The workplace is an environment where career people meet to thrive and advance their skill sets. It is a place that individuals spend a huge percentage of their days at and a huge chunk of their career time.
Normally, one would expect that individuals will be at their most natural, exhibiting their everyday behaviors.
A closer look into the personalities and you realize different dynamics. Code switching is adapting behavior to suit the different social contexts you find yourself in. Am I in church, at work, a networking event, a diplomatic event, looking to get promoted, a family function or with friends?
Depending with the surroundings and what one hope to achieve then the character presenting changes to fit what they hope to achieve.
The traditional work place is most likely to experience a lot of code switching due to the structures in place. An employee’s natural predisposition would most likely be on display but as soon as they get to work they’d need to learn their environments and adjust very fast.
As much as an extroverted person would still exhibit this, they’d normally tone it down a notch and the introverted people would have to adapt some social skills.
The chatterboxes and rumormongers would likewise learn to tame their tongues and the loners and quiet be challenged out of their safe boxes.
Aside from one’s temperaments and predisposition however, the atmospheric flow at the workplace greatly determines the personalities in display at the workplace.
Leadership styles and social norms and expectations like rules of conduct, professional expectations, how leaders interact with their teams impacts the employees morale, communication styles and overall work dynamics influencing how individuals express their personalities at the workplace.
A team’s dynamics from its composition, the relationship between members and the team’s goals also play a major role in an individual’s behaviour and how their personalities are displayed. Specific professional roles come with expected behaviors and responsibilities a lot which won’t allow for natural personalities to thrive.
A jobs roles and demands can highlight or suppress certain personal traits to suit the job description and the challenges that may occur.
The workplace policies and procedures which may be formal or informal, the communication protocols and performance management systems shape individuals interact and behave professionally. The contextual cues of how formal or informal the office setting is, encourages a more reserved or a more relaxed and informal behaviour.
People however consciously manage impressions they make on others. Employees regulate their emotions differently at work to maintain professionalism even if they would express themselves more freely in their personal lives.
At the work place reputation and career progression is important which mainly cues behaviors to be exhibited at the work place. The other influences are how conflicts are resolved at the work place, the type of feedback and how achievements are recognized and challenges dealt with.
The average employee however is inherently accustomed to presenting a different personality at work and another in a casual setting.
Some traits remain dominant as much as they may try to be suppressed and some people can never really code switch to suit their workplaces but its rather the workplaces that adapts around them.
More and more employees wish they could be themselves at the workplace but we all know that would be a recipe for disaster given who people are.
