Professionalism is respecting people and their opinions. It means taking accountability for our own actions and thinking of ways we can improve on them. Professionalism means addressing your colleagues by their proper pronouns and not invalidating their feelings. As the year goes on, my meaning of professionalism will evolve as I learn more about the social work field. As a career changer, professionalism in my previous role was very different.
Working for DoD it was always about protecting yourself and your reputation. Professionalism in DoD was to be nice in person but, have colleagues talking about your behind your back or being yelled at constantly. Coming from DoD we never used the proper pronouns to be addressed by. My goal is to eradicate some of the ideas I was taught about Professionalism in DoD and adapt to more inclusive ideas about professionalism in social work.
Matt, thank you for this thoughtful post comparing professionalism in your previous career to professionalism in the field of social work. I've also been a DoD employee before coming to social work, and there was a very different work culture in comparison to other positions I've held. Yelling is a thing that happened - a lot! I look forward to hearing more about your journey.