The Unwritten Rules of Work: Doing your job well is only part of the story.
This week, I had a conversation with an attorney who shared a story from early in her career. She told me about one of her first business lunches, and what she remembered most was not the legal discussion, but how uncertain she felt about the lunch itself.
What stayed with her was how terrified she was of the lunch itself.
She wasn’t worried about explaining her expertise or answering questions about the law. She knew her subject matter. What consumed her attention was everything surrounding the meal. Which fork do I use? When do I start eating? What if I order the wrong thing? What if I embarrass myself in front of people whose respect I’m trying to earn?
By the time the conversation turned to business, so much of her mental energy had been spent worrying about whether she was conducting herself correctly that it was harder to focus on what she was actually there to do.
As she shared her story, I realized it wasn’t really about dining etiquette. It was about the unwritten rules of work—the expectations that shape how people move through professional settings.
Every profession has them. They’re the expectations that rarely appear in an employee handbook but quietly shape trust, credibility, confidence, and opportunity. They’re the lessons you learn through observation, trial and error, and sometimes through moments that leave you wishing someone had simply told you what to expect.
Her story resonated with me because it reminded me of my own early career. Like many people, I thought success was fairly straightforward. If I worked hard, treated people with respect, met my deadlines, and consistently delivered good work, I assumed everything else would naturally fall into place.
What I didn’t realize was that I was learning two jobs at once. One was the role I had been hired to do. The other was learning how to navigate the workplace itself.
No one handed me a playbook. I learned by watching people who seemed to know something I didn’t. I paid attention to how they built relationships, navigated difficult conversations, carried themselves in meetings, and earned trust. Some lessons came easily. Others came after awkward moments I’d rather not repeat.
Over the years, as I’ve coached executives, emerging leaders, and professionals across industries, I’ve realized that almost everyone has a story like ours. They remember the meeting where they weren’t sure when to speak up. The networking event where they felt completely out of place. The presentation where they spent more time worrying about how they appeared than what they wanted to say.
The issue wasn’t that they lacked talent. The issue was uncertainty.
When we’re trying to decode expectations we’ve never been taught, our confidence naturally takes a hit. Instead of focusing on contributing our ideas, building relationships, or solving problems, we’re using valuable mental energy trying to figure out whether we’re getting the unwritten rules right. That uncertainty can quietly chip away at our confidence and even our sense of belonging.
Some people have mentors who explain these things along the way. Others figure them out by carefully observing those around them. Many of us simply learn through experience, collecting lessons over the years that could have been shared in a single conversation.
That’s one of the reasons I’m so passionate about this work.
People often assume I teach professional presence or business etiquette. While those are certainly pieces of the puzzle, they aren’t the heart of what I do. What I really care about is helping people remove unnecessary barriers so they can show up fully as themselves. When you understand the expectations of a professional environment, you stop worrying so much about whether you’re “doing it right” and start focusing on the value you bring to the table. That’s where confidence begins to grow.
I also believe this creates an important opportunity for leaders. Instead of assuming everyone arrives with the same understanding of workplace norms, we can make those expectations visible. We can explain the “why” behind them. We can mentor rather than judge, and coach rather than criticize. In doing so, we create cultures where people spend less time wondering if they belong and more time making meaningful contributions.
That’s why I created The Modern Professional Playbook™ training series—to make the invisible visible.
It wasn’t designed to teach people how to fit into someone else’s mold or memorize a list of rules. It was created to make the invisible visible and help people spend less time figuring out the workplace and more time flourishing within it. It is the development opportunity I wish someone had years ago.
As I think back to that attorney’s story, I can’t help but wonder how differently that lunch might have felt if someone had taken ten minutes beforehand to walk her through what to expect. Imagine how much more present, confident, and engaged she could have been if she hadn’t been carrying the weight of uncertainty into the room.
That’s the power of making the unwritten rules visible. It isn't about creating polished professionals. It's about creating prepared ones. Because when people feel prepared, confidence naturally follows.
And perhaps that’s one of the greatest gifts we can give the next generation of leaders: not just opportunities to succeed, but the clarity to walk into the room believing they already belong.