It has been an evolution, but I am now a true believer in bringing our whole selves to work. I no
longer think people have a professional self for Mondays through Fridays and a real self for the rest of
the time. That type of separation probably never existed, and in today’s era of individual expression,
where people constantly update their Facebook status and tweet their every move, it makes even less
sense. Instead of putting on some kind of fake “all-work persona,” I think we benefit from expressing
our truth, talking about personal situations, and acknowledging that professional decisions are often
emotionally driven. I should have learned this lesson years earlier. When I was graduating from
business school in 1995, Larry Summers offered me a job at Treasury. I wanted the job desperately,
but there was an issue: I did not want to move back to D.C., where my soon-to-be ex-husband lived.
One of the hardest calls I’ve ever had to make was to tell Larry that I could not accept the job. Larry
pressed me on why, and I thought about telling him that I really wanted to try consulting in Los
Angeles. Instead, I opened up. I explained that I was getting divorced and wanted to move far away
from D.C., which held too many painful memories. Larry argued that it was a big city, but it didn’t

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seem big enough for me. A year later, when enough time had passed and I felt ready to return to D.C.,
I called Larry and asked if the opportunity was still available. It was one of the easiest calls I have
ever made, in part because I had been honest the year before. If I had told Larry that I was passing on
the job for professional reasons, I would have appeared impulsive when I reversed that decision. Since
the real reason was personal, sharing it honestly was the best thing to do.

People often pretend that professional decisions are not affected by their personal lives. They are
afraid to talk about their home situations at work as if one should never interfere with the other, when
of course they can and do. I know many women who won’t discuss their children at work out of fear
that their priorities will be questioned. I hope this won’t always be the case.

My sister-in-law, Amy Schefler, had a college roommate, Abby Hemani, who is a partner in one of
Boston’s most prestigious law firms. The line between personal and professional was erased for Abby
when her seven-month-old daughter was diagnosed with Dravet syndrome, a rare and severe form of
epilepsy. Abby explained that her mostly male partners got used to seeing her cry at the office and
their response was heartwarming. “It was as if they envisioned me as one of their own daughters and ◤本◤作◤品◤由◤◤網◤提◤供◤下◤載◤與◤在◤線◤閱◤讀◤
wanted to comfort me,” she said. Abby insists that her public emotion improved her work situation
both by turning her colleagues into a source of support and by leading to more flexible hours. “I know
several men at my firm who have had similar experiences with sick children, but they didn’t feel they
could be as forthcoming as I was,” she said. “So, in the end, I think my female manner of relating
served me well.”

Not every workplace and every colleague will be as generous and caring. But I do think we are
moving toward at least blurring the line between personal and professional. Increasingly, prominent
thinkers in the field of leadership studies like Marcus Buckingham are challenging traditional notions
of leadership. Their research suggests that presenting leadership as a list of carefully defined qualities
(like strategic, analytical, and performance-oriented) no longer holds. Instead, true leadership stems
4
from individuality that is