Episode 5: Fix Your Face? Let’s Fix the System Instead

May 10

Why Professionalism Is Often Just Code for Conformity

It's not your face. It's their bias.

Summary:

In this solo episode of Hard at Work, Ellen digs into the phrase many women have heard at work: “fix your face.” What does it actually mean when someone says you're coming off as ‘too much,’ ‘too aggressive,’ or ‘not smiling enough’? Ellen unpacks the coded language of professionalism, how it often punishes authenticity, and why emotion at work isn't a liability—it’s information. If you've ever been told to soften your tone or smile more, this episode is your permission to stop internalizing it and start decoding what’s really being said.

Takeaways:

'Fix Your Face' Is About Control

Being told to fix your expression isn’t about your face—it’s about someone else's comfort with your emotion or presence.

Emotional Expression Is Cultural

What’s deemed 'professional' is often rooted in white, patriarchal norms that stigmatize emotional expression, especially for women of color.

Professionalism Is Often Coded Language

Critiques of tone, attitude, or demeanor frequently reflect bias, not actual performance issues.

Workplace Norms Are Not Neutral

The expectation to smile, be cheerful, or appear agreeable often disproportionately targets women, especially those in marginalized groups.

You Don't Have to Perform to Be Good at Your Job

You can be calm, competent, angry, direct, quiet, or skeptical—and still be excellent at your job.

Notable Quotes:

“It’s not your face—it’s their bias.”

“You don’t need to smile to be taken seriously. You need to be taken seriously because you’re good at your job.”

“Workplace norms are not neutral. They are deeply shaped by culture and power.”

“You are allowed to be a full human being at work.”

Chapters:

00:00 – Intro: When Someone Says 'Fix Your Face'
03:15 – Emotional Expression Is Not Unprofessional
08:40 – What 'Professionalism' Really Means
14:30 – The Cultural Context of Tone Policing
18:45 – What to Do Instead: Awareness, Reframing, and Pushback
23:00 – Final Thoughts: Your Expression Is Not a Problem

Keywords: workplace culture, emotional expression, professionalism, bias at work, women of color, tone policing, workplace norms, smile culture, authenticity at work

Transcript:

Ellen Whitlock Baker (00:01)

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Hard at Work podcast. Today's a solo show and it's time for us to tackle another question from the Ask Me Anything. Today's a solo show and I like to start those out by tackling another question from the Ask Me Anything About Work submission site. And if you have a question you want to ask about work that you'd like me to address on the podcast,

You can submit it totally anonymously at ewbcoaching.com backslash AMA, and it might get picked for us to address on the show. Thanks for all of you who have submitted, they're great questions, and I hope we can get to all of them. So here's today's question. What do you do when your boss is incompetent at your body of work, so they have unreasonable or unrealistic expectations for how it should be handled? How do you prove your worth and get them out of the weeds? Well,

This sucks. And I think a lot of us have been there at one point or another. And this is actually one of the most common questions I'm getting in the AMA inbox. Basically, a lot of y'all's bosses don't know what they're doing. So I posed this question to my 11-year-old just to see what she would say. And her response was, well, I'd asked them why they were asking me to do this and hope that they had a realistic and good answer.

Which is actually good advice. So it's so easy an 11 year old can do it. And I want you to know that statement gravely offended my 11 year old. She wanted you all to know that. Then she proceeded to ask for screen time because 11. But she's onto something, right? One option here could be that you ask your boss for the strategy or reasoning behind their unreasonable or unrealistic expectations. Sort of like.

Hey boss, I saw that you wanted me to add another program to our portfolio. Could you explain the strategy behind that and what you're hoping to accomplish? And there's a couple of ways that they might respond to this. So first, they could explain and make sense. And wow, would that be ideal? And I hope that they do that. And then you can share what's on your plate and how to make the new thing work with all the other things going on in a way that doesn't burn you or your team out. Or your boss could

not answer the question, either by ignoring it or by answering it with a word salad dressed with nonsense. God, love those word salads. People can hide a whole lot of nothing in a lot of fancy sounding words.

