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Throughout the initial chapters of the publication Authentic, writer Jodi-Ann Burey poses a challenge: typical directives to “bring your true self” or “show up completely genuine at work” are far from well-meaning invitations for personal expression – they’re traps. Her first book – a mix of recollections, studies, societal analysis and conversations – seeks to unmask how companies co-opt identity, transferring the responsibility of organizational transformation on to individual workers who are already vulnerable.

Personal Journey and Wider Environment

The motivation for the book stems partly in Burey’s personal work history: different positions across corporate retail, emerging businesses and in worldwide progress, filtered through her background as a disabled Black female. The dual posture that Burey experiences – a back-and-forth between standing up for oneself and aiming for security – is the engine of her work.

It emerges at a moment of general weariness with corporate clichés across the United States and internationally, as resistance to DEI initiatives increase, and various institutions are reducing the very systems that earlier assured change and reform. The author steps into that arena to contend that withdrawing from corporate authenticity talk – specifically, the organizational speech that reduces individuality as a collection of appearances, quirks and hobbies, keeping workers focused on controlling how they are perceived rather than how they are handled – is not the answer; we must instead reinterpret it on our personal terms.

Marginalized Workers and the Act of Identity

Via detailed stories and discussions, Burey shows how marginalized workers – individuals of color, LGBTQ+ people, female employees, disabled individuals – quickly realize to calibrate which self will “be acceptable”. A sensitive point becomes a disadvantage and people compensate excessively by attempting to look palatable. The act of “presenting your true self” becomes a display surface on which all manner of expectations are projected: emotional labor, revealing details and ongoing display of appreciation. According to Burey, workers are told to expose ourselves – but absent the safeguards or the confidence to withstand what comes out.

As Burey explains, employees are requested to share our identities – but absent the safeguards or the trust to endure what arises.’

Real-Life Example: The Story of Jason

She illustrates this dynamic through the narrative of Jason, a hearing-impaired staff member who decided to inform his team members about deaf culture and communication practices. His eagerness to talk about his life – an act of transparency the organization often commends as “sincerity” – temporarily made daily interactions smoother. But as Burey shows, that progress was fragile. Once employee changes eliminated the casual awareness Jason had built, the culture of access vanished. “All the information left with them,” he notes wearily. What remained was the exhaustion of having to start over, of being made responsible for an institution’s learning curve. According to Burey, this is what it means to be requested to expose oneself without protection: to risk vulnerability in a framework that applauds your openness but refuses to formalize it into policy. Genuineness becomes a trap when institutions depend on individual self-disclosure rather than structural accountability.

Author’s Approach and Concept of Dissent

The author’s prose is both clear and lyrical. She blends intellectual rigor with a tone of solidarity: an offer for readers to engage, to challenge, to oppose. For Burey, workplace opposition is not noisy protest but principled refusal – the effort of rejecting sameness in workplaces that expect appreciation for basic acceptance. To resist, according to her view, is to interrogate the stories institutions describe about justice and belonging, and to reject engagement in rituals that perpetuate injustice. It may appear as naming bias in a discussion, opting out of uncompensated “diversity” work, or establishing limits around how much of oneself is provided to the institution. Dissent, the author proposes, is an assertion of personal dignity in environments that typically reward conformity. It represents a practice of honesty rather than opposition, a approach of asserting that an individual’s worth is not dependent on corporate endorsement.

Redefining Genuineness

She also refuses rigid dichotomies. Her work does not merely discard “genuineness” entirely: instead, she urges its redefinition. According to the author, sincerity is not the raw display of personality that corporate culture often celebrates, but a more deliberate harmony between individual principles and one’s actions – an integrity that resists manipulation by corporate expectations. Instead of treating genuineness as a requirement to overshare or adapt to sterilized models of transparency, Burey advises readers to maintain the aspects of it rooted in truth-telling, personal insight and ethical clarity. In her view, the aim is not to give up on sincerity but to relocate it – to transfer it from the executive theatrical customs and into relationships and organizations where reliance, justice and accountability make {