs and boundaries, etc. Honing this self-awareness is an important part of professional growth.
What Does Workplace Authenticity Not Entail?
While being ourselves at work is important, it needs to adhere to parameters to keep the workplace respectful and civil. Jansa pointed out: “Often, people mistake being overly blunt, inappropriate, or outright aggressive and justifying potentially destructive behaviors for being ‘authentic,’ hence giving authenticity a bad rap.”
Engaging authentically requires first getting cues from leadership that our professional culture is a psychologically safe space in which to take risks and share our true feelings. But this doesn’t mean anything goes. After all, our colleagues need room to be themselves too. We all contribute to the safety of our shared spaces. While disagreements are one avenue through which to refine ideas and build consensus, they can harm professional culture if they lead to taking out frustration on another person, targeting a colleague, or grinding an ax.
The Positive Outcomes Constructive Conflict Can Create
It can feel stressful to find ourselves veering into workplace conflict, but that notion is worth challenging.
Having our ideas, perspectives, and approaches respectfully challenged gives us an opportunity to workshop and shape them. If two professionals have conflicting ideas about the best way to move a project forward, that positions them to create better processes and deliverables, author Amy Gallo noted in “HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict.”
“When passionate people with different perspectives collaborate to address a problem or an opportunity, there can be give-and-take and productive disagreement,” Gallo wrote. “That healthy competition helps create better products, features, and solutions. The research on innovation is clear: Without ‘creative abrasion’ you won’t have a robust marketplace of new ideas.”
According to Gallo, respectful disagreements can also fuel creativity, enhance job satisfaction, and forge stronger relationships among colleagues. After all, she noted, debates are staged conflicts. Working through disagreements can be a powerful way to learn. But just like in a debate, there has to be some parameters to make the conflict civil, productive, and goal-focused. “The most effective people are those who can disagree constructively, not destructively, and keep difficult conversations substantive, not personal,” Gallo wrote.
Jansa explained that workplace authenticity can also be enhanced and encouraged by constructive conflict. “The key component here is open and genuine acceptance of the ways others work, express themselves, and contribute to organizational outcomes. When employees with trepidations about embracing their authentic style sense that it is safe to do so, authentic behaviors are more likely to emerge,” he said.
Keeping Conflicts Positive and Valuable
In a safe and supportive culture, disagreements among staff members can produce meaningful outcomes, but there have to be rules and shared assumptions that govern the conflict. Otherwise, it can devolve into something harmful for the individuals and the culture.
“What is needed for conflict to bring real value is a framework, a common language, and willingness of individuals to understand each other and flex in response to a conflict situation,” Jansa said. “Constructive conflict requires awareness of different working styles, priorities, and preferences – which take time to build through training, dialog, and reflection. Only then does an uncomfortable situation stand a chance to lead to learning which, in turn, can strengthen both interpersonal relationships and enhance the operations of departments, institutes, centers, and colleges.”
Constructive conflict can yield real values, but it’s imperative that the culture supports this work, which requires leadership, open communication, and training.
Individual and Team Training
Making an individual commitment to personal development and training that centers on communication, conflict resolution, and emotional intelligence is one way that employees can bolster their individual skill sets.
Team trainings can also prove helpful. “One solution is having teams go through a valid and reliable psychometric assessment that can forefront innate working styles, based on which team members can more deeply understand each other, leading to anticipating conflict situations and altering their beliefs and behaviors. Using robust data to become aware of potential points of conflict and how others react can further help to remove the sting and stigma of conflict and turn disagreements into opportunities for learning and growth,” Jansa said.
Conflict resolution is another part of professional life that we can be trained to manage. This way, we can use the opportunity that disagreement presents to our advantage rather than allowing it to derail us, our teams, or our professional cultures.
Forging Deeper Fit
Authentically engaging at work positions employees to take the risks that growth demands, including inviting productive disagreements with trusted colleagues in spaces of trust and mutual respect. Conflict doesn’t have to be scary, stressful, or explosive. It can be one more way to explore ideas, listen, be heard, and refine professional products while also inviting greater authenticity for individuals and teams.
