The MASK That Keeps Us Hidden at Work—and How to Drop It

How rec­og­niz­ing the every­day ways we stay guard­ed could un­leash the au­then­tic­i­ty your workplace needs.

In our last post, I shared how fir­ing my “per­fect self” opened the door to real change—per­sonal­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly. But it wasn’t just a dra­mat­ic piv­ot. It was also the
be­gin­ning of rec­ogniz­ing how many pro­tec­tive “mask” I’d been wear­ing all along. And I soon re­al­ized: I’m not the only one.

Let’s talk about this “mask.” They’re not lit­er­al. It’s a med­ley habits and mind­sets we pick up —of­ten with­out notic­ing—that keep us from show­ing our real tal­ents or con­cerns.
Af­ter working with lead­ers and teams for al­most 30 years, I saw these habits in so many peo­ple’s be­havior that I con­densed them into some­thing I call The MASK Frame­work^TM. Each let­ter rep­resents a pro­tec­tive pat­tern we use when we’re afraid of be­ing too much, not enough, or sim­ply un­com­fort­able with be­ing our­selves at work.

Why MASK in the First Place?

Think back: have you ever mut­ed your­self in a meet­ing, even though you had an
in­sight? Agreed with a plan you se­cret­ly thought was flawed? Those mo­ments usu­al­ly come from fear: fear of step­ping on toes, look­ing fool­ish, or not fit­ting the “ide­al
cor­po­rate” mold.

But here’s the cost: We end up short-chang­ing our con­tri­bu­tions, sti­fling gen­uine
ex­changes, and even­tu­al­ly feel­ing drained from nev­er be­ing tru­ly “us.” The re­sult is a work­place that’s “fine” on the sur­face but miss­ing the deep­er cre­ativ­i­ty, trust, and spark that come from let­ting peo­ple be real.

M: Mut­ing

What It Looks Like

• You hold back ideas or con­cerns in group set­tings.
• You go with the flow, even if your gut says oth­er­wise.
• You rarely chal­lenge the sta­tus quo—stay­ing qui­et is eas­i­er.

Why We Wear It

• We’d rather avoid con­fronta­tion or risk sound­ing “sil­ly.”
• We’ve learned that “speak­ing out” can some­times in­vite crit­i­cism or ex­tra scru­tiny.

The Cost

• Great in­sights re­main buried.
• Col­leagues nev­er see your full per­spec­tive, los­ing out on po­ten­tial break­throughs.
• Over time, you might doubt your own ideas—even out­side of work.

A Quick Shift

• In your next group dis­cus­sion, com­mit to shar­ing just one thought you’d nor­mal­ly keep in­side. Even a small hon­est ques­tion (“Have we con­sid­ered…?”) can open doors to
  deep­er di­a­logue.

A: Ap­proval-Seek­ing

What It Looks Like

• You shape your words to please or ap­pease, even if it doesn’t ful­ly re­flect your viewpoint.
• You feel un­easy if high­er-ups don’t ex­plic­it­ly praise your work.
• You end up with too many tasks on your plate be­cause you can’t say “no.”

Why We Wear It

• We all love feel­ing ac­cept­ed—and some­times that crav­ing over­shad­ows what’s tru­ly best for us or the team.
• Fear of re­ject­ing some­one’s re­quest makes us say “yes” more than we should.

The Cost

• Team mem­bers nev­er see your real in­put.
• You can stretch your­self thin, lead­ing to burnout.
• Prob­lems sim­mer be­cause every­one’s nod­ding but no one’s be­ing ful­ly can­did.

A Quick Shift

• Prac­tice a small, po­lite “no” in a sce­nario where you know you lack ca­pac­i­ty or alignment. You might say, “I’d love to help, but my cur­rent pri­or­i­ties won’t al­low it right now.” It feels un­com­fort­able at first, but it frees you to con­tribute mean­ing­ful­ly elsewhere.

S: Se­cu­ri­ty-Dri­ven

What It Looks Like

• You choose the safest route—even if it’s out­dat­ed or stag­nat­ing.
• You envy risk-tak­ers but dis­miss them as reck­less.
• You rou­tine­ly say, “It’s just not the right time,” to side­step new op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Why We Wear It

• Com­fort zones feel, well, com­fort­able. We wor­ry that try­ing some­thing bold might
  back­fire.
• Past lay­offs, fail­ures, or re­jec­tions might have taught us that “safe” is “smart.”

