Consider the following scenario: You’re at a professional function of some sort, related to your work. Maybe it’s an industry conference where most of the attendees are your client base. You are making your way around the room, meet someone new by chance, and begin talking. You really hit it off and end up talking for half an hour. It’s great conversation, the kind with no awkward pauses and everything just flows like a healthy stream through a meadow. You part ways, wishing the conversation didn’t have to end.
The next day you get a friend request from your conversation partner on Facebook. Remember, they are someone in your professional life who would be a client, where you have to maintain a level of professionalism with them. Do you friend back?
Now let’s say you are a journalist, and your conversation partner was someone who would normally be a source to someone in your profession. Now what do you do with the request?
Or maybe the person you enjoyed speaking with so much was a student and you are a professor. Or you are a doctor and it’s someone who would fit your typical patient’s profile. Now what do you do?
It’s important to strive for professionalism, especially in a professional context like the one mentioned above. But professionalism is a constantly moving target. And much like firing an arrow at a moving bull’s eye, your best efforts could very well go awry.
Any number of variables effect how you are supposed to react and behave in a given situation. One variable is certainly your position. A CEO or manager is going to behave differently at a professional conference than an entry-level specialist. Likewise, many people in my profession, public relations, are going to be held to a different standard than an accountant or webmaster who might do most of their work behind the scenes. Our job is to represent something or someone in a very public way, therefore, we should always be aware how our interactions will reflect, promote or contextualize what we represent. Even in semi-casual settings.
Additionally, one’s age impacts how they define professionalism in certain situations. Many Millennials would have no qualms about friending back in some or all of the above situations, equating it to exchanging a phone number or e-mail address, just another means of communication and networking. But Baby Boomers and even members of Gen X would shudder at the thought of letting a professional acquaintance have access to their Facebook profile and their “other,” non-professional self, because they or their contemporaries place a premium on privacy.
As with most ethically sticky situations, common sense seems the best solution when it comes to trying to achieve professionalism. If you’re faced with a scenario where you have time to think at length, consider how your actions will represent your employer; your clients; your boss; your colleagues; your subordinates. When you decide on a course of action, step back and think about what you would think if a colleague acted the way you were planning to. And don’t be afraid to seek advice from a mentor or friend. If you’re faced with a snap decision, trust your judgment; it’s what got you this far.
So, how do you define professionalism, and what tactics do you use in your best efforts to maintain professionalism in your interactions?
