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Issue 1 > The soul of professionalism.

The soul of professionalism.

The Royal Bank of Canada perspective on what's involved in being a professional.

Who is a professional and who is not? The question is confusing. Professionalism means several different things. The only certainty about it is that it cannot be conferred by others. Professionalism must come from within…

The current use of the word 'professional' in reference to business attitudes is ironic in view of its traditional meaning. For centuries in western societies, a professional was precisely what a business person was not—it was commonly assumed that there was a higher purpose to professional activities than merely making a living. This put professional people on a higher social level than those 'in trade', who in turn were assumed to have only money in mind when doing their work.

The idea that a profession had a moral dimension denied to more straightforward commercial pursuits could be traced to the origin of the word in the Middle Ages. Then, a professional was someone who had vowed or 'professed' to devote his or her life to the service of God. It did not take long for certain secular workers to point out that they too had taken vows to serve mankind in the same selfless spirit. Thus teachers (or 'professors'), physicians and lawyers combined with the clergy to form the professional class.

In theory, professional people put ethics ahead of money-making or other personal interests. In practice, the reverse was often the case as professional codes were wantonly honoured in the breach.

Sleazy lawyers figure prominently in the literature of Elizabethan times, demonstrating that today's professional scandals draw on a long and dishonourable tradition. But since the majority of professionals over the ages proved honourable enough to retain public respect, the established professions enjoyed a degree of social esteem that was the envy of similar occupational groups.

These strove to gain greater prestige by claiming professional status. By the beginning of this century, dentists, accountants, engineers, architects and others had been formally added to the list of professions. From then on, the meaning of the word expanded informally to include other workers who had university degrees or the equivalent, and did not dirty their hands in their jobs.

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