Professional identity, authenticity, and bias at work are more complicated than we like to admit. The challenge isn’t just about confidence or self-expression. For many people, managing what they reveal at work is a carefully strategized survival decision.
Organizational behaviour researcher Dr. Sonia Kang joins Andrea to share what the research says about identity at work, resume whitening, psychological safety, and the double bind ambitious women face in leadership.
You will learn why “bring your whole self to work” places an unfair burden on individuals rather than organizations; what resume whitening is and what audit studies reveal about hiring bias; why ambiguity is where bias thrives and how structure reduces it; and how leaders can design processes that give everyone a fair shot.
Sonia holds the Canada Research Chair in Identity, Diversity, and Inclusion and is a Professor of Organizational Behaviour and HR Management at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.
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CONNECT WITH SONIA
🔗 LinkedIn: Sonia-Kang.com
🎓 University of Toronto Research Profile: Discover.Research.UToronto.ca/3195-Sonia-Kang
RESOURCES
New York Times – The Hour Between Babe and Hag: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/04/opinion/women-men-work.html?eafs_enabled=false
The ‘Busted’ Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/busted/id1588965394
TRANSCRIPTION
Sonia Kang: Anytime where it’s unclear what the process is for a promotion or what the process is for even hiring, that’s where you can see bias in people’s individual idea of fit, let’s say, come through.
Andrea Wojnicki: That was Professor Sonia Kang, Professor of Organizational Behavior and HR Management at the University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management.
I met Sonia a few months ago when we were both teaching in an executive education program there at the University of Toronto. We hit it off, and here we are.
Let’s do this. Let’s talk about talk. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki, and I’m your communication coach. I coach ambitious executives like you through the Talk About Talk podcast to communicate with confidence and credibility so you can achieve your career goals.
Sound good? You can learn more about me and about Talk About Talk if you go to talkabouttalk.com.
In this episode, you’re gonna hear my conversation with Sonia, where we talk about identity at work. Everything from the distinction between authenticity, transparency, and bringing your whole self to work, to her fascinating research on resume whitening, to psychological safety, and the leadership tightrope that ambitious women are forced to balance. At the end, as always, I’m gonna summarize with three key learnings so you don’t have to take notes.
About the Guest: Dr. Sonia Kang, Expert in Identity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Now, let me introduce our guest. Dr. Sonia Kang holds the Canada Research Chair in Identity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and she’s a professor of organizational behavior and human resource management at the University of Toronto, where she’s also the academic director at the Institute for Gender and the Economy, or GATE.
Sonia earned a PhD in social psychology from the University of Toronto, and she completed a CCHRC post-doctoral fellowship at Northwestern University. Here we go. Thank you so much, Sonia, for being here today to talk with me and the Talk About Talk listeners about our identity at work.
SK: Thanks so much for having me on.
AW: So your work focuses on identity and inclusion in organizations. I would love to start here with identity and authenticity and transparency and professionalism. What do you think about the idea of bringing your whole self?
Why Bringing Your Whole Self to Work Isn’t Always Safe
SK: So I think that in theory it’s a nice idea, right? Like, everyone wants to feel like they can be authentic.
They wanna feel like they don’t have to change who they are at work. But in reality, it’s, I think, overly simplistic to think that everyone can bring their whole identity to work. Some people can, for sure, right? And that is gonna be the people who are kind of part of the dominant culture and who, like, really feel, like, safe within a space.
But if you’re someone who’s from a group where you may have traditionally experienced discrimination or stigma at work, bringing yourself to work is, A, harder, and B, maybe not a good idea, right? So if you’re thinking about this in terms of, like, strategy, if you’re from a group where you have consistently experienced discrimination based on some part of your identity, like, bringing your whole self to work might not make sense for you, right?
And so strategically, it might make more sense to conceal parts of your identity or kind of downplay them just to get through the day. And so I think the goal of bringing your whole self to work is a good one, but it’s not really like an individual-level goal. It’s more of an organizational level goal, where organizations need to create the conditions in which that can actually happen for everyone.
