For most of my life, I’ve worked with an internal translator running in the background of my brain.
Every time I wanted to speak in a meeting, contribute to a strategy, or lead a workshop, my thoughts had to pass through a heavy, exhausting filter. I was constantly editing my voice, my posture, and my reactions to ensure I was fulfilling a very specific, masculine archetype of what a leader was supposed to look like. I was a senior strategist at a high level, but a significant portion of my cognitive load was being diverted to maintaining a persona that didn’t actually fit the person underneath.
I thought I was simply the cost of being professional. I thought this was the price of admission to the boardroom. In reality, I was paying a performance tax that was insidiously eroding my impact and my energy.
In 2023, I transitioned. And while I would love to say that the act of living authentically instantly removed every form of self-monitoring, that wouldn’t be honest. I still find myself analysing my voice in real-time, worried about sounding too masculine or being “clocked” in a professional setting. The self-editing hasn’t gone away completely; but the alignment between my internal and external self has fundamentally changed the nature of the work I do.
It is a common misconception that I have suddenly become smarter or more capable since I started living as a woman. My toolkit is the same; my fifteen years of experience in transformation and strategy haven’t changed. What has changed is the removal of the limiter.
The Mental Translation
Whether you are transgender, an expat navigating a second language, neurodiverse, or a person of colour in a predominantly white boardroom, you are likely familiar with the translation layer.
This is the extra work required to move from what you actually want to say to what you feel the system will allow you to say. This tax is paid in every meeting, every email, and every client presentation. When you have to translate your natural personality and perspective into a corporate-approved dialect, you lose the frictionless impact of the original thought. You end up rounding off the edges of your most incisive ideas just so they can fit through the narrow door of what is considered professional.
For me, this translation layer meant I often hesitated. I would wait an extra beat to ensure my tone was correct or that my presence wasn’t making people uncomfortable. I was an expert, but I was an expert who was constantly trying to minimise my own silhouette.
Authenticity is often framed as a soft HR concept, but it is actually a matter of operational efficiency. When you stop translating, you start shouting louder. You begin to take up the space you actually deserve because you are no longer using half of your brain to monitor how you are sitting or whether your voice is at the right pitch. The energy I used to spend on performing masculinity is now being directed entirely into solving complex problems for my clients.
The Corporate Masculine Default
We need to be honest: corporate standards of professionalism are not neutral. They are historically built on the foundations of a masculine archetype. The systems we work in were designed to reward dominance, aggression, and coercion. These are the habits of a specific kind of toxic masculinity that we have mistakenly labelled as high performance.
In my past life, when I was perceived as a white, cis-presenting man, my assertiveness was seen as power. I had a huge amount of privilege that I resented. I didn’t want to use it because the system felt wrong, even when it was working in my favour.
Now, when I speak up with the same level of confidence, the perception has shifted. I am less likely to be seen as powerful and more likely to be seen as annoying, a pain in the ass, or even a bitch.
It is a fascinating and frustrating vantage point to have seen the boardroom from both sides. We are often taught that to succeed, we should mask our more feminine traits (including the empathy and collaboration that come with it), to fit into the masculine system.
But we also know that diversity of thought and presence is the primary driver of commercial success for modern businesses. This creates a strange tension where companies want the benefits of diversity but still enforce a professional standard that requires everyone to mask their differences to fit the status quo.
We are asking people to be diverse, but only in a way that doesn’t challenge the masculine default.
High Performance and the Mask
In my work as a leader, I’ve noticed a consistent pattern: high-performing teams mask less than low-performing ones.
If your team is constantly self-editing, they aren’t truly innovating. They are surviving. They are spending their energy navigating the social politics of the room rather than the strategic challenges of the project. Masking is often hard to identify, even for the person doing it. It becomes a baseline state of being.
There are specific individuals in every organisation who are more likely to be professional maskers:
- Expats or people for whom English is a second language, who are translating more than just their words;
- Queer and gender-diverse people navigating whether it is safe to be seen;
- Diverse people who don’t see their own skin tone or background reflected in the leadership team;
- Neurodiverse people trying to force their non-linear thinking into a linear corporate box; or
- Individuals who feel they are slightly left of centre and don’t feel comfortable expressing their true personality.
Helping these people find their authentic power is the key to unlocking growth.
If a team appears to be hitting their KPIs but everyone is wearing a mask, you’re only getting a fraction of their actual capability.
You’re missing out on the insights that only come when someone feels safe enough to stop translating and start contributing their raw, unedited perspective.
The Role of the Unmasked Leader
I didn’t reach a professional breaking point that forced my transition, it was more complex than that (a story for another time). But I did have the benefit of working with a manager who made masking unnecessary.
My manager, Natalia Traldi Bezerra, was a key part of my journey. As a Brazilian woman who has lived and worked in Australia for over a decade, she understood the weight of the mask intimately.
She knew what it felt like to edit herself every day. She knew what that friction felt like. The difference between our internal and external selves. Because she had faced that friction, she was able to create a space where I felt safe enough to start dismantling my own filters.
This showed me that leadership is not about enforcing a standard of professionalism that everyone must mimic. It is about celebrating uniqueness so that the masks become an unnecessary burden. When a leader is honest about their own struggles and their own translation layers, it gives the rest of the team permission to do the same.
Reclaiming the Space
Rebuilding my career while navigating my transition has required an immense amount of grit. It’s forced me to get comfortable with the silence that often follows a major life change. At first it’s exciting and new, and then it quickly becomes BAU.
But, more importantly, it’s also given me a level of confidence I never had when I was hiding.
I am more aligned with my inner voice now than I have ever been. I am more confident in saying what I think is right from the outset, rather than waiting for the correct moment or the correct tone.
So, my advice to you, dear reader, stop paying the performance tax.
Whether you are returning from leave, moving to a new country, or simply tired of performing a version of yourself that doesn’t fit, remember that your expertise is not tied to your mask.
Your toolkit is full. Your perspective is unique. It is time to stop editing, stop translating, and start taking up the space you were always meant to occupy.
Thanks for reading.
Jen