In the age of AI and social media, nothing beats authenticity. We want to know that your writing or Instagram feed or fabric or ethnic food has no artifice and is not chemically or technologically altered.
But what exactly is personal authenticity? In the 2024 election, I heard several young people online saying that they preferred Trump to Kamala, because at least he was authentic. In these definitions, they were equating authenticity with personality, with saying exactly what’s on one’s mind, and behaving the same no matter what situation you’re in.
Is there more than one way to be authentic? Is authenticity subjective?
In service of authenticity, leadership books, podcasts, and explainer articles are constantly advising people, when facing a new endeavor like interviewing for a job, or recording their own audiobook (was researching how to narrate my forthcoming memoir), to just be themselves — as if it is the easiest, most natural thing in the world.
But for many people, the be yourself line of advice isn’t comforting. Not everyone has had the luxury — the time and the right people — to learn who they really are. Others, like mothers coming back into the workforce after an extended break, may be going through transitions that make self-knowledge slippery. There’s no shame in this: identity is ever evolving and sometimes difficult to pin down.
I do appreciate the message underlying be yourself: you don’t have puff yourself up or pretend to be something you’re not to be successful. And yet, some people do actively pretend to be someone else or get stuck in a performance of their own persona, aka shtick, which can be perceived as authentic until otherwise exposed.
This documentary ^ about a young man who pretends to be an Indian guru is fascinating. I would argue that authentic aspects of his own personality came through in that role.
Another problem with just be yourself is that it ignores context entirely. What does being yourself look like on a third date? When you’re coaching a little league team? Giving a presentation at the office? You might show up differently in these situations. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re inauthentic. It means you’re being authentic to something other than your personality or feelings, such as values, a role, or the task at hand.
Identifying tasks is a good place to start
A person with strong HI (Human Intelligence) needs the freedom to behave differently in a variety of roles. And what are roles? A collection of overarching tasks. A boss’s task is to ensure that work is getting done efficiently. A parent’s task is to nourish, nurture, protect, and love. A student’s task is to learn, but not without questioning authority. Rather than advising just be yourself, a more grounding approach to helping others relax and be authentic would be to offer one or two overarching tasks to focus on.
For example, in the first round of a job interview, what if your tasks are to make a connection with the interviewer and find out if it’s a good fit? Focusing on these tasks will enable you to make eye contact, be open to humor, and ask certain questions. It also diminishes anxiety by putting you in the driver's seat: i.e. if you are open to making a connection but you don’t feel one, that’s information about the fit — not your eligibility.
Knowing what your task is in any given situation automatically connects you to a corresponding role. This role is not a performance. It’s an efficient way to be. I always think about my colleague, a therapist who told the story of hearing a crash and cry coming from his daughter’s room. He ran there in a panic. But he believed that a parent’s job was to provide calm in the face of chaos. So before entering, he took a deep breath and donned a mask of serenity so that he could be there for his child without her having to respond to his panic. (She had fallen from standing on a chair and was okay.) It’s a great example of task, role, and supreme authenticity.
Professionalism often requires that you deny what feels authentic to be authentic in the role. If you’ve ever wanted to curse out a customer, you know what I mean. On the flip side, a new boss I worked with believed in being supportive and available to her staff. But after an employee approached her for the fourth time in one week with a question about how to proceed, she realized that being her helpful self was disempowering for the employee. She kindly requested that the employee figure this one out on her own.
Values and transparency are good measures of authenticity, too:
In addition to being authentic to a role, you can be authentic to values, or transparent when you need to stray from a stated agreement. Consider these choices:
A happily married TV actor feels an intense, real-life attraction to their co-star. They reserve those feelings for the camera and keep a cool distance from their colleague, remaining authentic to their marital vows.
A local health food restaurant prides itself on having authentic ethnic cuisine prepared by visiting chefs. But when the truly indigenous ingredients are not available or labeled as GMOs, they swap those out with replacements and mention it in the menu.
As AI takes over, authenticity will be more and more valued. But being authentic is not fixed or rigid. Understanding this can help leaders of all kinds truly be themselves and part of our evolution.
So interesting. Authentic, I think, that's easy. Be real. But you aptly show how complicated that can be. Though beneath all the various manifestations of real-ness I think there's a core sameness that comes through.
Such a great point! Too easy to universalize something like this, where it leads to disaster. Grown-ups know the world is one big swimming pool of grey, which requires a willingness to make these kinds of authentic ethical decisions. The WHY behind them is what's important.