The Unexpected Parallels Between the Lived LGBTQ Experience and Consulting

There’s a moment that happens in consulting over and over again. You’re sitting at a client dinner. Small talk starts flowing. Someone asks a seemingly simple question: “So, you mentioned you’re single… haven’t found a wife yet?”

For many people, it’s automatic conversation. For many LGBTQ professionals, there’s a split second where your brain starts running calculations.

Do I correct them? Do I redirect? Do I make this easier for everyone? What kind of environment is this? How safe does this feel?

And then you take the plunge: “I’m sure there’s a husband out there for me… just haven’t met him yet!”

One of the biggest misconceptions about coming out is that it happens once. It doesn’t.

As an LGBTQ person, you come out constantly—to new clients, new teams, new executives, new coworkers, new environments. Every interaction carries small decisions about visibility, safety, comfort, and authenticity.

And over time, I realized consulting works in a surprisingly similar way. As consultants, we are constantly entering unfamiliar organizations where we have to establish ourselves from scratch. Every engagement resets your identity. Your title and reputation may get you into the room, but trust still has to be earned once you arrive. You learn to read people quickly. You learn how to establish credibility. You learn how to adapt without completely losing yourself.

The longer I’ve worked in consulting, the more I’ve realized many of the capabilities we value most professionally are often shaped by experiences outside of work entirely. Navigating the world as an LGBTQ person requires a level of awareness, adaptability, and resilience that translates powerfully into leadership.

# Learning to Navigate Ambiguity Before Consulting Ever Taught Me To

One of the defining traits of consulting is ambiguity. Clients rarely hand you clean problems with clean answers. You enter situations with incomplete information, competing agendas, organizational politics, and pressure to create clarity where very little exists.

But ambiguity was not something I first learned in consulting. As an LGBTQ person, uncertainty often becomes part of how you move through the world. Sometimes in obvious ways. For example, I once had to travel to a location where homosexuality was illegal–that took research, understanding cultural norms before travel could occur, and the knowledge that there are still places in the world where being openly gay can carry real consequences.

But often it’s more subtle than that. You very often learn how to adapt in real time without always having complete information. That constant navigation develops a kind of situational awareness that translates directly into consulting and leadership work. Consulting is all about staying composed, thoughtful, and effective while operating in uncertainty.

# The Difference Visibility Can Make

Earlier in my career, I believed professionalism meant minimizing differences.Blend in, keep things neutral, and avoid making identity “the thing.” Like many LGBTQ professionals, I spent years carefully managing how much of myself showed up at work. Keeping personal details vague enough to feel safe but professional enough to feel acceptable.

At the time, I told myself it was strategic. What I didn’t realize was how exhausting it was. There is a cognitive weight that comes with constantly monitoring yourself, especially in high-performance environments like consulting, where perception already matters so much.

And ironically, the more experience I gained, the more I realized authenticity was not a distraction from professionalism. In many ways, it strengthened it.

I still remember one of the first times I casually referenced my participation in a Pride parade or my leadership within an LGBTQ Employee Belonging Group in a professional setting without rehearsing it beforehand or thinking through the implications afterward.

What surprised me most was not how others reacted, but how relieved I felt. Only later did I realize that people around me had noticed too and that my openness had made a difference to younger employees, LGBTQ colleagues, and other allies. People who suddenly felt permission to stop editing themselves so carefully in a number of different ways. And people who came up to you and shared that your visibility mattered to them!

That was the moment I started understanding that visibility in the professional world is not just symbolic; it changes environments. Not because identity needs to become the center of every interaction, but because authenticity creates psychological safety for other people, too.

Related Content: 5 Insights for LGBTQIA+ Leaders & Champions in Business

# The Kind of Leaders We Can Become

One of the greatest misconceptions in professional services is that leadership comes from polish. But clients rarely trust polished perfection as much as they trust authenticity. I have found that clients revel in the process of achieving progress rather than arriving at the destination of perfection.

The best consultants are not always the people with the fastest answers or the most flawless presentations. Often, they are the people who can tap into their authentic curiosity, listen actively, build trust quickly, navigate ambiguity calmly, communicate honestly, and create environments where others feel safe contributing fully. Those are leadership skills.

And I have found that many LGBTQ professionals spend years developing them long before anyone gives them a leadership title. That’s one of the reasons Pride matters in professional environments. Not simply because representation matters—though it absolutely does—but because lived experience shapes perspective, and perspective shapes leadership.

The qualities organizations increasingly ask leaders to demonstrate—empathy, adaptability, emotional intelligence, resilience, trust-building—are often forged through experiences people once felt pressured to hide.

To me, that’s one of the most powerful parts of Pride. It's a chance to celebrate identity itself, while recognizing how our experiences can shape the kind of professionals, teammates, and leaders we aspire to become.