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In the initial chapters of the book Authentic, speaker Jodi-Ann Burey issues a provocation: typical advice to “be yourself” or “show up completely genuine at work” are far from well-meaning invitations for individuality – they can be pitfalls. Burey’s debut book – a mix of personal stories, studies, cultural commentary and discussions – attempts to expose how organizations take over individual identity, transferring the burden of institutional change on to staff members who are often marginalized.

Career Path and Broader Context

The impetus for the book originates in part in the author’s professional path: different positions across corporate retail, startups and in international development, interpreted via her perspective as a disabled Black female. The conflicting stance that Burey experiences – a push and pull between asserting oneself and seeking protection – is the engine of Authentic.

It emerges at a time of collective fatigue with institutional platitudes across America and other regions, as backlash to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs grow, and many organizations are reducing the very systems that once promised transformation and improvement. Burey enters that terrain to contend that retreating from the language of authenticity – that is, the corporate language that trivializes identity as a grouping of appearances, peculiarities and interests, leaving workers preoccupied with managing how they are seen rather than how they are treated – is not an effective response; we must instead reframe it on our individual conditions.

Minority Staff and the Act of Self

Through colorful examples and conversations, Burey shows how employees from minority groups – people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, female employees, employees with disabilities – quickly realize to adjust which persona will “be acceptable”. A vulnerability becomes a liability and people try too hard by working to appear palatable. The act of “bringing your full self” becomes a reflective surface on which numerous kinds of anticipations are projected: affective duties, sharing personal information and ongoing display of thankfulness. In Burey’s words, workers are told to share our identities – but lacking the protections or the reliance to survive what comes out.

As Burey explains, we are asked to share our identities – but lacking the protections or the trust to survive what emerges.’

Case Study: The Story of Jason

Burey demonstrates this phenomenon through the narrative of an employee, a hearing-impaired staff member who took it upon himself to inform his colleagues about deaf culture and communication practices. His readiness to discuss his background – an act of transparency the workplace often applauds as “genuineness” – for a short time made everyday communications easier. But as Burey shows, that progress was precarious. Once employee changes erased the informal knowledge Jason had built, the environment of accessibility dissolved with it. “Everything he taught departed with those employees,” he notes wearily. What was left was the exhaustion of having to start over, of having to take charge for an company’s developmental journey. From the author’s perspective, this demonstrates to be asked to share personally absent defenses: to face exposure in a structure that celebrates your transparency but declines to institutionalize it into procedure. Authenticity becomes a snare when institutions count on employee revelation rather than institutional answerability.

Literary Method and Concept of Dissent

Her literary style is simultaneously clear and expressive. She combines intellectual rigor with a tone of solidarity: a call for audience to engage, to question, to oppose. According to the author, dissent at work is not overt defiance but moral resistance – the effort of rejecting sameness in environments that require appreciation for simple belonging. To resist, in her framing, is to interrogate the narratives institutions narrate about equity and acceptance, and to refuse engagement in practices that maintain inequity. It might look like identifying prejudice in a gathering, choosing not to participate of unpaid “diversity” effort, or establishing limits around how much of one’s personal life is offered to the company. Opposition, she suggests, is an declaration of self-respect in spaces that frequently reward obedience. It represents a practice of integrity rather than rebellion, a way of asserting that an individual’s worth is not conditional on institutional approval.

Redefining Genuineness

The author also avoids inflexible opposites. Authentic does not simply eliminate “authenticity” entirely: instead, she urges its redefinition. For Burey, sincerity is not simply the unrestricted expression of individuality that business environment often celebrates, but a more deliberate correspondence between personal beliefs and one’s actions – an integrity that resists distortion by organizational requirements. As opposed to viewing sincerity as a directive to overshare or conform to sterilized models of transparency, the author encourages followers to preserve the elements of it grounded in sincerity, individual consciousness and moral understanding. According to Burey, the goal is not to abandon authenticity but to shift it – to remove it from the boardroom’s performative rituals and toward interactions and workplaces where confidence, fairness and responsibility make {