When my friend at work learned she had lost her job, she told me, “It’s probably for the best. We all know I don’t fit here.”
I have thought about that statement many times. She spoke as though her lack of belonging had been settled long before her employment ended. I wondered how she had learned that, and how many people go to work each day carrying a quieter version of the same conviction.
She was loud, vibrant, opinionated, and refreshingly honest. I loved sitting right next to her during meetings because she was real. In a more reserved culture, she didn’t exactly fit, but I thought we benefited greatly from having her. Her presence made me question how easily we confuse feeling comfortable with someone and recognizing what they contribute.
I cannot draw conclusions about her job from that conversation. But her words have stayed with me because they raise a question that reaches beyond one person or workplace: What does it take to belong here, and what do we come to believe we must change to do so?
In my consulting work, I have heard employees describe being more relaxed away from work and feeling they have to act a certain way to be accepted within it. Some have spoken about the difficulty of being themselves when they feel different from the people around them. I’ve heard it described as “my work personality.”
Most of us make adjustments when we walk into a workplace. We consider our responsibilities, the people we work with, and what the situation requires. Yet there can be a difference between bringing a thoughtful professional self to work and maintaining a version of ourselves that feels increasingly difficult to inhabit.
When Familiarity Becomes a Standard
That organizational personality can take different forms. What we might casually call a Type A workplace may feel fast-moving, competitive, and tightly structured, while a Type B workplace may feel more relaxed and flexible. These are illustrations, not fixed categories. There can be considerable variation across teams and over time, and a relaxed workplace is not necessarily more inclusive than a demanding one.
Whatever language we use, a workplace develops a recognizable pace and tone, with expectations about how people express enthusiasm, disagree, or relate to authority. Some expectations are stated; others become apparent when someone steps outside them. The idea of organizational personality helps me think about the relationship between the environment people enter and the selves they learn to present within it. When a particular style becomes closely associated with competence or commitment, employees may begin to treat that style as a condition of belonging.
Some adaptation helps us work well together. Learning to listen without interrupting, communicate clearly, or consider how our behavior affects others can make us better colleagues. Shared purpose and professional standards give people something important to work toward together. Being ourselves does not release us from responsibility for the way we treat people or the quality of our work.
The harder question is whether an expectation serves the work or simply makes a familiar kind of person more comfortable. If someone needs time to think before responding, are we evaluating the quality of their contribution or their ability to sound certain immediately? If someone expresses enthusiasm quietly, are we able to recognize commitment without requiring it to look like our own?
The Cost of Fitting In
Lynn Shore and her colleagues offer a useful way to understand this tension. In their conceptual model of inclusion, people need both a sense of belonging and recognition of what makes them distinct. Acceptance that depends on minimizing those differences is closer to assimilation. That distinction matters because a person can become skilled at fitting in while feeling that little of what is particular to them is welcome.
The pressure to conform can also involve more than temperament. Patricia Hewlin’s research on facades of conformity examines the appearance of agreement people create while concealing personal values. In a study of 238 employees, these facades were associated with emotional exhaustion. The finding does not establish cause and effect, and it should not be used to explain any one person’s experience. It does suggest that apparent agreement deserves more curiosity than we sometimes give it.
What people learn about belonging often comes through ordinary interactions. Someone offers a different interpretation, and we ask them to explain it or quickly move on. A colleague acknowledges uncertainty, and we help examine the question or make them wish they had stayed quiet. Each response gives people information about how to participate the next time.
Amy Edmondson’s research on team psychological safety helps illuminate why those responses matter. Psychological safety concerns whether a team feels safe for interpersonal risks, such as admitting a mistake or asking for help. Her study of 51 teams linked psychological safety with learning behavior. This is compatible with demanding work and accountability; it asks whether people can participate honestly in doing that work.
Over time, the adjustments people make can reinforce the very expectations they are responding to. If everyone learns to sound certain, uncertainty becomes less visible, and certainty can start to look like the natural character of the group. A new colleague then encounters that pattern and adjusts accordingly. What we call the organization’s personality may partly reflect what people have learned is acceptable to show.
What Belonging Requires
For leaders, this makes belonging a question worth exploring in the particulars of everyday work. I would want to understand what people believe they have to change about themselves to be taken seriously, and which of those changes actually help them contribute. I would also want to examine moments when I described someone as a good fit. What, exactly, was I recognizing? Was it sound judgment, reliable work, and care for others, or was some of my comfort coming from familiarity?
Those questions require us to listen without immediately defending the environment we have helped create. Someone’s experience of having to hold part of themselves back may reveal an expectation we have never noticed, especially if that expectation has always felt natural to us. We can consider that experience thoughtfully while still being clear about what the work requires.
I return to my friend’s words, not to draw a conclusion about her job, but to wonder how many people carry a quieter version of that thought through an ordinary workday. When we ask whether people belong, I hope we also ask what belonging requires of them, and whether there is room for them to help shape the place they are joining.
Research Notes
Shore, L. M., et al. (2011). Inclusion and Diversity in Work Groups: A Review and Model for Future Research. Journal of Management, 37(4), 1262–1289.
Hewlin, P. F. (2009). Wearing the Cloak: Antecedents and Consequences of Creating Facades of Conformity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(3), 727–741.
Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.