AW: I love that you brought that up right out of the gate. It’s not all on the individual. Organizations need to create a culture, and we can get into psychological safety, uh, later, but create an environment where people feel comfortable to be themselves. So something that I sometimes share with my clients, Sonia, is I wouldn’t share my whole self anywhere, never mind at work, because you’d think I was crazy.
We have multiple identities, multiple roles, so we’re already filtering some of who we are and what we’re thinking and what we’re saying. What advice do you have for leaders who may be leading diverse teams or people who are A visible minority where they experience discrimination? What advice do you give them, I guess, in both of those contexts for the dos and the don’ts?
Why Structure Matters More Than “Fit”
SK: Yeah. I think like one of the big things is making sure that you’re not making authenticity or, you know, like sharing things about your personal life or like bringing your whole self to work, making that kind of like a performance requirement, which can often happen when people start talking about fit.
Fit, I find, is really just like coded language for, “Are you like me? Are you like the other people who are here?” And so this happens a lot with I think when people are first entering into organizations, right? So when you’re doing like interviews, when you’re trying to like assess whether someone’s gonna like work with your group.
I think so much of that is based on personality, someone’s interests, and so that fit is really a proxy for similarity, right? And so that also carries forward often into performance evaluations, like who gets promoted, who gets really great assignments. And so I think like my advice would be to try to make sure that you’re not including something like that into your assessments of who will be best for whatever the opportunity might be.
Concretely, I think that means that you have to have a really like detailed idea of what your assessments will be based on, right? Because anytime you have like ambiguity, that’s where bias really thrives. So anytime where it’s unclear, you know, like what the process is for a promotion or what the process is for even hiring, that’s where you can see bias in people’s individual like idea of fit, let’s say, come through.
And so the more structure you have in terms of like what I’m actually gonna be assessing, the better, ’cause then you can stick to that in the same way for everyone.
AW: So in other words, ambiguity is where bias thrives. I love that. You’re gonna be quoted on that. I had an experience when I was in my 20s where I was in the final round of interviews for a big job that I ended up getting, but in the last interview, the senior vice president who was interviewing me said, “Andrea, I have one last question.
On Friday night when we’re all going out for drinks, are you gonna join us?” And in my head I was like, wow, so he’s literally asking me, “Are you one of the guys?” Oh yeah, are you one of the guys? And I was, I said, “Of course,” right? And then afterwards I was like, yeah, that’s about as close as you can come to saying, are you gonna fit?
Are you gonna make sure that you fit in with this crew?
SK: I also think, like generationally, that’s not of so much interest anymore. Like, I think that that idea of like you wanna spend all your time at work and like hang out with your work friends and just like that’s your life, I think is much less common now, particularly with the generations who are just like entering the workplace now and probably within the next five, 10 years.
Like, I don’t think that’s gonna be such a big focus. And so it’s good to get in the habit now, I think, of eliminating that kind of fit stuff from our kind of assessment of people and their performance at work.
AW: Yeah. I think about that conversation back then, and it… You know, if you, if you… Speaking of thought bubbles, if you could have read my thought bubble, I was like, “Did you just say that?”
SK: Yeah. Right? Yeah. So- And also, like, I don’t wanna hang out with you, like, outside of work, you know?
W: I’m like, there’s- Yeah, I was like, maybe, maybe once or twice, but really? Yeah. Come on. Yeah.
SK: Exactly. Yeah. And like, not everyone can say that. People are gonna feel like they have to go every single time, and they have to be there, and that could be true, right?
Like, it could be like, again, like a lot of the responses that we see are strategic. It’s like, I know what’s gonna happen if I don’t do this. I feel forced to do this, but I’m gonna do it. And so that’s where that individual, like the kind of like onus on individuals becomes so hard to bear, and that’s where you see people like burn out and leave and try to, you know, like a lot of like mental health issues come up with that.
Creating a Culture Where People Feel Safe to Speak Up
AW: So I think, I feel like this is a nice segue to the conversation about psychological safety, ’cause one of the components or elements of psychological safety is actually diversity, and celebrating diversity and creating an inclusive environment where people believe it’s safe to say risky things or do risky things, bring up issues, admit to challenges that they’re having, all of that.
