The Ways ‘Authenticity’ on the Job Can Become a Pitfall for Minority Workers
Within the initial chapters of the book Authentic, author Jodi-Ann Burey issues a provocation: commonplace directives to “be yourself” or “present your real identity in the workplace” are far from well-meaning invitations for individuality – they’re traps. Her first book – a mix of personal stories, investigation, cultural critique and discussions – seeks to unmask how companies take over individual identity, shifting the weight of corporate reform on to individual workers who are frequently at risk.
Professional Experience and Broader Context
The impetus for the publication lies partially in Burey’s own career trajectory: different positions across business retail, startups and in international development, viewed through her experience as a Black disabled woman. The two-fold position that Burey faces – a tension between standing up for oneself and aiming for security – is the engine of her work.
It lands at a time of collective fatigue with institutional platitudes across the US and beyond, as opposition to diversity and inclusion efforts mount, and numerous companies are cutting back the very frameworks that earlier assured progress and development. Burey delves into that terrain to contend that withdrawing from authenticity rhetoric – that is, the corporate language that minimizes personal identity as a collection of aesthetics, peculiarities and pastimes, forcing workers concerned with controlling how they are viewed rather than how they are treated – is not the answer; rather, we should redefine it on our own terms.
Marginalized Workers and the Performance of Identity
Via vivid anecdotes and conversations, Burey illustrates how underrepresented staff – individuals of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, women workers, disabled individuals – soon understand to modulate which self will “fit in”. A vulnerability becomes a drawback and people overcompensate by attempting to look agreeable. The practice of “bringing your full self” becomes a projection screen on which all manner of anticipations are cast: emotional work, disclosure and constant performance of gratitude. According to Burey, workers are told to reveal ourselves – but absent the defenses or the trust to withstand what comes out.
As Burey explains, we are asked to share our identities – but lacking the protections or the confidence to survive what emerges.’
Illustrative Story: An Employee’s Journey
Burey demonstrates this phenomenon through the story of an employee, a deaf employee who chose to teach his co-workers about deaf culture and interaction standards. His readiness to discuss his background – a behavior of transparency the organization often praises as “authenticity” – temporarily made daily interactions easier. Yet, the author reveals, that advancement was precarious. After staff turnover erased the unofficial understanding the employee had developed, the culture of access vanished. “Everything he taught left with them,” he notes wearily. What remained was the fatigue of being forced to restart, of being made responsible for an company’s developmental journey. According to Burey, this is what it means to be requested to share personally without protection: to endanger oneself in a framework that celebrates your honesty but fails to codify it into policy. Sincerity becomes a trap when institutions rely on employee revelation rather than structural accountability.
Literary Method and Notion of Opposition
Her literary style is both clear and poetic. She marries scholarly depth with a tone of solidarity: an invitation for audience to engage, to challenge, to oppose. For Burey, professional resistance is not overt defiance but moral resistance – the act of opposing uniformity in environments that demand appreciation for simple belonging. To resist, in her framing, is to question the narratives companies describe about equity and acceptance, and to reject involvement in rituals that perpetuate inequity. It could involve calling out discrimination in a meeting, choosing not to participate of unpaid “inclusion” labor, or establishing limits around how much of one’s personal life is offered to the institution. Dissent, the author proposes, is an declaration of personal dignity in settings that typically praise obedience. It represents a practice of honesty rather than defiance, a method of maintaining that one’s humanity is not conditional on organizational acceptance.
Restoring Sincerity
Burey also rejects brittle binaries. The book does not simply discard “sincerity” completely: instead, she advocates for its redefinition. For Burey, genuineness is not the unrestricted expression of personality that corporate culture typically applauds, but a more intentional alignment between individual principles and individual deeds – a honesty that resists manipulation by institutional demands. Rather than viewing sincerity as a requirement to reveal too much or conform to sanitized ideals of candor, Burey urges readers to maintain the parts of it based on sincerity, self-awareness and moral understanding. In her view, the goal is not to discard sincerity but to relocate it – to remove it from the executive theatrical customs and into interactions and organizations where trust, equity and answerability make {
