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In the opening pages of the publication Authentic, writer the author raises a critical point: everyday injunctions to “come as you are” or “show up completely genuine at work” are not harmless encouragements for personal expression – they’re traps. This initial publication – a mix of personal stories, research, cultural critique and discussions – attempts to expose how companies take over individual identity, moving the weight of institutional change on to employees who are already vulnerable.

Personal Journey and Wider Environment

The impetus for the book originates in part in the author’s professional path: different positions across business retail, startups and in international development, filtered through her experience as a woman of color with a disability. The conflicting stance that Burey experiences – a push and pull between asserting oneself and aiming for security – is the core of her work.

It lands at a period of collective fatigue with organizational empty phrases across America and other regions, as backlash to diversity and inclusion efforts grow, and various institutions are scaling back the very frameworks that previously offered transformation and improvement. The author steps into that arena to assert that retreating from corporate authenticity talk – specifically, the organizational speech that reduces individuality as a set of appearances, peculiarities and pastimes, leaving workers focused on handling how they are seen rather than how they are handled – is not an effective response; instead, we need to redefine it on our personal terms.

Underrepresented Employees and the Act of Self

By means of detailed stories and conversations, Burey shows how underrepresented staff – individuals of color, LGBTQ+ people, women, disabled individuals – soon understand to modulate which identity will “fit in”. A weakness becomes a liability and people try too hard by working to appear agreeable. The effort of “bringing your full self” becomes a reflective surface on which numerous kinds of expectations are projected: emotional labor, disclosure and constant performance of gratitude. In Burey’s words, workers are told to expose ourselves – but without the safeguards or the confidence to endure what comes out.

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

Illustrative Story: Jason’s Experience

Burey demonstrates this phenomenon through the narrative of Jason, a employee with hearing loss who decided to teach his colleagues about the culture of the deaf community and interaction standards. His readiness to talk about his life – a gesture of candor the office often praises as “authenticity” – briefly made everyday communications smoother. But as Burey shows, that progress was fragile. After personnel shifts erased the unofficial understanding he had established, the culture of access dissolved with it. “All of that knowledge went away with the staff,” he notes wearily. What was left was the fatigue of needing to begin again, of being held accountable for an company’s developmental journey. From the author’s perspective, this demonstrates to be asked to reveal oneself lacking safeguards: to face exposure in a system that celebrates your transparency but refuses to formalize it into procedure. Genuineness becomes a snare when institutions depend on personal sharing rather than organizational responsibility.

Literary Method and Notion of Opposition

The author’s prose is at once lucid and expressive. She blends intellectual rigor with a manner of connection: an invitation for readers to lean in, to interrogate, to dissent. For Burey, professional resistance is not noisy protest but ethical rejection – the practice of resisting conformity in environments that require appreciation for basic acceptance. To dissent, from her perspective, is to challenge the stories institutions tell about equity and inclusion, and to decline involvement in rituals that perpetuate inequity. It could involve calling out discrimination in a discussion, opting out of unpaid “diversity” effort, or establishing limits around how much of oneself is provided to the organization. Resistance, the author proposes, is an assertion of self-respect in environments that frequently praise compliance. It represents a habit of integrity rather than rebellion, a method of insisting that a person’s dignity is not based on institutional approval.

Redefining Genuineness

Burey also rejects rigid dichotomies. Authentic does not merely toss out “genuineness” entirely: on the contrary, she urges its restoration. For Burey, authenticity is not the raw display of individuality that organizational atmosphere typically applauds, but a more intentional alignment between one’s values and one’s actions – a honesty that opposes distortion by organizational requirements. Instead of viewing genuineness as a requirement to reveal too much or adapt to sterilized models of transparency, Burey urges audience to keep the aspects of it based on honesty, individual consciousness and principled vision. According to Burey, the objective is not to discard sincerity but to move it – to move it out of the boardroom’s performative rituals and toward connections and offices where reliance, justice and responsibility make {