So in this context of building on this idea of fit and diversity and then all of this research about how psychologically safe cultures are the highest performing cultures or teams, how can leaders encourage themselves to create and then sustain a truly psychologically safe and inclusive culture?
SK: People in those positions kind of, like, need to pay attention to the cost of disclosure, right? So, like, if you want people to disclose anything, right? So, like, whether that’s based on their identity, whether it’s based on, in the true, like, psych safety research, you know, like things that are going on that need to be fixed or mistakes that they’re making, you really need to diagnose, like, what’s going on when someone actually discloses.
Like, what is that process like, right? So is it, like, awkward? Do they really feel like they’re putting themselves on the line? Do you respond right away? Like, the worst thing I think is, like, having a culture where people are bringing things forward, but then, like, nothing happens with it, right? And so I think for psychological safety, like what happens before, so like is it super stressful?
Are people having to, like, work themselves up to say something? And then what happens after? Like are you actually following up on it, and does something actually change tangibly? I think those two parts around the disclosure are so important for leaders to pay attention to. Even like in parenting, right?
Like you want your kids to tell you stuff, for sure. But like my son tells me this, like I’m a big, like reactor, right? Like happy, like all kinds of emotions, I’m just like all in on it. And so sometimes he’ll say to me like, “Can you… I’m gonna tell you this thing, but like you can’t react to it.”
AW: Good for him.
SK: Yeah, I know, it’s great. Like he’s 11. He gets it. So I have to, like, train myself to, like, downregulate that, like, emotional display, I guess, right? And so it’s not gonna be the same obviously with someone who works, like a direct report or something like that. But again, it’s like paying attention to the things that might prevent them from telling you what you want them to tell them, and then also afterwards, like how do you react to that information and what do you actually do, right?
Like what… How do you actually implement something that’s gonna help them or change something for them? Or is it the case that they just wanted you to listen, right? And like they want you to acknowledge that like, that’s a hard situation. Let’s try and think of some ways that you can deal with it yourself, right?
So like sometimes it’s up to you to solve a problem, but sometimes it’s really like scaffolding, and they’re just coming to you for support.
AW: I remember hearing Amy Edmondson say that when someone comes to you, and I like how you said this, with a disclosure, the best way to respond is, “Thank you for telling me.
Please tell me more.” And I’m imagining even as a parent, right, when your, your child tells you something, “Mom, I messed up. Guess what happened?” And you’re thinking, “Oh my gosh,” like, “What are we gonna…” Right? Instead, “Thank you for telling me. Keep going. Tell me more.” Right? In the moment it’s really hard, but really effective.
SK: Yeah. And even like I think that sometimes is much more effective even than asking questions, because it leaves it more… Like sometimes, of course, questions are important because you need to, you know, like figure something out, figure some specific thing out that’s gonna help you to like understand it better.
But a lot of just like listening and letting people talk about the parts of the problem that are most important to them or that are most important for them to solve is really important in terms of like- tailoring your response to what’s actually gonna help them.
When People Feel They Have to Hide Parts of Their Identity
AW: So continuing with this theme of disclosure and bringing it back a little bit more to the theme of identity, some of your most fascinating research that I uncovered focuses on resume whitening and self-editing.
Can you share with the listeners a summary of what you did in your research and what the findings were?
SK: Yeah, absolutely. So I really like you said earlier, where you were talking about filtering, right? And, like, you’re always filtering parts of your identity, and you’re not just, like, putting it out, all out there all the time.
So resume whitening is like that, except it is another type of individual response that is, like, forced on people when there’s a broken system. So specifically in the work that I’ve done on resume whitening, we look at situations where people will conceal or downplay cues that might reveal that they’re not white.
And so this could be like they might use an initial instead of a first name that’s like culturally linked. They might take off experiences that are for particular racial groups. So like an example of this is someone who was in one of our studies, won an extremely prestigious scholarship that was just for Black students, and took that off of the resume because that would show that they were not white, even though it’s like very competitive, like extremely prestigious, well-known.
