How to be yourself in the workplace

• Employees often struggle to balance authenticity with professionalism in the workplace.
• Reading the room and using inclusive humor are key to navigating social dynamics at work.
• A strong sense of belonging can increase job performance and reduce turnover.

How much of “me” is actually OK to bring to work? 

It’s a common question — and one many employees find themselves returning to again and again. After all, as life changes, so do people.

It’s a tricky balance. Most workers want to feel authentic, without spending the day performing a version of themselves.  At the same time, there’s a line between openness, oversharing, professionalism and discomfort. Navigating that space isn’t always the most straightforward.

The tension matters. According to BetterUp, a professional training and coaching platform, employees who report a strong sense of belonging at work see a 56% increase in job performance, a 50% lower risk of turnover and a 75% reduction in sick days. 

Understanding how to navigate that balance starts with the basics of workplace behavior. 

The dos and don’ts of workplace behavior 

A harmonious workplace isn’t simply defined by everyone acting the same way. Instead, it’s shaped by how individuals contribute to a shared environment — through communication, professional boundaries and respect for one another’s lived experiences. 

As Alison Campbell, a former chief of staff and now burnout researcher,  puts it, “workplaces are an ecosystem of people,” and that ecosystem only functions well when trust, behavior—not just stated values—are aligned. “It’s behavioral. It’s not just the values on the walls,” she says. 

Importantly, that culture is set from the top down. “Do leaders model that you have to work around the clock, and that you have to sign in on vacation to join calls, or is it modeled that you're able to take breaks?” Campbell asks.

When leaders model healthy workplace boundaries, realistic expectations and respect for life outside of work, it signals to employees that those behaviors are not only acceptable, but expected. When they don’t, employees often default to self-protection rather than openness. 

From there, it becomes most visible in day-to-day workplace behavior—what people choose to share, how they communicate, and where they set boundaries.

Sharing from your personal life

When it comes to sharing aspects of your personal life at work, trust plays a major role in what feels appropriate — and what feels safe. It can feel intimidating to talk about responsibilities like caring for a parent or child, or even needing to step away briefly for school pickup.

As Campbell points out, “It can feel vulnerable and scary to have to set parameters and say I’ve got these other commitments.” Employees begin to worry it signals they're not all in.

As a solution, managers need to create space for openness by actively inviting employees to share what’s going on in their lives, while employees also need to recognize that leaders can’t adjust workloads or expectations without knowing their employee needs it. 

Without that communication, it becomes “hard for the manager to really understand how they need to tailor work in a meaningful way," Campbell says. 

To joke or not to joke

Still, even in a laid-back work environment, there are often unspoken professional boundaries around what’s appropriate to share or joke about. Even when a workplace feels safe for communication and casual conversation, employees still need to be mindful. 

Campbell says employees should generally “err on the side of caution,” particularly when it comes to sharing memes, viral content or jokes pulled from social media. “You never want to put yourself in a position where it comes across as unprofessional or, more importantly, that it's offensive to anybody else.”

In most workplaces, humor tends to land best when it’s situational, lighthearted and inclusive rather than targeted at specific people or identities. 

As Preeti D’mello, organizational psychologist and Co-Founder & President of The Fulfillment Institute, notes, “the idea of humor is to lift, not to bring anybody down.” Instead it should create a connection, where “nobody feels targeted [and] nobody feels like they are the center of attention.” 

Reading the room 

Reading the room has always been an important workplace skill, but it can feel harder when teams are remote or you don’t yet know your co-workers well.

Campbell describes it as a form of emotional intelligence. This means “being in tune with how people are responding, [and] being able to stay emotionally regulated.” It becomes easier when teams have trust and the kind of relationships that allow people to pick up on “signals and the cues that are unspoken.” 

D’mello adds that reading the room is ultimately about “being human, picking up on energy,” including the subtle dynamics in how people are interacting. 

“There is an energy that’s floating between us,” D’mello says, describing how people can sense alignment—or disconnection — even in remote or hybrid settings. When that awareness is present, she adds, people can move through conversations more thoughtfully—“flowing with elegance”rather than missing subtle cues. 

Different types of people in the workplace 

Workplaces often include a wide range of personalities — from the jokester, the personality hire or the workplace parent — each bringing different strengths and ways of showing up in day-to-day interactions. 

The jokester 

The jokester, as D’mello describes it, is someone whose humor can sometimes feel more focused on getting attention than on building shared connection. “Jokesters cross boundaries very easily,” she says, while “humor knows boundaries” and “knows where it can go, [and] it cannot go.” 

The workplace parent 

A workplace parent may reflect a similar dynamic of role-taking in the workplace. D’mello states this can involve someone “trying to establish self-worth, get attention by being this caregiver at the workplace,” adding that while “our humanity demands that we care for each other,” that does not mean “we start parenting others at the workplace.” 

The personality hire 

Then there is the personality hire, which D’mello says she understands the appeal of.  

“I like the idea of a personality hire, not to the neglect of skills and competencies,” she says, noting that while technical skills matter, workplaces also require social skills and the ability to hold complexity and engage with different perspectives.

Ultimately, being yourself at work is less about fitting into a single type and more about finding balance. The most effective teams tend to meet somewhere in the middle — where personality, support and presence are welcomed, but paired with awareness, boundaries and a shared focus on how work actually gets done.

Why being yourself matters 

When employees are able to be themselves at work it can have a meaningful impact on how they experience their jobs day to day. 

Campbell notes that constantly maintaining a polished work persona can take a toll over time, saying “it can be exhausting to keep up this facade.” 

“We’re not robots, we’re human,” she says.  

Ultimately, being able to show up authentically at work can make teams not only feel better—but function better too. 

What to do when you don’t feel accepted by coworkers 

Feeling out of place at work can be isolating, especially when differences in background, identity or perspective shape day-to-day interactions.

When navigating differences with coworkers, Campbell suggests bringing conversations back to the work itself rather than assuming personal tension. “How do we make this about work?” she asks, whether that means using data, clarifying the business case or widening perspectives before decisions are made. 

In more difficult situations, Campbell advises thinking carefully about context, relationships and safety before responding. She notes that addressing issues directly can sometimes be effective, but may also carry risk depending on power dynamics, making it important to consider “who in my network do I trust to be able to talk about this first” when deciding how to move forward.

D’mello adds that sometimes naming what’s happening in the moment can help reset a dynamic. If you feel dismissed in a conversation, she says, you can speak up and say: “‘Hello, I’m here, just in case you missed me.’” 

She also describes using direct openness to bridge communication gaps: “In case you find it hard to understand what I’m saying because of my accent, feel free to ask me to repeat myself,” framing it as a way to “open the door and build a bridge” so both sides can meet each other more easily. 

Ultimately, Campbell adds, misalignment at work can build over time. When employees feel consistently out of step with a team’s values or leadership approach, it's exhausting, and can contribute to burnout.

At its core, she adds, being yourself at work is about balance — showing up authentically while still holding the boundaries that protect your well-being and keep collaboration intact.

This story has been updated to correct a spelling error in a source's name.