Defined as a combination of knowledge, skills, trustworthiness and altruism found in those who commit themselves to a life of service to others, professionalism now covers many more disciplines than the original professions of law, medicine and divinity. The professions have steadily proliferated as knowledge has expanded, requiring ever-more specialised education and spawning neo-professions.

The professions are also globalising, largely by following their clients in the business professions and perhaps to a lesser extent as the result of technology. Globalisation is now seen in all the professions, more or less, with some progressing faster than others. The faster ones are those led by business – the locomotive of globalisation. See, for example, the speed and scale of change anticipated in the legal profession in the YouTube clip below.

Given the changing scope and nature of the professions, perhaps it is timely to revisit the notion of professionalism. What is it about the professions that make them so special? Why have they been so consistently esteemed throughout history? Specialised knowledge has always given professionals power over their clients. Balancing the use of this power for individual and public good while meeting their own needs has long created an obligation for professionals to behave ethically. We’ve observed this need for ethics grow stronger as the half-life of specialised knowledge has become shorter with the exponential growth of information in our age.

As such, there are personal and public expectations of the professional based on the assumption that a professional is motivated by something other than raw gain. This is even an expectation of business professionals, whose explicit raison d’être is to make a profit. When a company promotes its paper as being made from recycled material or that no animal testing was done on its products, the public is reassured. The public is also reassured when a corporation’s CEO contributes to charity. They are less reassured when he or she flaunts wealth in ways reminiscent of a Roman bacchanalian banquet. Professionals, because they are professionals, are expected to have some sense of the larger picture of life – some sense of responsibility to the whole of society and humanity, a certain degree of altruism, a certain amount of selfless service.

But the internet, diminution of self-employment, and erosion of public trust are beginning to threaten the future of professionalism. Indeed, it has been argued that while professionalism, at present, seems to be holding its own, it may ultimately lose out to organisations. In its study of British professionalism, Spada – a UK research and communications consultancy – identified several other threats as well, including consumerism, the desire for instant gratification, lessening client loyalty, declining deference to and respect for authority, increasing media scrutiny and growing regulation. But Spada cite ethics, or the ‘real or perceived lack of ethical standards’ among the professions to be the ‘most serious of threats’ to the future of professionalism, asserting that ‘even more than the high-quality provision of services, professional ethics are paramount to maintaining the public trust’.

It is of some concern, then, that in his book The Creation and Destruction of Value: The Globalization Cycle, Princeton economic historian, Harold James, argues that the greatest danger of the current financial crisis is not the destruction of wealth but the destruction of value in the moral sense: the erosion of trust. There is an uncertainty about values, such that people wonder if the rules of the game still hold. Likening current times to the bank failures of 1931, James says people are once again drawing back from institutions out of mistrust: ‘Ethical questions have become again absolutely central…We are back in a world in which trust is a virtue that is required as a logical precondition of being an effective participant in markets’.

This requirement for trust unquestionably applies to the professions. The Josephson Institute Report 2004 found that 80 per cent of people make their decision to buy from a corporation or firm based upon what they perceive about its ethics. Seventy-four percent of people said they only buy shares in a company known to be ethical. Although there is a great deal of trust vested in the professions simply because they are professions, if individuals within them prove themselves unworthy of trust, it will reflect on the profession itself.

Trust is especially important in an increasingly transparent world where a damaging reputation can be flashed across the globe via the internet in a few minutes. Professionals do not escape unscathed the power of media like the internet to make or break the reputation of themselves and their profession. Erosion of trust due to unethical conduct can go viral in the wink of an eye.

Within this context, then, can the professions remain relevant – even credible and esteemed – in today’s world?

I argue, yes. Those with a true understanding of professionalism appreciate that its essence is its integrity – a sense of being beholden to use its asymmetrical knowledge and attendant power for the greater good of humanity and in service of truth. To continue to exist with integrity (and perhaps to exist at all), the professional must be attached to a transcendent ideal in order to overcome both the forces within professionalism itself – pressures to further the profession’s own prestige and profits – and the forces of organisations.

According to the Spada report, it is this attachment to a higher ideal – even more so than safeguarding knowledge and skill – that will assure the independence and longevity of any given profession. As long as professionals and professions hold onto their integrity – even and especially in an age of globalisation – they will not only survive and flourish, but professionalism will fulfil its role in serving humanity. As such, professionalism is not only relevant in today’s world: it is indispensable. The question arises, what do your actions say about you as a professional? And more to the point, how do they help or hinder the survival of the professions as a whole?

George Beaton has been the consummate professional for many years, from his time as a medical doctor through to his current roles as Executive Chairman of Beaton, a leading global research and consultancy for professional services firms, and Executive Director of WellmarkPerspexa, a marketing communications firm specialising in the B2B, healthcare and corporate sectors.

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