They were like, “This signal is gonna hurt me more than it’s gonna help me.” So it’s those types of things that people are kind of either downplaying, which is, you know, like if you were part of, let’s say, Muslim Students Association, you might take out the Muslim and just put like Students Association, or concealing entirely, which is just removing it.
So that’s resume whitening. And what we find in our work is that when people are applying for jobs, there tends to be some element of the filtering that you’re talking about that is specific to these types of racial cues. In our sample, about a third of participants said that they had whitened their resumes previously, and I think it’s probably more common than that, right?
Like this is the number of people who told us about it, but you can imagine that there’s like some degree of this for all kinds of different identities, right? It could be like a gender thing. It could be about disability, right? If you’ve taken time off of work for something. And so we found that people knew about resume whitening and were engaging in this activity.
Then we wanted to know does it actually make a difference in terms of whether or not they get a callback for an interview. So we did something called an audit study, which is weirdly named. Basically, it means that we sent out resumes in a bunch of different areas across the US. Some of them were whitened, some of them had the racial cues that existed previously, and we did this with Black, white, and Asian applicants What we found was that when the resume just included all of the racial information, the highest rate of callbacks came for the white applicants, and there was a decrease for Asian applicants, and then an even bigger decrease for Black applicants.
Specifically, Black applicants were two to two and a half times less likely to get a callback than a white applicant. When you whiten, those differences disappear because, again, these are equivalent resumes. But I think the most, like, striking thing about this work is that we also sent out resumes. There was another variable where we sent out resumes to companies that either had diversity statements or did not.
This work is now, like, 10 years old, right? So this is before a time like now. Well, actually, now we’re in a different time entirely. Yeah. But there was a period of time where-
AW: The pendulum has swung, Sonia …
SK: Yeah, we’re like, maybe we’re back to this time. So there was a time where all companies had diversity statements, if you remember.
Like, it was just, like, part of the performance, right? Like, they all said that, like, “We value diversity, and we want everyone to apply.” So when we did this work, it was during a period where not all companies had this, right? So we sent out the resumes to companies that do have those kinds of statements and companies that didn’t.
So what was really striking there is that applicants really paid attention to those diversity statements. At the time, like, these were seen as genuine, right? And so it was a signal to them like, “Hey, you can bring your whole self to work. You can be yourself. You don’t need to whiten.” And applicants didn’t.
They were more transparent. But it backfired because those companies were no less likely to discriminate than companies that didn’t even mention diversity at all. So they were actually opening applicants up to more discrimination because they were sending the signal like, “You know, it’s cool. You can be yourself.”
AW: Be your whole true self.
SK: Yeah. But there was no actual change in terms of what their process was. Um, and so then they ended up experiencing more discrimination because they were transparent. Now, I think, you know, like, we’re back, so, like, the pendulum has swung back, right? And we’re now in a period where organizations are kind of scaling back on diversity inclusion language.
Less so in Canada, obviously. But it would be interesting, I think, to, like, see how that works now after a period of time where it was ubiquitous, and I think, like, companies did a lot in order to change their processes and, like, you know, it would be interesting to redo it now and see how things, uh, stand in terms of the comparison to the original.
AW: What do you say then to people who are in one of these visible minority groups? Given this information, this is valid scholarly research showing that there is a negative impact for them to not whiten their resume. Do you say, “If you have to whiten it, whiten it?”
SK: So people do ask this question, and I think, like with everything else, I think that there is a pressure to navigate a system where there is discrimination, right? And so if you experiment with your resume and you find that you’re getting more callbacks by whitening, and this is, like, strategically advantageous to you ’cause you need a job, then yeah, like unfortunately, it’s your choice. Obviously, I’m not gonna say, like, everyone should do this, but if it’s something that you wanna do and it makes sense for you, then I think people are gonna experiment in all kinds of different ways on their resumes, right?
