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Throughout the initial chapters of the publication Authentic, speaker the author issues a provocation: typical directives to “be yourself” or “show up completely genuine at work” are far from well-meaning invitations for self-expression – they often become snares. Burey’s debut book – a blend of personal stories, studies, cultural commentary and interviews – attempts to expose how organizations take over individual identity, transferring the weight of institutional change on to employees who are frequently at risk.

Professional Experience and Broader Context

The motivation for the publication lies partially in Burey’s personal work history: multiple jobs across corporate retail, startups and in global development, interpreted via her perspective as a Black disabled woman. The conflicting stance that the author encounters – a back-and-forth between asserting oneself and seeking protection – is the driving force of Authentic.

It lands at a moment of general weariness with institutional platitudes across the United States and internationally, as resistance to diversity and inclusion efforts mount, and various institutions are reducing the very structures that previously offered progress and development. The author steps into that terrain to contend that backing away from the language of authenticity – namely, the organizational speech that trivializes identity as a set of aesthetics, peculiarities and hobbies, forcing workers preoccupied with managing how they are viewed rather than how they are handled – is not a solution; rather, we should redefine it on our own terms.

Minority Staff and the Display of Identity

By means of colorful examples and conversations, Burey shows how underrepresented staff – employees from diverse backgrounds, LGBTQ+ individuals, female employees, disabled individuals – learn early on to modulate which identity will “fit in”. A vulnerability becomes a drawback and people compensate excessively by working to appear palatable. The act of “presenting your true self” becomes a projection screen on which all manner of anticipations are cast: affective duties, revealing details and continuous act of appreciation. As the author states, we are asked to expose ourselves – but without the defenses or the reliance to endure what comes out.

As Burey explains, workers are told to reveal ourselves – but absent the safeguards or the trust to withstand what emerges.’

Case Study: Jason’s Experience

The author shows this phenomenon through the narrative of Jason, a employee with hearing loss who decided to educate his colleagues about deaf community norms and interaction standards. His readiness to talk about his life – a behavior of transparency the organization often applauds as “authenticity” – temporarily made routine exchanges smoother. Yet, the author reveals, that progress was fragile. When staff turnover eliminated the unofficial understanding Jason had built, the culture of access vanished. “Everything he taught departed with those employees,” he comments exhaustedly. What stayed 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 absent defenses: to risk vulnerability in a system that celebrates your openness but declines to institutionalize it into policy. Authenticity becomes a trap when organizations depend on individual self-disclosure rather than structural accountability.

Writing Style and Idea of Resistance

The author’s prose is simultaneously lucid and lyrical. She combines intellectual rigor with a manner of connection: an offer for followers to lean in, to interrogate, to disagree. For Burey, workplace opposition is not loud rebellion but moral resistance – the act of rejecting sameness in environments that demand appreciation for simple belonging. To dissent, from her perspective, is to challenge the accounts companies tell about justice and belonging, and to refuse participation in rituals that maintain inequity. It could involve calling out discrimination in a discussion, choosing not to participate of unpaid “equity” work, or establishing limits around how much of one’s personal life is made available to the organization. Opposition, she suggests, is an assertion of personal dignity in environments that typically praise compliance. It constitutes a habit of integrity rather than defiance, a approach of maintaining that one’s humanity is not dependent on institutional approval.

Reclaiming Authenticity

She also refuses rigid dichotomies. Her work does not merely eliminate “authenticity” completely: instead, she calls for its restoration. In Burey’s view, sincerity is not the unrestricted expression of character that organizational atmosphere typically applauds, but a more intentional correspondence between individual principles and individual deeds – an integrity that rejects alteration by corporate expectations. Instead of treating sincerity as a directive to overshare or adapt to sanitized ideals of candor, Burey advises followers to maintain the aspects of it based on sincerity, individual consciousness and moral understanding. In her view, the aim is not to abandon genuineness but to shift it – to move it out of the boardroom’s performative rituals and toward connections and offices where trust, equity and answerability make {