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Within the initial chapters of the publication Authentic, author Jodi-Ann Burey poses a challenge: commonplace advice to “be yourself” or “present your real identity in the workplace” are far from well-meaning invitations for self-expression – they’re traps. Burey’s debut book – a blend of personal stories, research, cultural commentary and interviews – seeks to unmask how companies take over individual identity, shifting the burden of organizational transformation on to employees who are often marginalized.

Career Path and Wider Environment

The driving force for the publication stems partly in Burey’s personal work history: multiple jobs across corporate retail, new companies and in global development, viewed through her perspective as a woman of color with a disability. The conflicting stance that Burey faces – a tension between expressing one’s identity and aiming for security – is the engine of Authentic.

It lands at a moment of collective fatigue with organizational empty phrases across the United States and internationally, as opposition to diversity and inclusion efforts increase, and various institutions are reducing the very structures that earlier assured progress and development. Burey delves into that landscape to assert that retreating from authenticity rhetoric – specifically, the organizational speech that trivializes identity as a grouping of surface traits, quirks and hobbies, leaving workers focused on controlling how they are perceived rather than how they are regarded – is not the answer; we must instead reframe it on our personal terms.

Marginalized Workers and the Act of Identity

Through colorful examples and discussions, the author demonstrates how underrepresented staff – people of color, LGBTQ+ people, women, people with disabilities – learn early on to modulate which persona will “pass”. A weakness becomes a liability and people try too hard by working to appear acceptable. The practice of “showing your complete identity” becomes a display surface on which numerous kinds of expectations are projected: emotional labor, disclosure and constant performance of thankfulness. According to Burey, employees are requested to share our identities – but without the protections or the trust to survive what comes out.

As Burey explains, we are asked to share our identities – but lacking the protections or the confidence to endure what arises.’

Illustrative Story: An Employee’s Journey

She illustrates this phenomenon through the account of a worker, a deaf employee who chose to teach his team members about deaf culture and communication norms. His readiness to talk about his life – a gesture of transparency the workplace often commends as “sincerity” – briefly made routine exchanges more manageable. But as Burey shows, that improvement was unstable. When personnel shifts wiped out the unofficial understanding Jason had built, the atmosphere of inclusion dissolved with it. “All of that knowledge went away with the staff,” he comments exhaustedly. What remained was the exhaustion of being forced to restart, of being held accountable for an institution’s learning curve. In Burey’s view, this demonstrates to be asked to share personally without protection: to face exposure in a system that applauds your openness but fails to institutionalize it into policy. Genuineness becomes a pitfall when companies count on personal sharing rather than organizational responsibility.

Author’s Approach and Concept of Dissent

The author’s prose is at once understandable and lyrical. She combines intellectual rigor with a manner of kinship: a call for followers to engage, to interrogate, to oppose. According to the author, workplace opposition is not loud rebellion but principled refusal – the act of rejecting sameness in workplaces that expect appreciation for simple belonging. To resist, from her perspective, is to question the accounts institutions describe about justice and belonging, and to reject engagement in customs that maintain injustice. It might look like naming bias in a meeting, withdrawing of unpaid “inclusion” effort, or setting boundaries around how much of one’s identity is provided to the company. Opposition, the author proposes, is an declaration of self-respect in spaces that often encourage compliance. It constitutes a practice of honesty rather than defiance, a approach of insisting that an individual’s worth is not conditional on institutional approval.

Redefining Genuineness

She also refuses rigid dichotomies. The book avoids just discard “authenticity” wholesale: rather, she urges its redefinition. In Burey’s view, sincerity is not the raw display of individuality that business environment frequently praises, but a more deliberate harmony between individual principles and personal behaviors – an integrity that rejects distortion by institutional demands. Rather than considering authenticity as a mandate to disclose excessively or adapt to sterilized models of transparency, Burey urges audience to keep the elements of it based on honesty, self-awareness and moral understanding. According to Burey, the objective is not to give up on genuineness but to shift it – to move it out of the executive theatrical customs and into interactions and organizations where trust, equity and responsibility make {