With how they’re presenting themselves, or, like, even in interviews, right? Like, the kinds of things that you talk about, like experimenting, I think, is good to kind of figure out, like, where you’re getting the best feedback or, like, where your value, I guess, is, like, landing in the best way possible. But I also just, like, hate that people have to ask that question because it’s really, like, an organizational issue that there is room for bias anyway, right, at that stage.
Especially now, like, I think that there is a lot that can be done to kind of like, you know, like skills-based testing or other types of ways of making assessments. So that’s what I would say, but again, like, I just hate that people have to ask that question in the first place.
AW: Yeah. You’re reminding me of a workshop that I coached a couple years ago where a young Asian woman of childbearing age brought this question up explicitly.
She said, “I have so many things going against me right now, and I feel like I need to misrepresent myself.” And I love the way you answered that. Unfortunately, it is a bit of a numbers game. If you’re gonna get a job, you kinda have to play the game. And one thing that I said to her was, “It’s not that you’re not a great mom, and it’s not that you’re not a wonderful member of the Asian community.
You show up as your best self, and eventually you’re gonna get promoted, and I know that you’re gonna end up changing the culture wherever you are to make it more inclusive.” And she’s like, “Yes, that’s the plan.”
SK: Yeah. Um, again, like also generationally, right? Like, I think looking better because younger generations are less likely to whiten their names, like use an Anglicized name, especially in like bigger cities, right?
So like Toronto, like Vancouver, it’s gonna be a different story than, let’s say, like Edmonton or Calgary for a number of different reasons. But I think this is much more something that earlier generations of immigrants were doing, less so as we move down to like second generation, third generation.
They’ll keep their names, and I think because of that, there’s more familiarity around how to pronounce names and like, “Oh, I’ve seen this kind of name before.” And so hopefully, like that will also play a role ’cause I think some of the, like, issue with resume whitening is even just like a fluency thing.
It’s like I don’t know how to say this name. Like, I… We talked to a hiring manager who, like told us straight up, like, “When I see a name that I can’t pronounce,” like, “there’s so many other people, so I don’t wanna basically, like, hurt this person’s feelings by saying their name wrong, and so I’ll just, like, go to someone else.”
And it’s like, “Okay, you know how you’re hurting their feelings is, like by not hiring them.” So I think as people become more familiar with names from the groups that are, like, there’s higher levels in the population, I think that also helps as well; that familiarity piece is important.
AW: Yeah. That’s true. I’ve noticed people avoid saying my last name. They sometimes will call me Andrea or Dr. Andrea. Before we get into, uh, one of my favorite topics that, that I can’t wait to hear your perspective on in terms of ambitious women and the leadership tightrope that they’re forced to balance on, I just wanna ask you about ageism.
Have you done any research similarly in terms of identity related to ageism?
SK: Yeah. So actually, some of my, like during my PhD, I did a lot of work on ageism. Ageism is a really interesting case because it is much more acceptable than other types of discrimination. So whereas in, like, a movie, let’s say, right, like it’s much less likely now that you would see, like overtly racist or sexist content.
Like you do still, but not as much. But like there’s still this kind of like social, like acceptability of ageism. And so that’s a unique case because you’re coming up against… Like with racism or sexism or, uh, ableism, I think there’s like more of an understanding, like these things are bad and we should try and like minimize them, whereas with ageism it’s like I don’t know.
It’s, people still think it’s acceptable. They think it’s funny. Like, it’s a whole different type of discrimination.
AW: I hadn’t thought of that, Sonia, but you know what you’re making me think is, ironically, it may be the last ism to go in terms of being socially acceptable or unacceptable, and ironically, it’s going to affect everyone because you’re gonna get older, right?
SK: Absolutely. And there’s work on, you know, like gendered ageism, for example. So, like, women will experience ageism much more negatively like men. As they get older, people are like, “Oh, they’re so wise, and they have all this experience.” You know, whereas women, it’s much more likely that the stereotype will lead people to think that an older woman’s incompetent or won’t be able to, like, put in the time that’s necessary ’cause she’ll be tired.
