Interpersonal Communication- A Mindful Approach to Relationships, 2020a

e productive.” The U.S. Department of Labor’s book Skills to Pay the Bills: Mastering Soft Skills for
Workplace Success goes on to note:
Professionalism isn’t one thing; it’s a combination of qualities. A professional employee arrives on time
for work and manages time effectively. Professional workers take responsibility for their own behavior
and work effectively with others. High-quality work standards, honesty, and integrity are also part of the
package. Professional employees look clean and neat and dress appropriately for the job. Communicating
effectively and appropriately for the workplace is also an essential part of professionalism. 2
As you can see here, professionalism isn’t a single “thing” that can be labeled. Instead,
refers to the aims and behaviors that demonstrate an individual’s level of competence expected by
a professional within a given profession. By the word “aims,” we mean that someone who exhibits
professionalism is guided by a set of goals in a professional setting. Whether the aim is to complete a
project on time or help ensure higher quarterly incomes for their organization, professionalism involves
striving to help one’s organization achieve specific goals. By “behaviors,” we mean specific ways of
behaving and communicating within an organizational environment. Some common behaviors can
include acting ethically, respecting others, collaborating effectively, taking personal and professional
responsibility, and using language professionally. Let’s look at each of these separately.
Every year there are lapses in ethical judgment by organizations and organizational members. For our
purposes, let’s look at ethical lapses in 2017 and 2018.
We saw aviation police officers drag a bloodied pulmonologist off a plane when he wouldn’t give
up his seat on United Airlines.
We saw the beginnings of the #MeToo movement in October 2017 after Alyssa Milano uses the
hashtag in response to actor Ashley Judd accusing media mogul Harvey Weinstein of serious
sexual misconduct in an article within The New York Times. Since that critical moment, many
courageous victims of sexual violence have raised their voices to take on the male elites in our
society who had gotten away with these behaviors for decades. 1
Facebook (among others) was found to have accepted advertisements indirectly paid for by the
Kremlin that influenced the 2016 election. The paid advertisements constituted a type of cyber
warfare.
Equifax had a data breach that affected 145 million people (mostly U.S. citizens as well as some
British and Canadian customers) and didn’t publicly disclose this for two months.
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, committed many ethical
lapses during his tenure with the agency prompting his resignation. Some of the ethical lapses
included ordering raises for two aides even when White House rejected them, spending $3.5
million (twice times as much as his predecessor) on taxpayer-funded security, using that security
to pick up his favorite moisturizing lotion and dry-cleaning, renting a room from a lobbyist who
1 Although #MeToo gained popularity in 2017, the phrase was originally coined in 2006 by Tarana Burke
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