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Within the beginning sections of the book Authentic, author Jodi-Ann Burey poses a challenge: typical advice to “be yourself” or “show up completely genuine at work” are not benevolent calls for individuality – they’re traps. Burey’s debut book – a mix of recollections, research, cultural critique and discussions – seeks to unmask how organizations co-opt identity, transferring the burden of corporate reform on to individual workers who are frequently at risk.

Personal Journey and Wider Environment

The driving force for the publication stems partly in the author’s professional path: various roles across corporate retail, new companies and in worldwide progress, viewed through her background as a woman of color with a disability. The conflicting stance that the author encounters – a back-and-forth between standing up for oneself and seeking protection – is the driving force of her work.

It lands at a moment of collective fatigue with corporate clichés across the US and beyond, as opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs mount, and many organizations are reducing the very systems that earlier assured progress and development. The author steps into that arena to assert that backing away from the language of authenticity – namely, the organizational speech that minimizes personal identity as a collection of aesthetics, idiosyncrasies and pastimes, keeping workers focused on controlling how they are viewed rather than how they are regarded – is not a solution; instead, we need to redefine it on our own terms.

Underrepresented Employees and the Performance of Persona

Via colorful examples and conversations, Burey illustrates how employees from minority groups – individuals of color, LGBTQ+ people, female employees, people with disabilities – learn early on to modulate which self will “pass”. A sensitive point becomes a liability and people compensate excessively by striving to seem acceptable. The practice of “bringing your full self” becomes a reflective surface on which all manner of anticipations are placed: emotional work, disclosure and continuous act of gratitude. As the author states, employees are requested to expose ourselves – but lacking the protections or the confidence to withstand what comes out.

According to the author, we are asked to reveal ourselves – but lacking the safeguards or the trust to survive what emerges.’

Real-Life Example: An Employee’s Journey

The author shows this dynamic through the narrative of an employee, a hearing-impaired staff member who took it upon himself to inform his co-workers about deaf culture and communication practices. His readiness to talk about his life – an act of transparency the workplace often praises as “sincerity” – for a short time made routine exchanges smoother. Yet, the author reveals, that improvement was precarious. After employee changes eliminated the informal knowledge he had established, the culture of access disappeared. “Everything he taught departed with those employees,” he notes wearily. What remained was the fatigue of needing to begin again, of being made responsible for an company’s developmental journey. In Burey’s view, this demonstrates to be told to expose oneself without protection: to risk vulnerability in a framework that celebrates your honesty but declines to institutionalize it into policy. Genuineness becomes a snare when organizations rely on personal sharing rather than organizational responsibility.

Author’s Approach and Notion of Opposition

Her literary style is at once understandable and expressive. She blends academic thoroughness with a style of solidarity: an offer for audience to lean in, to question, to dissent. In Burey’s opinion, workplace opposition is not noisy protest but ethical rejection – the effort of resisting conformity in workplaces that expect thankfulness for simple belonging. To resist, from her perspective, is to challenge the narratives organizations describe about equity and acceptance, and to refuse engagement in rituals that maintain inequity. It could involve identifying prejudice in a meeting, choosing not to participate of voluntary “inclusion” work, or defining borders around how much of one’s identity is made available to the institution. Opposition, Burey indicates, is an affirmation of individual worth in spaces that often encourage conformity. It is a habit of honesty rather than rebellion, a approach of asserting that one’s humanity is not based on organizational acceptance.

Redefining Genuineness

She also refuses brittle binaries. Her work does not simply toss out “sincerity” wholesale: on the contrary, she advocates for its restoration. In Burey’s view, genuineness is not the unfiltered performance of personality that business environment often celebrates, but a more thoughtful harmony between individual principles and individual deeds – a honesty that rejects alteration by institutional demands. Instead of treating genuineness as a mandate to overshare or conform to sterilized models of openness, Burey advises audience to maintain the aspects of it rooted in truth-telling, individual consciousness and ethical clarity. From her perspective, the objective is not to abandon authenticity but to relocate it – to remove it from the corporate display practices and to interactions and workplaces where reliance, equity and answerability make {