And you know, there’s a lot of gendered and intersectional effects of all of these different types of stigma, but I think ageism is particularly like, you know, for gender, there’s a much greater penalty for older women.
Structural Solutions for Gender Bias at Work
AW: There was a great article, you probably read it a couple of years ago in The New York Times, called The Moment I Went from Babe to Hag.
SK: Oh, wow. No, I didn’t read that.
AW: Yeah. I mean, I’ll find a link to it, and I’ll send it to you, and I’m also gonna put it in the show notes. It basically illustrates exactly that point. And that is a beautiful segue to this other tightrope that women are forced to navigate. So my female clients, the ambitious women that I coach, often bring up this impossible balancing act that they have to navigate, where if they show that they are caring, then people think they maybe that they’re a lovable fool, right?
Versus if they are more focused or direct in their leadership style, people think they’re a jerk. So what do you think about that?
SK: Okay. So this is a classic double bind. There’s so much research showing that women experience exactly what you’re talking about. There’s this, like, push and pull between competence and warmth.
So if you’re too competent, people think that you aren’t warm enough. If you’re too warm, people think you’re not competent. And it’s a very fine line. It’s not only the case that there are these stereotypes and expectations for women, but also the kind of leeway that women are given to deviate from those is so much smaller than what is afforded to men.
So men can display, like, a huge array of different behaviors and still be judged as competent, whereas for women, it’s, like, so narrow. You make one mistake, you have to prove yourself all over again. So in some of the work that I’ve done with my former PhD student, Dr. Joyce Hu, who’s now at UCLA, we look at coming up with more structural solutions to that, so it’s not up to women to, like, kind of walk that tightrope.
So as an example of that, one of the studies that we did looked at promotion processes. And so historically, women are much less likely to apply for promotions than men. And we looked at how that works, and everything in life, basically, you have to do something to be considered for a promotion. So we call this an opt-in in behavioral science and life in general, where just basically, like, you know, if you’re sitting at your desk and you know about this promotion opportunity, but you don’t tell someone you’re interested in it, you don’t apply, you’re not gonna get it So we looked at that and we thought, like, this is a place where stereotypes might be impacting women and preventing them from applying because they know, like, if you put yourself forward, people might think, like, oh, like, you’re so into yourself, you think you’re good enough to apply for this specific thing.
AW: Yeah. Who do you think you are?
SK: Yeah. Who do you think you are? You’re gonna get, like, dinged on warmth. There’s so much that’s going into that for women, whereas for men, and there’s research on this, where men will look at an opportunity like that and just be like, “Yeah, for sure.” So let’s say this isn’t what the research is exactly, but I’ll make it simpler.
So let’s say there’s, like, 10 criteria that are needed for a promotion. Women need to see seven, eight, nine before they even consider, like, signing up. Sometimes it’s like you need 10 of those to say yes, whereas for men, at, like, three or four, you’re like, “Yeah.” They’re like, “Put me in.” Like, “This is for me.
I can figure out the rest. Like, it’s fine.” So we wanted to kind of undo some of that so that it wasn’t, um, kind of on women to decide whether they’re gonna put themselves forward in that very fraught kind of social context. So we switched up the way that the promotion system worked to be an opt-out. So basically, everyone who was past a particular threshold that we decided on beforehand of performance would be considered for this competitive process, but they always maintain the ability to opt out.
And so what we find is that when it’s the traditional kind of opt-in system, 75% of men choose to compete under those situations, circumstances, whereas only 25% of women will put themselves forward. But under an opt-out, that completely eliminates that gap. We’re now, you know, 75% of women, 75% of men are staying in the competition when they are kind of put there because they’ve been told, like, “You’re at the threshold.
You’re good.” That takes away that idea of I’m worried that people are gonna think that I think I’m better than I am, or whatever it might be that’s preventing women fr- to put themselves forward. So that’s an example of, like, a structural type of solution. We’ve also done this with hiring, with, um, job language, job ad language.
