Working on yourself, developing self-awareness, finding your own sense of alignment; all that is valuable.  But your authentic personality still needs to be recognized, understood, and accepted by the people around you.

Easier said than done, especially in the workplace, where there’s still a widespread fear that speaking your mind will be seen as showing off, pushing your individual agenda too hard, or even promoting a kind of selfishness that puts too much strain on the team. So how do you express your uniqueness in the professional world in a way that’s both healthy and effective?

Make your unique characteristics a source of well-placed pride

Are you one of the few women in a male-dominated environment (or vice versa)? One of the few young people in a group of more experienced workers (or vice versa)? Are you a minority based on your sexual orientation, beliefs, or culture? Do you have a visible or invisible disability? Have you had any rare experiences? Do you have a specific talent? Do you have personal limitations that your manager and colleagues do not experience?

Don’t fall into the “Smurfette syndrome” trap from the outset. It leads to two pitfalls: conformism (trying to stifle what makes you different in order to fit the mold as closely as possible) or overplaying how exceptional you are (becoming a caricature of your gender, your age, your background, and in performing your group identities so hard, ending up showing nothing of your actual self).

Take pride in what makes you different. You should be neither ashamed nor embarrassed about being who you are. Asserting your identity is not activism, not a provocation, not proselytizing, not a protest. It is simply you, existing in the first person. You are not asking for special treatment, you simply want to be seen as everyone has the right to be seen, with your sense of self respected.

As for the fact that your circumstances may lead you to work at a different pace from most, or to have different needs, constraints, and aspirations, you are open to working with the group to find solutions that suit everyone, so that you and your colleagues can work and grow together. Including you is not your own personal integration problem, it is everyone’s business.

Become an ambassador and educator of your unique qualities

Unique features are often difficult to express and to have accepted because they are poorly known and poorly understood. It's up to you, as a person with a specific marker in a given environment (because remember that in other contexts, your particularity may be the norm), to highlight the varied dimensions of your uniqueness.

Your membership within a particular social group implies a certain number of reference points, a certain experience, a certain sensitivity that can make you more attentive or reactive to things…

Don’t wait for that to become a source of tension before engaging in conversation with others: when it comes to identity issues, it is always easier to explain outside of a crisis context. Nothing beats a calm, grounded approach when its comes to presenting who you are, cutting through prejudice, showing the full nuance of your identity (whether inherited or chosen), and making it clear that you are not reducible to your most visible differences either.

Don’t be judgmental. You may believe that the very fact you are being asked certain questions seems to reveal latent racism, unconscious sexism, tiresome homophobia, naive ableism, ageism or latent infantilism (the tendency to consider younger people as less capable), etc. But if we start from the (generally verifiable) principle that no one discriminates against a loved one for sadistic pleasure, these false ideas result from a lack of information and culture.

Explain clearly: don’t be pushy, focus the conversation on each person’s interest in others and not on a social debate. Fight stereotypes without feeling guilty (a good way of doing that is to remind people of the difference between stereotypes and bias), be specific about the impact of your unique characteristics on your life and your relationships with others.

Recognize unique characteristics in other people

Then ensure those people can speak their own truth. Not all diversity is visible, and it must be acknowledged that in all standardized environments, most people do not fully fit the norm. Are you are in a male-dominated environment, where men are in the majority and an excessively virile culture dominates? It’s worth creating opportunities to verify that all the male individuals feel completely comfortable with the prevailing masculinity…

Chances are that a number of them are rather tired of this outdated gender dynamic and would like to see the atmosphere change, but don’t dare speak out against the norm. Are you in an environment with lots of young people?  Do you have an identified disability or a diagnosed health condition? By talking about it, you might allow people who do not dare to disclose that they also have a disability, or who have never discussed their difficulties with caregivers, to speak out and initiate care procedures.

This is a classic example for certain chronic, somewhat taboo illnesses such as endometriosis, HIV, Crohn’s disease, addiction, mental health disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, and so on. Do you have time constraints as a new parent? Could your colleague, whose elderly relatives are experiencing a loss of autonomy, share many of your concerns? Do you feel compelled to keep it a secret that you are a member of a religious community? You may have more in common than you might expect with those who prefer to keep quiet about their involvement in an activist movement, even one known for being staunchly secular.

In short, by making your uniqueness a mirror to the uniqueness of others, you can help build spaces for sharing where conflict is too often present.

Use individual differences to create a collective opportunity

Finally, because asserting your uniqueness is not about bringing others around to your particular point of view, nor about securing special treatment, but simply about being able to coexist productively with those around you, turn your reasons for asking for change into opportunities to create positive outcomes for as many people as possible.

You need flexibility to balance work and family life. But whatever brings you to it, if this flexibility responds to a need expressed by others, whether to better respect their biological rhythms, pursue a passion, honor commitments or anything else, that’s what matters. If it is vital that your space and workstations be adapted to your needs in order to reduce your chronic pain, having ergonomic equipment can benefit everyone else as well.

You might not be comfortable with certain uses of collective culture because the private jokes by Gen-Xers aren’t particularly funny to you, a woke Millenial. But doesn’t everyone stand to gain from the avoidance of private jokes? Regardless of how old they are, shouldn’t they be ruled out because they hinder inclusion?

Cross-cutting action is one of the pillars of inclusion that is truly embraced and owned by everyone, so be proactive in turning your individual needs into benefits for everyone!