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Within the beginning sections of the book Authentic, writer the author raises a critical point: typical advice to “come as you are” or “present your real identity in the workplace” are far from well-meaning invitations for personal expression – they can be pitfalls. Burey’s debut book – a mix of personal stories, research, cultural critique and discussions – seeks to unmask how businesses co-opt identity, moving the weight of organizational transformation on to individual workers who are already vulnerable.

Career Path and Broader Context

The driving force for the publication originates in part in Burey’s own career trajectory: multiple jobs across business retail, emerging businesses and in worldwide progress, viewed through her perspective as a woman of color with a disability. The two-fold position that the author encounters – a back-and-forth between expressing one’s identity and looking for safety – is the driving force of Authentic.

It emerges at a moment of general weariness with corporate clichés across the US and beyond, as opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs increase, and many organizations are reducing the very systems that previously offered progress and development. Burey delves into that terrain to contend that retreating from the language of authenticity – that is, the organizational speech that minimizes personal identity as a collection of aesthetics, idiosyncrasies and pastimes, forcing workers concerned with controlling how they are perceived rather than how they are handled – is not the answer; instead, we need to redefine it on our individual conditions.

Minority Staff and the Act of Self

By means of detailed stories and conversations, Burey shows how marginalized workers – employees from diverse backgrounds, members of the LGBTQ+ community, female employees, disabled individuals – soon understand to calibrate which identity will “pass”. A weakness becomes a drawback and people compensate excessively by working to appear agreeable. The act of “showing your complete identity” becomes a projection screen on which all manner of expectations are placed: emotional work, disclosure and ongoing display of thankfulness. According to Burey, employees are requested to share our identities – but without the safeguards or the confidence to survive what emerges.

As Burey explains, workers are told to expose ourselves – but without the safeguards or the confidence to endure what emerges.’

Case Study: An Employee’s Journey

Burey demonstrates this dynamic through the story of Jason, a deaf employee who decided to inform his team members about deaf community norms and communication practices. His readiness to share his experience – an act of openness the workplace often praises as “genuineness” – briefly made everyday communications smoother. However, Burey points out, that advancement was fragile. After personnel shifts wiped out the casual awareness the employee had developed, the culture of access vanished. “Everything he taught left with them,” he comments exhaustedly. What was left was the exhaustion of being forced to restart, of being made responsible for an company’s developmental journey. In Burey’s view, this illustrates to be told to expose oneself absent defenses: to risk vulnerability in a framework that applauds your transparency but refuses to formalize it into policy. Genuineness becomes a trap when institutions rely on individual self-disclosure rather than organizational responsibility.

Literary Method and Idea of Resistance

The author’s prose is both understandable and expressive. She combines academic thoroughness with a tone of solidarity: an invitation for audience to engage, to challenge, to dissent. For Burey, dissent at work is not loud rebellion but moral resistance – the effort of resisting conformity in settings that expect gratitude for simple belonging. To resist, according to her view, is to question the narratives organizations narrate about equity and belonging, and to reject involvement in customs that sustain injustice. It may appear as naming bias in a meeting, opting out of unpaid “diversity” work, or defining borders around how much of one’s identity is provided to the institution. Opposition, the author proposes, is an declaration of self-respect in environments that typically encourage obedience. It is a discipline of principle rather than defiance, a approach of asserting that one’s humanity is not dependent on corporate endorsement.

Restoring Sincerity

She also refuses brittle binaries. Her work avoids just eliminate “genuineness” wholesale: instead, she advocates for its reclamation. In Burey’s view, authenticity is not simply the unrestricted expression of personality that organizational atmosphere typically applauds, but a more intentional alignment between one’s values and individual deeds – a principle that resists alteration by institutional demands. As opposed to considering authenticity as a mandate to disclose excessively or conform to cleansed standards of candor, the author encourages readers to maintain the parts of it rooted in sincerity, self-awareness and ethical clarity. In her view, the aim is not to discard authenticity but to move it – to move it out of the boardroom’s performative rituals and to connections and offices where trust, justice and answerability make {