So we worked with a company who they were having a hard time hiring women for this entry-level position, which on its surface it wasn’t obvious, like, why women weren’t applying for this job. And so basically what we did is we looked at the job advertisement, and we were like, “Whoa. The way that this is written is, like, you wanna hire a man,” right?
There’s, like, the language in this job advertisement is signaling that this is a job for, you know, men to apply for, basically. And there’s lots of work on this looking at gendered language. So, you know, like, gendered language might be things like competence or brilliance or, like, rock star or, like, competitive, like, assertive, right?
Like, where it seems like these are neutral, but those types of things are much more likely to be associated with men, and men are allowed to be those things much more than women. So we took that job ad, and we changed it to make it gender neutral, and we were able to increase the number of both women and men who applied to the position, so it became more inclusive overall.
And I think that’s really important because it also speaks to… Like, we’ve been t- talking about generational stuff a bunch here, but I think it also, like, speaks to the changes in how people approaching work, right? Like, no one really wants to be that, like, hyper-masculine ideal of the ideal worker anymore.
Like, people want a more balanced kind of like… A job where you’re not, like, sleeping under your desk and, like, showering in the bathroom sink is, like, not appealing to people as much anymore. Um, and so taking gender out of that job ad helped them to diversify not only the applicant pool, but then also who got hired into the position as well.
AW: I love how we’ve gone full circle now, and we started talking about the individuals who are experiencing this, and you shifted it to at an institutional level: here are the things that you can do. You change it to opt out, and you watch the language. Words matter. This reminds me also of an incredible woman.
If you haven’t met her, I hope you listen to this podcast episode. I interviewed Michelle Budria, who’s the past CEO, recently retired, of McDonald’s Canada, and she said that when she got promoted to a certain level, one of her very insightful male managers said to her, “Michelle, you’ve now reached senior management.
You can start being your true self.” And she’s like, “What are you talking about?” He said, “I know that you aren’t the way you present yourself.” And so she let herself be the more kind and nurturing human that she is, and she came up with this kind of mantra or saying that she would say to people, which is, “Do not mistake my kindness for weakness.”
And I was like, “Wow.” I did some research. I checked it out online. Apparently, the person that said that first was Al Capone, the mobster. Yeah. He meant it very differently from how she meant it. He meant, “You better be kind to me or respect me, or I might kill you.” She just meant, “I’m gonna get business results, you watch and see,” right?
Final Reflections on Identity, Inclusion, and Career Growth
Love it. Okay, I wanna ask you the three rapid-fire questions. Are you ready?
SK: Sure.
AW: Okay. I know you’re big on psychology. I can’t wait to hear about this- what you say about this. Are you an introvert or an extrovert?
SK: Okay, so definitely an extrovert. However, as a caveat, I do have introverted tendencies, so I need a lot of recharge time, I think, right?
Like, in any social situation, like, I’m not a true extrovert in the sense that, like, I come out of that and I’m, like, so energized and I’m just like, “Let’s go to the next one.” Like, I need, like, a cool-down period, and I do, you know, enjoy kind of a lot of activities that are more… I mean, I think it’s part of the job, right?
You know, like, being an academic, I think it’s a lot of introspection, a lot of, like, paying attention to your thoughts, like, communicating them. And so definitely I would say I’m an extrovert, but maybe, like, a little bit of introversion there from time to time.
AW: You’re on the scale closer to extrovert, but you may be an ambivert, right? Like an extrovert-leaning ambivert.
SK: Yeah. So my husband is actually a… He’s also on faculty at Rotman, and he’s a personality psychologist, and so when I say stuff like this, he’s like, “No,” like, “you’re an extrovert.” So that’s the professional opinion.
AW: That’s gotta be fascinating living with a personality expert.
SK: Exactly, yeah.
AW: Next question is, what are your communication pet peeves?
SK: Okay. So this is a big one for me. It’s fluency. So I work on my s- work on this a lot with my students, is like, if you are communicating something in too complicated of a way, people aren’t gonna look at that and be like, “Wow, this is really complicated,” like, “I better work really hard to understand it.”
