Rethinking Professionalism and the Unequal Burden of Emotional Labour
- Feb 27
- 6 min read
Written by Rae-Anne Cohen, Emotional Intelligence Coach
Rae-Anne Cohen is an emotional intelligence coach and international speaker who helps people deepen self-awareness, cultivate resilience, and lead from a place of relational wisdom.
Most organisations claim to value professionalism. Far fewer examine how it is defined, who gets to embody it with ease, and who quietly absorbs the cost of performing it. This article examines how emotional labour shapes professional life, why it disproportionately burdens marginalised professionals, and what leadership must do to build cultures that engage with emotion intelligently rather than silence it.
The myth of emotional neutrality
Professionalism is frequently equated with emotional restraint, tone management, and the suppression of discomfort. But these expectations are not neutral, and they are not evenly distributed. More often, professionalism is used as shorthand for emotional control, i.e., staying silent, being calm, generally agreeable, and more. It suggests a particular emotional performance that values restraint and composure while quietly discouraging outward expressions of feeling or independence. Yet professionalism is not emotionally neutral; rather, it is emotionally regulated and comes at a cost.
Emotional labour: The hidden infrastructure of professionalism
Sociologist Arlie Hochschild introduced emotional labour to describe the process by which workers manage their feelings and emotional expressions in accordance with organizational feeling rules, producing displays that are exchanged for wages. For example, in her study of airline cabin crew, a flight attendant who has had a difficult morning may nevertheless intentionally smile, soften their tone of voice, and adjust their body language in order to project warmth and calm because this emotional display is part of what they are paid to perform.
Hochschild’s research is still relevant today. Emotional labour has expanded to a wider variety of professional and educational lives across different sectors. Thus, exploring ‘professionalism’ through this understanding increasingly leans towards expressing the right emotions in the right way and suppressing those that do not comply with unwritten rules of the workplace. Professionalism has been misdefined. Emotional suppression is not maturity; it is compliance. We are emotional beings. That is not to say that emotion surpasses logic, but emotions inform judgment and shape relationships. Yet within professional spaces, emotional expression is often framed as weakness, lack of control, or poor boundaries.
The unequal distribution of emotional cost
The emotional cost of professionalism is not equally shared. Women, people of colour, queer people, early-career professionals, and many others in marginalised positions are expected to engage in greater emotional labour, for example, exercising more patience, more self-monitoring, and more attention paid to physical appearance, all the while being penalised more harshly when they fall outside the unwritten social and emotional rules.
For some, assertiveness is read as confidence; for others, it becomes aggression. For some, emotional restraint signals leadership; for others, it leads to invisibility. Anger, grief, or even enthusiasm may be tolerated, or celebrated, when expressed by those with power, while being framed as unprofessional when expressed by those without it. Emotional labour becomes the hidden cost of belonging, the price some employees pay to be taken seriously, to be heard, or simply to remain stable within the organisation.
When power shapes emotional interpretation
Consider a feedback meeting.
A senior male leader delivers direct criticism with visible frustration. His intensity is described as passion. In a similar setting, a junior woman responds with measured defensiveness. Her reaction is described as emotional. One is seen as invested, the other is seen as unstable.
The behaviour is not evaluated in isolation. It is filtered through power.
Professional culture does not emerge accidentally. It is shaped by what leadership models and rewards. Rethinking professionalism is, therefore, a leadership responsibility, not an individual adjustment.
It requires asking uncomfortable but necessary questions:
Who defines what counts as “appropriate” emotion here?
Whose comfort is being prioritised?
Who is carrying the invisible burden of smoothing tension, managing tone, or absorbing discomfort so that others can remain at ease?
Feedback is never emotionally neutral
Nowhere is this clearer than in feedback culture. Feedback touches identity, competence, belonging, and future opportunity. Feedback is often delivered in a measured, neutral tone, stripped of visible feeling in the name of objectivity. The recipient, meanwhile, is expected to receive critique calmly, without visible defensiveness or frustration. The ideal exchange is emotionally flat.
