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Within the beginning sections of the publication Authentic, speaker Jodi-Ann Burey raises a critical point: typical injunctions to “be yourself” or “show up completely genuine at work” are not harmless encouragements for personal expression – they often become snares. Her first book – a mix of personal stories, investigation, cultural commentary and interviews – attempts to expose how organizations co-opt identity, shifting the weight of organizational transformation on to employees who are frequently at risk.

Personal Journey and Wider Environment

The impetus for the work stems partly in Burey’s own career trajectory: multiple jobs across business retail, new companies and in global development, viewed through her perspective as a woman of color with a disability. The conflicting stance that the author encounters – a tension between asserting oneself and seeking protection – is the driving force of Authentic.

It arrives at a moment of general weariness with corporate clichés across the United States and internationally, as backlash to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs grow, and various institutions are scaling back the very structures that earlier assured progress and development. Burey delves into that terrain to assert that withdrawing from authenticity rhetoric – specifically, the corporate language that reduces individuality as a collection of surface traits, peculiarities and hobbies, leaving workers focused on handling how they are seen rather than how they are treated – is not an effective response; instead, we need to redefine it on our own terms.

Minority Staff and the Act of Persona

Via detailed stories and discussions, Burey illustrates how underrepresented staff – people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, women, employees with disabilities – quickly realize to modulate which persona will “pass”. A vulnerability becomes a disadvantage and people compensate excessively by striving to seem acceptable. The practice of “showing your complete identity” becomes a reflective surface on which numerous kinds of expectations are projected: affective duties, sharing personal information and continuous act of appreciation. In Burey’s words, employees are requested to expose ourselves – but without the safeguards or the trust to withstand what comes out.

As Burey explains, employees are requested to share our identities – but lacking the defenses or the reliance to endure what comes out.’

Real-Life Example: The Story of Jason

The author shows this dynamic through the narrative of Jason, a hearing-impaired staff member who decided to teach his co-workers about deaf culture and communication practices. His willingness to share his experience – an act of transparency the organization often applauds as “sincerity” – for a short time made routine exchanges easier. Yet, the author reveals, that improvement was precarious. Once staff turnover wiped out the casual awareness Jason had built, the environment of accessibility vanished. “All the information left with them,” he notes wearily. What remained was the fatigue of having to start over, of being held accountable for an organization’s educational process. In Burey’s view, this illustrates to be asked to expose oneself without protection: to endanger oneself in a framework that praises your honesty but declines to codify it into policy. Authenticity becomes a trap when companies depend on personal sharing rather than structural accountability.

Literary Method and Concept of Dissent

Burey’s writing is both lucid and poetic. She marries scholarly depth with a tone of connection: an invitation for audience to participate, to interrogate, to oppose. In Burey’s opinion, professional resistance is not overt defiance but ethical rejection – the effort of rejecting sameness in environments that demand gratitude for mere inclusion. To oppose, from her perspective, is to challenge the narratives institutions describe about equity and inclusion, and to decline involvement in rituals that maintain inequity. It might look like identifying prejudice in a meeting, opting out of uncompensated “inclusion” work, or setting boundaries around how much of one’s personal life is provided to the institution. Resistance, she suggests, is an affirmation of self-respect in environments that typically praise conformity. It is a discipline of honesty rather than rebellion, a approach of maintaining that an individual’s worth is not based on corporate endorsement.

Restoring Sincerity

The author also avoids inflexible opposites. Her work avoids just discard “genuineness” entirely: instead, she urges its redefinition. According to the author, authenticity is not the unrestricted expression of character that organizational atmosphere frequently praises, but a more deliberate alignment between individual principles and individual deeds – a honesty that resists alteration by institutional demands. Rather than treating sincerity as a directive to disclose excessively or adjust to sterilized models of transparency, the author encourages readers to preserve the aspects of it based on sincerity, individual consciousness and ethical clarity. From her perspective, the goal is not to discard sincerity but to move it – to transfer it from the corporate display practices and to interactions and offices where confidence, equity and accountability make {