They’re gonna be like, “This is dumb,” like, “I don’t even know what this means.” Like, they’re gonna dismiss it. And so I think so much of communication is clarity and saying less. So, like, one of my favorite things to do with my students’ papers is just to, like, cut. And so they learn over time, I think, that, like you can communicate something once.
You don’t need to say, like, “In other words, blah, blah, blah,” or have, like, a lot of different types of, like, phrasing that sets something up. Like, it’s just, like, say what you wanna say and just be clear. And I think that’s even more so as people’s attention spans for information goes down. You have to be able to say something meaningful in a concise way.
It’s not about, like, saying nothing, right? It’s just put these ideas out there. It’s, like, very strategic communication to communicate a complex idea in the least number of words possible.
AW: So are you a fan of the TLDR?
SK: I love TLDR.
AW: I thought you might.
SK: I think, like, everything should be a TLDR.
AW: Yeah.
SK: Absolutely. This is especially the case if you’re asking people for things. Like, I get a lot of emails of people asking me for something where it’s, like, this much information, and I’m literally like, “What do you want?” You know? So, like, definitely TLDR.
AW: Yeah. Uh, so last rapid-fire question. Is there a podcast or a book that you find yourself recommending a lot lately?
SK: My favorite podcast is always The Daily, which is The New York Times podcast. I really love it ’cause they go in depth on one particular topic every day. So they kinda pick out and curate, like, what’s important, and I just really like the reporting on it. And then I’ll also plug Gates Podcast. So I’m the director of the Institute for Gender and the Economy at Rotman.
We have a podcast called Busted, where each episode we bust a myth about gender and the economy. So we have episodes on things like entrepreneurship, where the myth is, like, you know, there’s a particular way that an entrepreneurship or an entrepreneur is supposed to look and act. And we show that that’s not the case, that so much of entrepreneurship is actually about, like, community building and connecting with people and lifting people up.
And, you know, it’s not just this idea of, like, you’re a tech bro who’s, like, trying to make a billion dollars. So in each of the episodes, we try to bust a myth like that. So I’ll plug that. I think, you know, that’s a podcast that people who like your show would probably be interested in as well.
AW: And I will put a link to that in the show notes. Sonia, is there anything else you want to add to share with the listeners about managing our identities at work?
SK: I think I would say that there is a lot of pressure, I think, to be yourself, but it’s hard because your whole life is about discovering who you are, right? And so it’s not like you have this crystallized idea at any given time, and I think that that’s okay.
And so being flexible and understanding, like, yourself slowly over time, that’s all I would say about that is, like, don’t kind of feel like you need to be a particular thing consistently all the time. Experiment and kind of find out what feels best to you.
AW: I love that. In the work that I do, we talk about your personal brand not only can, but should evolve over time.
SK: Yes, exactly.
AW: Thank you so much, Sonya, for sharing your insights and your time with me and the Talk About Talk listeners. It was a really fun conversation. Thank you.
SK: Yeah, it was fun. Thanks for having me on.
AW: Thanks again so much to Dr. Sonia Kang for sharing her time and her expertise with us. In particular, I loved how she answered each of the questions from the perspective of the individual and also the institution.
It’s not all on the individuals, is it? Now I’m gonna share with you, as I promised, three of my favorite points from this interview that I really wanna reinforce with you. The first is that bringing your whole self to work may be an aspirational goal, but it is not equally safe or realistic for everyone.
Organizations need to create the conditions for authenticity rather than putting that burden on the individuals. Secondly, resume whitening shows how people from marginalized groups often adapt strategically to biased systems, which highlights that the real problem, again, is organizational processes, not individual choices.
And last, I told Sonya that she’d be quoted on this point: ambiguity is where bias thrives. So leaders should reduce subjectivity in hiring, promotions, and performance reviews, all of it, by using clearer and more structured criteria, and be careful of the words that they use. That’s it for this episode of the Talk About Talk podcast.
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The post Managing Your WORK IDENTITY: Authenticity, Bias, & Resume Whitening with Professor Sonia Kang (ep. 216) appeared first on Talk About Talk.
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