Early in my (Chantal’s) career, my manager, Scott, shared something in my annual review that I’ll never forget. My sarcastic sense of humor made some people uncomfortable. He recommended that I “tone it down a bit.”

I felt embarrassed and defensive. Since I was young, I’d always leveraged humor to connect and signal mental acuity. The feedback made me question what I thought I knew. Was my presumed superpower actually a liability? The conversation rattled me, and I didn’t know what to do with the feedback.

So often, early-career professionals enter the workforce and receive technical feedback from managers: fix code this way, prepare for a check-in using this template, sequence slides like this for a presentation. This type of feedback is helpful. Too often though, managers are nervous t

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