People can hide a whole lot of nothing in a lot of fancy sounding words. So if your boss doesn't answer the question or doesn't make sense when answering it, you could reiterate the question in email. I suggest having the first conversation face to face, if you can, or zoom to zoom. A lot of people, if they're smart, sit up and take notice when you're asking them something in an email because they know that you mean business. If you're...

leaving a trail. It doesn't have to be malicious, but it's for you to make sure that your questions are being asked in the way you want them to be and that you are getting responses in writing so that you know exactly what they say.

So you could say something like, hey boss, at our last meeting, I asked you the strategy behind why you wanted us to take on. You could say something like, hey boss, at our last meeting, I asked you the strategy behind why you wanted us to take on this new project. Your response was, give them a summary of the word salad that they gave you. I'm hearing that you want me to do X and Y.

but I'm still not entirely sure of the reasoning behind it and whether you'd like me to prioritize this or my other projects. Could you please tell me X, Y, and Z about the project? Be specific because they aren't gonna be specific for you if they haven't been already. So if they've given you a bunch of word salad or not answers, if you just ask them a general question here, like, can you tell me more about the project? They'll give you more of that, more of the same. So.

being specific here will really help. Can you tell me point A, point B, point C about the project? And I'd recommend in either case to start showing up at your one-on-ones with data if you're not already doing that. And I am someone who was not very good at doing that. Show the boss the projects that you're working on, what resources each of those is taking and projected to take and definitely include people's time here, and whether that leaves you in a deficit or not.

Show how the projects are working towards primary goals. Or if you don't have those, tell your boss what your projects are accomplishing. Then offer some suggestions, like, I ran the numbers and we're spending double the amount of time on project S than on project Y, but project Y is yielding higher results. Then you can offer some suggestions, like,

I ran the numbers, and we're spending double the amount of time on project X than we are on project Y. But project Y is yielding higher results. I might offer that we cut project X and put all of our resources into growing Y. How does that sound to you?

Honestly, if a team member came to me with that, I would like jump up and down for joy. I mean, they've taken the burden away from me as a leader of figuring out what's going on and what's most effective. They have a well-reasoned and data-informed suggestions. They have well-reasoned and data-informed suggestions and they're presenting it in a way I can understand in my bleary, I've been through 10 Zooms already today haze. So bravo and yes, please. Caveats of course.

there are still gonna be bosses out there who can't be managed. This won't work for them. You can do all of the above and they still don't know what they're doing, which is causing them to make you do an unachievable amount of work that is not strategic. So in that case, look, you have done everything you can. You've done it in writing, you've presented facts, you have two options here. You can speak with your boss's boss and show them the data and conversations

and say that you need a little help because you're not getting a clear picture from your boss, even though you've tried. See emails to know I've tried. This is tricky. This will either likely piss off your boss or make them wary of you. Those are two potential outcomes here because people don't like it when you go around them. But in this case, you're going around them after you've tried multiple times to go to them.

and you have it in writing even, that they are not giving you satisfactory answers. So done the right way, I think you could say something to your boss's boss like, hey, I care about the results very much here and I need more help in getting to the goals rather than my boss is terrible and not giving me information. I think the boss's boss will pick up on that, but you presenting it as, look, I'm trying to get my work done, I'm trying to do it well, I care about the bottom line.

this is standing in my way, how can you help me? I think it's an option. And especially if it's well reasoned and well evidenced, you're gonna get the attention of the boss's boss. Or if that doesn't feel good to you, you can continue to document everything and let it be. I mean, you're not gonna change your boss. So important to remember here, you cannot fix them. And I wanna be careful.

that you don't fall into the trap that I have definitely fallen into and that lots of people, especially women, fall into at work, which is you pick up the work that that person is not doing well. So you get to a point sometimes where you're like, I am so frustrated because this person is standing in the way of us being efficient in any way, or form. So I'm gonna just take over whatever project that is.

from the ground up. And this sucks. I think that's a good example of how we don't prioritize ourselves in the workplace. We're prioritizing getting the thing done, keeping the team happy, getting the output we need. But in order to do that, we're sacrificing our own time and bandwidth. And we're not

having accountability for the person that really should have it, which is the leader. So I would say, please don't do that. And if you're doing that now, think about whether or not you can step out of that. It is not your responsibility. It is not your responsibility to fix a bad leader. You can do everything I've said before, and that's all you can do sometimes. And then you either have to...