Leaders can begin by examining how emotional expression is interpreted during these moments. Who is described as “taking feedback well” and what does that actually mean? Does composure equate to silence? Are some employees afforded space to respond with visible emotion while others are penalised for the same reaction?
Professional maturity in feedback conversations should not mean emotional suppression. It should mean emotional literacy. Leaders can model this by:
Naming the emotional weight of the conversation
Acknowledging that critique can feel difficult
Inviting reflection rather than demanding instant composure
Allowing space for thoughtful response instead of equating calmness with agreement
The organisational consequences of emotional suppression
When professionalism is defined as emotional containment rather than emotional intelligence, organisations pay a price.
First, innovation declines and creativity is limited. When employees learn that visible expressions of frustration, dissent, or unplaced enthusiasm may be penalised, they narrow their contributions. They may offer safer ideas or stay silent in the name of “professionalism.” Their energy is spent on protecting themselves rather than stretching their intellectual capacities. The organisation loses not only emotion but imagination.
Second, talent quietly hides away. Marginalised professionals who carry disproportionate emotional labour often become exhausted long before performance metrics reveal strain or burnout. The cost appears later as disengagement, stalled progression, or sometimes mental health issues. Exit interviews rarely list “emotional labour” explicitly. Instead, they reference culture, fit, or leadership style. The underlying dynamic remains unnamed but materially impactful.
Third, leadership blind spots widen. When discomfort is suppressed, early warning signals disappear. Frustration, disappointment, anger, and grief are not disruptions to culture; they provide data for it. If professionalism requires employees to smooth over tension, leaders are deprived of insight into morale, inequity, and structural friction. The organisation becomes less adaptive because it cannot accurately read itself.
Fourth, inequity widens. When emotional expression is interpreted through power, performance evaluations become subtly distorted. Some employees are described as passionate, decisive, or visionary. Others expressing similar affect are labelled reactive, difficult, or unstable. Over time, these patterned interpretations influence visibility, promotion, and subsequently pay. Bias becomes institutionalised through emotional language.
The cost of emotional suppression has far more consequences and is therefore not abstract. It is strategic. It affects retention, innovation, leadership accuracy, equity outcomes, and institutional trust.
Redefining professionalism for modern leadership
A more sustainable vision of professionalism does not eliminate standards or boundaries. It demands greater emotional maturity at the leadership level. It recognises emotion as information (about culture, power, morale, and inclusion) rather than as evidence of weakness. It makes space for voice, stronger teamwork, complexity, and better constructive critique without requiring emotional self-erasure as the price of credibility.
The real challenge for leaders is not to demand less emotion at work. It is to build professional cultures capable of engaging with emotion intelligently, consistently, and fairly. When leaders expand what is considered professionally acceptable, they reduce the disproportionate emotional labour carried by those on the margins and strengthen the organisation as a whole. Professionalism should not be measured by how well someone disappears emotionally. It should be measured by how responsibly they show up.
Redesigning professional culture at leadership level
This conversation rarely ends with awareness alone. I work with CEOs and senior leadership teams to examine how professionalism is defined, established, and modelled inside their organisations. Together, we build emotionally intelligent cultures that reduce hidden inequities and strengthen performance. Through one-to-one advisory work and organisational consulting, I support leaders who are ready to redesign, not just reflect.
Read more from Rae-Anne Cohen
Rae-Anne Cohen, Emotional Intelligence Coach
Rae-Anne Cohen is a future-focused changemaker and rising voice in emotional intelligence. Completing her PhD in Education at King’s College London, she examines the sociological forces that shape emotional life and uses these insights to re-imagine how people lead, connect, and communicate. Her work equips individuals and organizations with tools to deepen self-awareness, strengthen relationships, and build more emotionally intelligent cultures. A multilingual speaker fuelled by a deep commitment to human connection, Rae-Anne brings her research to global stages, inspiring new models of leadership and collective wellbeing that place emotional understanding at the heart of societal progress.
