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Within the beginning sections of the publication Authentic, author Burey poses a challenge: typical injunctions to “bring your true self” or “present your real identity in the workplace” are far from well-meaning invitations for self-expression – they can be pitfalls. Burey’s debut book – a combination of recollections, studies, cultural critique and interviews – attempts to expose how organizations appropriate personal identity, shifting the weight of organizational transformation on to individual workers who are already vulnerable.

Personal Journey and Wider Environment

The impetus for the work originates in part in Burey’s own career trajectory: multiple jobs across business retail, startups and in international development, interpreted via her background as a woman of color with a disability. The dual posture that the author encounters – a back-and-forth between asserting oneself and aiming for security – is the engine of the book.

It arrives at a period of widespread exhaustion with institutional platitudes across the United States and internationally, as resistance to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs grow, and numerous companies are cutting back the very systems that previously offered transformation and improvement. Burey enters that arena to contend that withdrawing from authenticity rhetoric – that is, the business jargon that minimizes personal identity as a grouping of appearances, idiosyncrasies and interests, leaving workers focused on handling how they are seen rather than how they are regarded – is not a solution; we must instead reframe it on our personal terms.

Minority Staff and the Performance of Self

Through detailed stories and conversations, the author demonstrates how employees from minority groups – employees from diverse backgrounds, members of the LGBTQ+ community, women workers, employees with disabilities – quickly realize to modulate which identity will “pass”. A weakness becomes a disadvantage and people try too hard by working to appear acceptable. The act of “bringing your full self” becomes a projection screen on which various types of anticipations are projected: emotional work, disclosure and continuous act of thankfulness. In Burey’s words, we are asked to expose ourselves – but lacking the defenses or the reliance to endure what emerges.

According to the author, we are asked to reveal ourselves – but absent the defenses or the confidence to withstand what comes out.’

Illustrative Story: The Story of Jason

Burey demonstrates this dynamic through the account of an employee, a employee with hearing loss who chose to teach his colleagues about the culture of the deaf community and interaction standards. His eagerness to share his experience – an act of candor the organization often commends as “authenticity” – for a short time made everyday communications more manageable. However, Burey points out, that improvement was unstable. After employee changes erased the informal knowledge Jason had built, the environment of accessibility vanished. “Everything he taught left with them,” he notes wearily. What remained was the weariness of being forced to restart, of being held accountable for an company’s developmental journey. From the author’s perspective, this illustrates to be told to expose oneself without protection: to face exposure in a framework that applauds your openness but refuses to codify it into regulation. Sincerity becomes a trap when organizations depend on employee revelation rather than institutional answerability.

Writing Style and Idea of Resistance

Her literary style is at once clear and expressive. She marries intellectual rigor with a style of kinship: an invitation for audience to engage, to challenge, to disagree. For Burey, workplace opposition is not loud rebellion but principled refusal – the effort of rejecting sameness in environments that require appreciation for simple belonging. To dissent, according to her view, is to challenge the stories organizations describe about justice and acceptance, and to decline participation in practices that perpetuate inequity. It could involve calling out discrimination in a discussion, choosing not to participate of unpaid “inclusion” work, or setting boundaries around how much of one’s personal life is made available to the organization. Opposition, she suggests, is an affirmation of personal dignity in spaces that typically praise obedience. It is a discipline of integrity rather than rebellion, a way of asserting that one’s humanity is not based on corporate endorsement.

Restoring Sincerity

She also refuses brittle binaries. The book does not merely eliminate “genuineness” completely: rather, she urges its redefinition. In Burey’s view, genuineness is far from the raw display of character that business environment typically applauds, but a more deliberate alignment between one’s values and individual deeds – an integrity that resists distortion by corporate expectations. Rather than treating genuineness as a mandate to disclose excessively or adjust to sterilized models of candor, Burey urges followers to preserve the aspects of it rooted in truth-telling, personal insight and principled vision. According to Burey, the objective is not to abandon authenticity but to relocate it – to transfer it from the executive theatrical customs and toward relationships and organizations where trust, fairness and responsibility make {