decide to sit it out and say, I guess I'm just gonna stop caring about this, or you can leave. And those are the options as I see them. You can talk to your boss in person, you can write your boss an email with all the data, you can talk to your boss's boss, you can sit it out or you can leave. That's really what I would say to do. And I'd be curious if any of you have...

a different idea and would love to hear it. There's a space on the AMA page where you can add your suggestions to certain questions that we've answered. So if you want to do that, please do. It's totally anonymous. And if you want to submit your own AMA about work question, we love to see it. So submit anonymously at ewbcoaching.com backslash AMA slash about slash work. And hopefully we'll tackle your question and maybe we'll tackle your question.

in an upcoming episode. So I hope that helped. Original commenter, it was really fun to dive into it with you and good luck with everything.

Okay, in this episode, we're gonna dive into a topic that's near and dear to my heart, which is the fix your face topic. So have any of you ever been told to not show all of the things you're thinking on your face or look happier in meetings before? So have any of you been...

So have any of you ever been told that you're not supposed to show everything you're thinking on your face and to stop doing it or that you need to smile more in meetings? Yeah, me too. In fact, here's a story. Years ago, I had foot surgery which left me in a boot and I couldn't put weight on one of my feet for six weeks. So it was sore, it was swollen.

And during this time, after I went back to work, I was sitting in this sort of fancier meeting with some fancier people. I had put my foot up on another chair because I had to keep it elevated, which all of the people in the room knew. And I was really, really listening and it was summer, but we were in air conditioning, so it was cold. So I was kind of like hunched down in the chair with my foot up. So like, can you...

I would say like think of the Bernie Sanders meme where he's like got the mittens and he's in the chair at inauguration. I probably look like that, right? So I'm sitting there and I'm listening intently, looking like that, wondering when the snack break is. And a male coworker in the room caught my eye and looked over at me and mouthed a word, smile, while using his fingers to draw an imaginary smile on his face. So like.

I was like totally mortified, like immediately. I sat up quickly, I put a fake smile on my face, I put my foot down even though it was swollen. Like I was just like, shit, I have been caught looking bad at work. And what I later realized is that that was actually my stress response kicking in because I had been called out for something and for me,

because I want to be liked, which I know many of you do too, that is a big deal. When someone says you're doing something wrong, my immediate reaction is to be like, oh God, I'm sorry, right? But later, once the shock had worn off or the stress response had been completed, I was mad. Like, why should I be required to smile? I mean, I was deeply listening to the presentation. I was.

happily imbibing information and my foot hurt and it was cold. So I know, I absolutely know that the man who asked me to smile did not intend anything malicious in this case and probably didn't even realize at the time how it affected me. But this is a good minor example of intention versus impact. So let's unpack this.

First, you could say that the reaction I had was because I was being too sensitive or because I'm a people pleaser who hates not getting it right. So it's really up to me to not be offended by something that probably wasn't intended to be hurtful. And I do think part of that is true. I do react with shame when I'm scolded and I probably could brush it off a lot more. And you could also say that I'm a people pleaser because I'm a woman.

And I've generally been expected to be nice and kind and non disruptive my whole life because this is what the patriarchy prefers. And I'm sensitive to criticism because I'm more nervous than men about keeping my job because I have to work harder to be seen and valued. So this is where it gets complicated and where I think a lot of us get lost in feeling like it's our fault for having a certain kind of reaction when it's antithetical to what the workplace expects from us.

You know, it's your fault that you got upset in that meeting. You really shouldn't get upset at work. It's your fault you were embarrassed by that comment. Stop being so sensitive. Have some grit, right? So I do think that while there's truth in us taking accountability for our own reactions, and in my case, I could really learn how to manage that stress response and not have it, so I could react more in the moment, realistically, and in the way that I want to show up. I think that's on me, for sure.

But I think we also blame the person who is doing the thing that is different in a workplace a lot of the times. And our excuses are act more like X. So I think it's a double-edged sword. And caveat here, everyone shows up with their own lived experience, which we have talked about a lot. This truly causes us to all react to things and process things differently.

