Unprofessionalism
What does it really mean to be professional?
For generations, professionalism has been associated with competence, composure and control. But many of the unwritten rules we follow at work were built for a different world, one that asked us to hide uncertainty, suppress emotion and prioritise appearance over connection.
Each week, Dr Myriam Hadnes, behavioural economist, facilitator and founder of workshops.work, sits down with people who've questioned those rules. Their stories start with a professional risk. Few set out to be disruptive. Most simply reached a point where the conventional way of working no longer served them or the people around them.
Together they unpack the risks they took: admitting they didn't know, showing grief at work, challenging authority, asking for help, dressing differently, changing careers, trusting others, leading in ways they'd never seen modelled.
This podcast doesn't ask you to reject professionalism, or treat authenticity as some ideal to reach for. It’s about judgment: Which professional norms help us collaborate, lead and build trust? Which ones create distance between people? And how do we recognise the difference?
If you've ever felt the gap between who you are and who you think work wants you to be, this podcast invites you to look again. Not every professional rule needs breaking. But every one is worth questioning.
Unprofessionalism
026 - The Corporate Drag with Charlie Robertson
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This week's professional risk - inspired by Charlie
Make the thing you've always kept furthest from work the centre of it.
Description
Charlie Robertson spent years keeping two lives carefully apart: the consultant at a well-respected firm, and Charlene Coco, the drag persona he performed in nightlife and mentioned to almost no one at work. Then he left the consulting career, went freelance as a facilitator, and — only about a year ago — did the thing that still makes him flinch when he posts about it on LinkedIn: he brought Charlene into the boardroom.
What follows isn't a coming-out story so much as a working theory of costumes. Charlie's argument, borrowed from RuPaul: we're all in drag, every day — the suit, the meeting voice, the confidence we perform. Most of us just never chose ours. Drag queens choose everything: the wig, the makeup, the walk, the reaction they want from the room. So what happens when you bring that level of intention to how you show up at work?
Along the way: why Charlene was once braver than Charlie in gay bars and is now more nervous than him in offices; the workshop participant who paces her flat in her highest heels before big video calls; what Charlie's dad means when he calls all of this "my Britney thing"; and a discovery neither of us saw coming until it happened mid-conversation — why an audience wills a drag queen to succeed, and what that reveals about which leaders we're actually willing to get behind.
This episode invites you to reflect on:
- Where the line sits between adapting to a room and disappearing into it
- What your version of the high heels is — the small, deliberate thing that switches your confidence on before you walk in
Over to you!
What's the one part of yourself you edit out before every meeting — and what would it take to wear it on purpose instead?
About Charlie
Charlie Robertson is the co-founder of Make it Werk, a consultancy helping organisations build teams worth being part of — and cultures worth staying for. He and his best friend Safiya started it after realising the inclusive spaces they created in nightlife were exactly what companies were missing. He facilitates trainings, offsites and workshops — sometimes in full drag, as Charlene Coco.
Links to learn more about Charlie: