🧱 Foundation: Professionalism and Communication

Professionalism

Although professionalism seems obvious, its importance should not be taken lightly. It can significantly influence your career in a positive or negative direction. 

Professionalism is a complex, all-encompassing, transferable skill—a combination of interpersonal skills, qualities, and behaviours created through your in-person, digital, and virtual representation of yourself. 

From a Canadian anglophone perspective, professionalism can encompass:

• Knowledge and competence in your field, 
• nonverbal communication (body language) and paraverbal communication (voice language),
  
• transferable skills, like communication, active listening, reflection, and Emotional Intelligence (EQ), 
• qualities, such as integrity and ethics, and
• behaviours or conduct, such as taking responsibility for an error, or consistently following through on promises.

The challenge with defining professionalism is that it can vary by occupation or industry, and definitely from country to country. What is deemed professional conduct in one country or culture might be inappropriate in another. Simple things, such as exchanging business cards or punctuality (Uzialko, 2018), can have irreversible consequences if not demonstrated in a respectful and informed manner.

What defines professionalism changes. Consider how pandemics have altered social standards and personal preferences regarding body language, physical distancing, handshakes, and virtual meetings.  

Being self-aware of how you portray your professionalism, including competence, online profiles, transferable skills, qualities, and conduct, will impact your career.