So especially once you start bringing intersectionality of race, gender, class, sexuality, et cetera, into the equation. So you may be listening to this thinking you've never have thought twice if a dude told you to smile in a meeting and truly, like honestly, good for you. I have lots of female friends that can do that. For me, it's just simply not the reaction I have based on a lot of things that happened in my own life. And it also still doesn't make it right.

The fact that you can say, whatever, that was just John. I'm glad that that makes you not have a stress response and not linger on it, but it doesn't make the action right. And for other people, it might have a whoop. And for other people, they'll have a different reaction to this instance. So for the health of everybody, it's good that we talk about how this isn't a great thing to do at work. Asking someone to smile, telling them to fix their face.

Whatever. Part of what makes the current workplace not safe for everyone is that we need to stop thinking everyone processes feelings and interprets things the same. It's just simply not true. And I really hope we all know by now in 2025 that asking a woman to smile is sexist. It just is. People who identify as women or femmes are expected to be generally pleasant and agreeable.

When you're listening, if you're not making your face neutral, you're appearing in a way that makes men uncomfortable. And yet it happens over and over again to this day. I bet a lot of you have been asked to fix your face in meetings, not in so many words, but hey, maybe don't show all of your emotions on your face. Don't wear your heart on your sleeve.

So there's a great book called Feminist Fight Club by Jessica Bennett, which you should all read. And I think she sums it up really well with this little moment in the book where she gives examples of Hillary Clinton after a really significant primary win the first time she ran for president being asked to smile by an MSNBC host, right? And then another example of Serena Williams being asked by a reporter after this grueling match

You just want to match. Normally you smile when you win. What's wrong? And then Casey Musgraves, the singer, saying, it would be more accurate to call it instead of resting bitch face, resting this wouldn't bother you if I was a guy face. So I love that because I think it encapsulates how this problem is still happening. Even though, again, we're in 2025 and I think if you asked any man,

In most workplaces, well, I would hope, I guess I don't know this for sure, but in the workplaces I've been, I would guess that if you asked any man, hey, is it okay to tell a woman how to smile or what expression she should have on her face, they would probably say, no, it's not. So I hope that's true, but yet it's still happening. And it's not just for women. I mean, a lot of people are told this. You are expected at work to be generally jolly and...

happy and getting along with things and doing your gig. You are not supposed to be the squeaky wheel. You're not supposed to be the person who's pointing out all the problems because that makes life more complicated for everybody else. So we often mute all of that in ourselves so that we can get along at work, but that makes the workplace less efficient and less honest.

So what do you do if this happens to you at work? If you, like me, have an immediate physical stress reaction to that experience, wait until you've completed the stress cycle to think about why it affected you so. But don't beat yourself up and don't feel like you need to respond right away, which will be your instinct. So get through the stress response. Don't say anything in the moment if you are in a stress response.

and ask yourself afterwards, how did that make me feel? And when have I felt that way before? And why might this particular thing have caused a stress response for me?

Then if someone, then an option after that and after you've gone through all of that in your head and made sense of it for yourself, not while you're in the stress reaction where you're not necessarily thinking as rationally as you could, then you can unpack that and be prepared the next time you are in a stress response to understand that you're there and maybe even stop it before it starts because you have done this work.

and you know what to say if somebody says that to you again or something else that's similar.

And another option is you can talk to the person who said the thing. So I actually did this. I went and I had a meeting with the man who had said smile in the meeting. And I said, hey, I know you totally didn't mean anything by this, but just so you know, it's not a great idea to ask women to smile. And if you want to Google it, there is.

of information about it on the internet. It's really easy to find. I suggest you do it. But I wanted to make sure you knew that and knew that it affected me in a negative way. The end. Thank you. Great. Move on. Right? So in my experience, he apologized. I said thanks for the apology. And then we moved on to something else because it had all been put on the table. And he never told me to do that again. And I hope not other people as well.

