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In the beginning sections of Authentic: The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work, writer the author issues a provocation: typical advice to “bring your true self” or “present your real identity in the workplace” are not harmless encouragements for self-expression – they often become snares. Burey’s debut book – a blend of recollections, investigation, cultural commentary and discussions – attempts to expose how companies appropriate personal identity, moving the burden of organizational transformation on to staff members who are often marginalized.

Professional Experience and Broader Context

The driving force for the publication stems partly in Burey’s personal work history: different positions across retail corporations, new companies and in international development, viewed through her experience as a Black disabled woman. The dual posture that Burey faces – a tension between standing up for oneself and seeking protection – is the driving force of her work.

It arrives at a time of widespread exhaustion with corporate clichés across America and other regions, as resistance to diversity and inclusion efforts mount, and various institutions are scaling back the very systems that earlier assured progress and development. Burey delves into that terrain to contend that backing away from corporate authenticity talk – specifically, the corporate language that minimizes personal identity as a collection of aesthetics, idiosyncrasies and interests, leaving workers focused on managing how they are viewed rather than how they are regarded – is not an effective response; we must instead redefine it on our individual conditions.

Underrepresented Employees and the Display of Identity

By means of colorful examples and interviews, the author demonstrates how employees from minority groups – employees from diverse backgrounds, LGBTQ+ people, women, people with disabilities – quickly realize to calibrate which persona will “pass”. A vulnerability becomes a drawback and people try too hard by attempting to look agreeable. The effort of “showing your complete identity” becomes a reflective surface on which various types of expectations are placed: emotional labor, sharing personal information and continuous act of thankfulness. According to Burey, we are asked to expose ourselves – but without the defenses or the confidence to withstand what emerges.

According to the author, employees are requested to reveal ourselves – but without the protections or the trust to withstand what emerges.’

Illustrative Story: An Employee’s Journey

She illustrates this phenomenon through the narrative of Jason, a hearing-impaired staff member who chose to inform his colleagues about deaf culture and communication norms. His willingness to discuss his background – an act of openness the organization often commends as “authenticity” – briefly made everyday communications easier. However, Burey points out, that improvement was precarious. When staff turnover erased the informal knowledge the employee had developed, the culture of access dissolved with it. “Everything he taught left with them,” he notes wearily. What remained was the exhaustion of needing to begin again, of having to take charge for an institution’s learning curve. In Burey’s view, this is what it means to be told to reveal oneself without protection: to endanger oneself in a structure that praises your transparency but refuses to institutionalize it into policy. Genuineness becomes a pitfall when organizations rely on employee revelation rather than institutional answerability.

Writing Style and Concept of Dissent

Burey’s writing is both clear and expressive. She blends scholarly depth with a manner of solidarity: an offer for followers to participate, to question, to dissent. In Burey’s opinion, dissent at work is not noisy protest but principled refusal – the practice of opposing uniformity in environments that require gratitude for mere inclusion. To dissent, in her framing, is to challenge the stories companies tell about equity and acceptance, and to decline involvement in customs that perpetuate inequity. It may appear as calling out discrimination in a discussion, choosing not to participate of uncompensated “equity” labor, or setting boundaries around how much of oneself is provided to the company. Resistance, the author proposes, is an declaration of personal dignity in spaces that frequently encourage conformity. It represents a practice of principle rather than defiance, a method of insisting that an individual’s worth is not dependent on organizational acceptance.

Redefining Genuineness

Burey also rejects inflexible opposites. Authentic avoids just toss out “genuineness” wholesale: rather, she urges its reclamation. According to the author, sincerity is not the raw display of character that organizational atmosphere often celebrates, but a more deliberate harmony between personal beliefs and one’s actions – a honesty that rejects alteration by corporate expectations. Rather than viewing sincerity as a directive to overshare or adapt to cleansed standards of openness, Burey urges readers to preserve the aspects of it rooted in truth-telling, personal insight and principled vision. From her perspective, the goal is not to abandon sincerity but to relocate it – to transfer it from the executive theatrical customs and to relationships and organizations where confidence, justice and answerability make {