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Throughout the initial chapters of the book Authentic, writer Burey raises a critical point: commonplace injunctions to “be yourself” or “present your real identity in the workplace” are not harmless encouragements for individuality – they can be pitfalls. Her first book – a blend of memoir, studies, cultural critique and interviews – attempts to expose how businesses co-opt identity, moving the weight of organizational transformation on to staff members who are already vulnerable.

Personal Journey and Broader Context

The impetus for the publication lies partially in the author’s professional path: different positions across corporate retail, emerging businesses and in international development, interpreted via her experience as a Black disabled woman. The dual posture that Burey experiences – a tension between standing up for oneself and aiming for security – is the core of her work.

It emerges at a time of general weariness with corporate clichés across the United States and internationally, as backlash to diversity and inclusion efforts grow, and many organizations are reducing the very frameworks that once promised change and reform. Burey enters that terrain to argue that retreating from corporate authenticity talk – that is, the business jargon that trivializes identity as a set of appearances, idiosyncrasies and interests, forcing workers focused on managing how they are seen rather than how they are regarded – is not the answer; instead, we need to reframe it on our personal terms.

Underrepresented Employees and the Display of Persona

Through detailed stories and interviews, Burey shows how marginalized workers – employees from diverse backgrounds, LGBTQ+ people, female employees, disabled individuals – quickly realize to adjust which self will “pass”. A weakness becomes a disadvantage and people overcompensate by attempting to look palatable. The effort of “showing your complete identity” becomes a projection screen on which numerous kinds of assumptions are projected: emotional labor, sharing personal information and constant performance of appreciation. As the author states, workers are told to expose ourselves – but absent the safeguards or the confidence to survive what arises.

‘In Burey’s words, workers are told to expose ourselves – but lacking the protections or the confidence to survive what arises.’

Real-Life Example: An Employee’s Journey

She illustrates this dynamic through the narrative of a worker, a deaf employee who took it upon himself to inform his colleagues about the culture of the deaf community and interaction standards. His eagerness to talk about his life – a gesture of transparency the organization often commends as “authenticity” – for a short time made daily interactions easier. However, Burey points out, that advancement was fragile. When personnel shifts wiped out the unofficial understanding Jason had built, the atmosphere of inclusion dissolved with it. “Everything he taught departed with those employees,” he states tiredly. What stayed was the weariness of having to start over, of being held accountable for an company’s developmental journey. From the author’s perspective, this demonstrates to be asked to expose oneself absent defenses: to risk vulnerability in a structure that applauds your honesty but fails to formalize it into procedure. Authenticity becomes a snare when institutions rely on personal sharing rather than structural accountability.

Literary Method and Idea of Resistance

Her literary style is both lucid and lyrical. She combines intellectual rigor with a style of connection: an offer for followers to engage, to challenge, to disagree. According to the author, professional resistance is not noisy protest but ethical rejection – the act of resisting conformity in environments that demand appreciation for simple belonging. To dissent, from her perspective, is to challenge the narratives companies tell about equity and inclusion, and to reject involvement in customs that sustain inequity. It might look like calling out discrimination in a meeting, choosing not to participate of unpaid “inclusion” effort, or defining borders around how much of one’s personal life is made available to the organization. Dissent, the author proposes, is an declaration of individual worth in environments that often reward compliance. It is a discipline of integrity rather than defiance, a approach of maintaining that an individual’s worth is not conditional on corporate endorsement.

Restoring Sincerity

She also refuses brittle binaries. The book avoids just toss out “authenticity” entirely: on the contrary, she advocates for its redefinition. For Burey, genuineness is far from the unrestricted expression of personality that business environment often celebrates, but a more thoughtful alignment between personal beliefs and individual deeds – a honesty that opposes manipulation by institutional demands. Rather than viewing authenticity as a requirement to reveal too much or adjust to sanitized ideals of transparency, Burey urges followers to keep the elements of it based on sincerity, self-awareness and principled vision. In her view, the objective is not to discard authenticity but to shift it – to move it out of the executive theatrical customs and to interactions and offices where trust, fairness and accountability make {