So that's a good response, but there's a ton of privilege that comes with being able to make that response. You have to be able to have a conversation that's honest with the person who said the thing. And sometimes if they're your boss or there's some other hierarchical connection, it can be really hard. Or if you're just conflict diverse, that sounds really, really scary. You don't necessarily have to do it. To me, it was a good first step.

and it actually solved the problem for me.

but a couple other options if that doesn't sound good to you. You have total permission to ignore them. So if I had looked over, he had said smile, I would have just blinked, looked back and kept doing what I was doing. One option. You're kind of showing them with your body that you're not gonna do something you don't wanna do. Another option is that you can say,

Again, if you're in a place where you could say this, I couldn't because he was across the room and we were in a big room with lots of people in a meeting. But you could say if you're in a one-on-one or a small group, hey, I'm going to have the reaction I have. If it makes you uncomfortable, I want to know what might be under that for you. Is there something going on that you want to talk to me about that doesn't involve the way I look? And just leave it.

So in that instance, you're able to tell them authoritatively, hey, I am who I am, and also say, but is there something you want to talk to me about? Because there might be something under that you don't know. And it also sort of trains them to be ready to talk to you about things differently in the future. So I think that could work, however you want to put it in your own words.

Again, only for certain people who feel comfortable using that in their workplace. So this is not a one size fits all model here, and that's why I try to give you as many options as I can. Now, I have a special note for those of you who witnessed this happening to a coworker. You're in a meeting and someone tells one of your coworkers to smile or to fix their face or whatever it is they want to do. Why are you so upset today?

If that happens, for the love of God, please be an accomplice. Please take the person who perpetrated this, please take the person who said smile aside after the meeting. It doesn't have to be in front of everyone. In fact, don't have it in front of everyone. You don't have to embarrass them. Take them aside after the meeting and say, yeah, don't do that. If you can do that for other people,

That is a really good thing to do. And I think it's our responsibility in the workplace to look out for those kinds of things and other microaggressions and pull the person aside and explain what you're seeing. Not that you're an expert, but I would hope that someone would do that for me if I said something in a meeting that offended someone or made them feel bad. Because I may not know that I'm doing that. So I think that's one really good

thing that you can do. And I love the term accomplice because you're an accomplice, you're helping, you're not an ally. You're really just, and I love the term accomplice because it really gives this sense of like, we're all in this together and I am helping. And again.

And I think most of us know this by now, I hope you know this, but this situation is more tricky for people of color and women of color in particular. There are so many terrible stereotypes, particularly about black women in the workplace that make it extra hard to do some of these things without getting an outsized judgment from

the generally white majority in certain workplaces. So if you are a person of color and you're listening to this, I don't know if any of these will work for you. You'd have to let me know and it definitely depends on your workplace, how safe you feel, who's there, et cetera. But if you're a white person and you're listening to this, I want you to think about that because that's where our accomplished ship really comes into play.

because we may, with our white privilege, have more of an ability to say something than somebody who is not white. And again, different for every workplace. I'm not making a generalization that all white people are one way and all people of color are another way. But in general, the research shows and the history shows that these patriarchal norms of needing people to look pleasant in the workplace

disproportionately affect people of color. So think about that, break out your accomplish badge and do your best to, if you see something, say something. I just think that's a really good thing to say. I can't even remember what that's from. Like the movie theaters? I don't remember. Anyway, so it's your turn.

to help your coworkers in that case, most of whom would not normally walk around with a smile on their face. How many of you do that? How many of you sit at your computer smiling? How many of you walk through the halls smiling? You know, if you see another person, you say, hello, hey, you might smile, but like sometimes you're also like running to the bathroom and you may not smile, right? You don't know what somebody's going through. So the point here is

Don't ask somebody to fix their face. If you do, you've heard why that's bad. If you have been someone who's been told to fix your face, here are a few options that might help you the next time that happens to you. And if you see someone else say something like this to another person, it's your responsibility to be a good accomplice and take that person aside.

And if you're feeling extra, extra, extra spicy, you can do what Jessica Bennett says to do in the Feminist Fight Club, which is to adopt the Broad City response, Broad City, the TV show, which is a meme of where both of the women actors in the show are holding up their corners of the mouths and a smile with their middle fingers. Maybe don't do that at work. It's up to you. Anyway, thank you so much for being here with me for another episode of the Heart at Work podcast.

It would be tremendously helpful to me if you would subscribe to the show on wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you'd leave a review, that would be even more spectacular. It really helps get the podcast in front of more and more people who I hope will listen and learn along with us. So thanks for being here. Have a great day and keep resisting those patriarchal norms. I'll see you next time.