The Cost

• In­no­va­tion stalls be­cause no­body dares to ex­per­i­ment.
• Fear of “look­ing bad” over­shad­ows po­ten­tial learn­ing mo­ments.
• Oth­ers see a “play-it-safe” style as re­luc­tance to evolve.

A Quick Shift

• Pick one mod­er­ate “stretch” ac­tion—pitch a fresh idea or lead a short pi­lot test. Don’t gam­ble every­thing; just step be­yond your usu­al bound­ary. Even if it’s not a roar­ing success, you’ll grow from the process.

K: Kryptonite

What It Looks Like

• You hide vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, re­fus­ing to say “I’m stuck” or “I don’t know.”
• You ap­pear “tough” or “al­ways con­fi­dent,” but it’s of­ten a front.
• Deep down, you’re ex­haust­ed from hold­ing up that façade.

Why We Wear It

• We’re taught lead­ers should project con­fi­dence 24/7.
• Let­ting oth­ers see a flaw feels like it might un­der­mine au­thor­i­ty.

The Cost

• Oth­ers can’t as­sist or of­fer in­sights if they nev­er see your strug­gle.
• Trust re­mains lim­it­ed—peo­ple sense there’s a wall be­tween you and them.
• Con­stant ten­sion from pre­tend­ing you’re ful­ly in con­trol.

A Quick Shift

• Ad­mit one small un­cer­tain­ty to a trust­ed col­league or di­rect re­port. Ask, “Any suggestions on how to tack­le this?” You might be sur­prised how quick­ly that
  hon­esty builds rap­port and real sup­port.

Why Un­mask­ing Changes Every­thing

Each of these MASK pat­terns starts as self-pro­tec­tion, but over time, it be­comes the norm. By un­mask­ing—ac­knowl­edg­ing and gen­tly step­ping be­yond these habits—we cre­ate space for:

1. Real Di­a­logue: When peo­ple stop mut­ing ideas or seek­ing per­pet­u­al ap­proval,
   con­versations get richer.
2. Trust: Vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty (drop­ping the Kryp­tonite front) fos­ters clos­er con­nec­tions and team uni­ty.
3. Innovation: Risk-tak­ing, pow­ered by sup­port­ive re­la­tion­ships, pro­pels fresh think­ing.
4. Personal Energy: You no longer waste men­tal band­width on “Should I share this?” or “Will they still like me if I dis­agree?

In es­sence, re­mov­ing this mask means you and your team can spend en­er­gy ac­tu­al­ly solv­ing prob­lems, build­ing con­nec­tion, and ig­nit­ing cre­ativ­i­ty.

Next Steps on Our Jour­ney

Now that you’ve seen the Mask—Mut­ing, Ap­proval-Seek­ing, Se­cu­ri­ty-Dri­ven, and
Kryp­tonite—maybe one (or more) res­onates with you. That’s a good thing. Aware­ness is the first breakthrough to­ward show­ing up more ful­ly.

• • Try One Tiny Shift:
    • Speak up once, say a small “no,” vol­un­teer for a mod­er­ate risk, or ac­knowl­edge a small doubt. No­tice how it changes the tone or in­vites new in­put.
  • Reflect:
    • How did it feel? Did you dis­cov­er that your gen­uine voice caused pos­i­tive
      rip­ples?

And if you’re think­ing, “Wait, is it re­al­ly safe to do that in my work­place?”—stay tuned. In our next post, we’ll talk about an es­sen­tial piece of the puz­zle: the en­vi­ron­ment of
psy­cho­log­i­cal safe­ty. Be­cause when you’re sur­round­ed by sup­port­ive col­leagues who ac­tu­al­ly wel­come re­alness, these mi­cro-steps mul­ti­ply into big cul­tur­al shifts.

Mov­ing For­ward

If you’re cu­ri­ous about how these pat­terns show up in your team—and want a
struc­tured approach to un­mask them—feel free to ex­plore our work­shops at Au­then­tic Un­lim­it­ed. We pro­vide prac­ti­cal tools for lead­ers and teams ready to ditch the old,
lim­it­ing habits and embrace Work Made Hu­man^TM.

Be­cause ul­ti­mate­ly, once we drop the mask, the real break­throughs hap­pen. And that’s the kind of work that makes life at the of­fice (or home of­fice) not just tol­er­a­ble, but deeply re­warding.

Thanks for read­ing,

Joe Mar­ques

Founder, Au­then­tic Un­lim­it­ed — Be real. Con­nect deeply. Make a dif­fer­ence.