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In the beginning sections of Authentic: The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work, writer Jodi-Ann Burey issues a provocation: commonplace directives to “bring your true self” or “bring your full, authentic self to work” are not benevolent calls for individuality – they often become snares. This initial publication – a combination of memoir, investigation, cultural critique and interviews – seeks to unmask how organizations take over individual identity, transferring the weight of institutional change on to staff members who are already vulnerable.

Professional Experience and Larger Setting

The driving force for the book originates in part in Burey’s personal work history: multiple jobs across retail corporations, new companies and in worldwide progress, viewed through her perspective as a Black disabled woman. The dual posture that Burey faces – a tension between standing up for oneself and looking for safety – is the engine of Authentic.

It emerges at a period of general weariness with organizational empty phrases across America and other regions, as backlash to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs increase, and many organizations are cutting back the very structures that once promised change and reform. Burey delves into that terrain to argue that withdrawing from authenticity rhetoric – that is, the business jargon that reduces individuality as a grouping of aesthetics, quirks and pastimes, keeping workers focused on handling how they are seen rather than how they are treated – is not the answer; rather, we should reinterpret it on our individual conditions.

Marginalized Workers and the Performance of Persona

Through colorful examples and conversations, the author demonstrates how underrepresented staff – people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, female employees, people with disabilities – quickly realize to modulate which identity will “pass”. A vulnerability becomes a drawback and people overcompensate by striving to seem palatable. The act of “showing your complete identity” becomes a projection screen on which various types of expectations are projected: emotional labor, revealing details and ongoing display of gratitude. According to Burey, we are asked to expose ourselves – but without the safeguards or the trust to withstand what comes out.

As Burey explains, employees are requested to share our identities – but lacking the defenses or the confidence to survive what arises.’

Real-Life Example: Jason’s Experience

Burey demonstrates this dynamic through the account of Jason, a hearing-impaired staff member who chose to inform his co-workers about deaf culture and communication norms. His readiness to talk about his life – a behavior of candor the organization often praises as “sincerity” – briefly made daily interactions easier. Yet, the author reveals, that progress was fragile. After employee changes erased the unofficial understanding Jason had built, the atmosphere of inclusion vanished. “All the information went away with the staff,” he comments exhaustedly. What remained was the fatigue of being forced to restart, of being made responsible for an company’s developmental journey. According to Burey, this demonstrates to be asked to expose oneself absent defenses: to face exposure in a system that applauds your honesty but declines to formalize it into regulation. Authenticity becomes a pitfall when organizations count on personal sharing rather than structural accountability.

Author’s Approach and Concept of Dissent

Her literary style is both lucid and lyrical. She marries scholarly depth with a style of solidarity: an offer for followers to engage, to interrogate, to disagree. According to the author, workplace opposition is not overt defiance but principled refusal – the effort of resisting conformity in environments that demand gratitude for basic acceptance. To oppose, in her framing, is to challenge the narratives companies describe about equity and inclusion, and to decline engagement in rituals that perpetuate injustice. It could involve calling out discrimination in a meeting, opting out of uncompensated “equity” work, or defining borders around how much of oneself is provided to the company. Resistance, she suggests, is an declaration of personal dignity in spaces that typically praise conformity. It constitutes a habit of principle rather than defiance, a method of maintaining that an individual’s worth is not conditional on organizational acceptance.

Restoring Sincerity

She also refuses inflexible opposites. Her work does not simply toss out “genuineness” wholesale: rather, she urges its redefinition. According to the author, authenticity is not the raw display of personality that business environment typically applauds, but a more thoughtful alignment between one’s values and personal behaviors – a principle that rejects distortion by organizational requirements. As opposed to viewing authenticity as a directive to overshare or adjust to sterilized models of transparency, the author encourages followers to keep the aspects of it based on sincerity, self-awareness and moral understanding. In her view, the goal is not to give up on authenticity but to move it – to transfer it from the corporate display practices and into connections and organizations where trust, fairness and accountability make {