I've been good at a job and still been told I needed to work on my delivery.
More than once.
I spent years trying to figure out what version of myself other people would find easiest to work with.
How direct was too direct? How much enthusiasm was too much? When was I supposed to speak up, and when was I supposed to keep my mouth shut?
I got pretty good at editing myself.
But I've been thinking about something.
When we tell someone they need to be more professional, what are we asking them to change?
Sometimes the answer is obvious. Someone is disrespectful to a colleague. They repeatedly interrupt people. They don't communicate information others need to do their jobs.
Those are legitimate concerns.
How we treat people matters. Being good at your job doesn't give you permission to make everyone else's job miserable.
But I've also seen how easily expectations about professionalism can become expectations about personality.
The right tone of voice. The appropriate amount of enthusiasm. How much eye contact someone makes. Whether they speak up enough in meetings, but not too much.
Whether they seem confident, but not arrogant. Direct, but not abrasive. Friendly, but not overly familiar.
And I keep wondering who decided what the acceptable version of all those things looks like.
Are We Talking About the Work or the Way Someone Comes Across?
Imagine someone sitting in a meeting who asks a direct question about a decision the team is making.
"Why are we doing it this way?"
No long introduction. No carefully worded compliment about all the work that's already gone into the plan.
Just the question.
Depending on the situation, that could be exactly what the meeting needs.
It could also be poorly timed or delivered in a way that embarrasses someone or shuts down the conversation.
Both are possible.
But I'd want to know what happened before deciding the person needed to change how they communicate.
Because "you need to work on your delivery" can mean a lot of things.
It might mean you regularly interrupt people or that your explanations are so complicated that colleagues can't understand what you're asking them to do.
Those are things a person can work on.
But it might also mean you ask questions more directly than the people around you are comfortable with. Or that you don't sound enthusiastic when everyone else does.
Those aren't necessarily the same problem.
I think this distinction matters for everyone, but especially for neurodivergent people.
Someone may communicate very directly. Someone else might need more time to process a question before responding. Another person may find eye contact uncomfortable or have difficulty picking up on unspoken expectations.
None of those things tells us, by itself, whether the person is good at their job.
It also doesn't tell us whether their communication is effective.
We have to look at what is happening.
I've been thinking about how much workplace feedback depends on words that sound specific until someone asks what they mean.
Professionalism. Executive presence. Communication skills. Culture fit.
They're familiar terms. But what are we asking someone to demonstrate?
If executive presence means being able to explain a difficult decision, take responsibility when something goes wrong, and help people understand what needs to happen next, those are meaningful abilities.
If it means sounding confident in a particular way or commanding a room with the kind of personality we're accustomed to seeing in leadership, I have more questions.
What about the person who doesn't speak often but has excellent judgment?
What about someone who communicates more effectively in writing than in a meeting?
I'm not suggesting either of those qualities automatically makes someone a great employee or leader.
I'm asking why we sometimes treat familiar behavior as proof of competence.
And unfamiliar behavior as something that needs correcting.
We start learning some of these expectations in school. Sit still. Raise your hand. Look at the teacher. Respond when you're called on.
Then we grow up, and the expectations change.
Now we're supposed to make eye contact in meetings, contribute at the right moments, communicate with the appropriate tone, and show confidence in ways other people recognize.
Some of those behaviors can be useful.
But are we measuring the person's contribution, or how closely they resemble our picture of someone who is professional?
Feedback Should Tell Someone What Needs to Change
One thing that bothers me about vague feedback is that it can leave a person trying to change themselves without understanding what they're supposed to accomplish.
"Be more professional."
Okay. How?
"Read the room."
What did I miss?
"Work on your executive presence."
What does that look like?
I don't think the person receiving that feedback should have to guess what the manager means.
If an employee is regularly talking over colleagues, tell them. Explain the effect it's having on the conversation and what needs to change.
If their emails are confusing and causing mistakes, give them examples.
Those are specific problems a person can understand and work on.
But if the feedback is simply that someone doesn't seem professional enough, I'd want to understand what behavior led to that judgment.
And whether it's getting in the way of the work.
I think leaders have a responsibility to be able to answer that.
Sometimes there's a good reason to ask someone to change how they communicate. Sometimes the expectation itself deserves another look.
Maybe a thoughtful written response after a meeting is just as useful as an immediate verbal one.
Maybe asking a direct question is fine, as long as the person gives others room to respond.
And maybe there are communication skills a person genuinely needs to develop.
I don't see those possibilities as mutually exclusive.
I keep returning to my own experience.
I spent a lot of energy trying to become the version of myself other people seemed to want.
I don't assume every piece of feedback about my communication was wrong. I'm sure there are things I needed to learn, and there are probably things I still need to work on.
But I wish we'd been more careful about the difference between asking someone to improve a skill and asking them to change their personality to make other people more comfortable.
Because those are very different requests.
When someone tells an employee they need to be more professional, I think it's reasonable to ask:
What exactly did they do?
How did it affect the work or the people around them?
What would we want them to do differently?
And if they accomplished the same goal another way, would that be acceptable?
I don't think those are unreasonable questions.
Especially when the alternative is asking someone to spend years trying to become a person who looks and sounds more like everyone else.
