Authenticity?

Find the true self, reveal the real you…

In my line of work, these ideas are most frequently heard in discussions about leadership often in the context of "authentic leadership”.

The classic discussion about authentic leadership goes something like this: staff will experience a more human form of leadership and be more likely to trust you if they get a sense that you are sharing or being the “real” you.

In fact, if you’re not being authentic...that’s bad! You’re a fake, you’re dishonest and no one will trust you.

Of course, there may well be characteristics, traits or other elements that people feel they cannot bring to work that could be helpful to themselves or others. And even framing this as “authentic leadership” may encourage someone to experiment with sharing something new and let go of previously held “shoulds” about leadership and management.

The counter argument quite rightly starts with... well, they don’t really mean bring your whole self to work. (I’ll return to the idea of a whole self later.)

If I’m angry, can I shout and scream?

If I’m sad, can I cry in a boardroom?

What about the part of me that’s lazy, or doesn’t care about x value or x meeting?

Oh, and I don’t like Jeff. Can I declare that publicly?

Sorry, Jeff.

More importantly, who is allowed to be authentic?

We know that many people don’t declare disability, sexuality or neurodivergence at work.

People with working visas; where the job determines whether I can stay in the country or not may well be cautious about what is shared and what isn’t, does that make them inauthentic?

Women offering new ideas and challenging the norm are branded as difficult or worse. If you’re Black, double the impact and hostility.

So where does that leave us?

A missing piece seems to be the argument that it is not necessarily inauthentic to have a “work self”. Maybe there was never an authentic self to share in the first place.

I’d speculate that there are many versions of “me” that exist in the world.

The me my parents know. The me with my wife. The me in a learning or academic setting. The facilitator me. The coaching, listening (“tell me more about x”) me. The me when I’m on my own, or in my head in a room full of people.

Some are roles I perform. Others are less conscious. Some exist only in the perception of other people.

Is it inauthentic to adapt to our surroundings, to be more or less like the people we are with?

I would argue that It’s normal, human and okay.

My belief, is that there is no true self to be discovered, waiting under a pile of rocks (or behind a wall of defences).

There is only an incomplete, imperfect and lacking self. Constantly reforming, collapsing and rebuilding.

Lacan thought that we could never really know ourselves. Because our self concept is built on an incomplete picture. That the first time “I” or “me” is formed is when we see ourselves in the mirror, and a parent or carer tells us: “yes, that’s you”.

But in that mirror we can only see part of ourselves. If the mirror is distorted or smudged, the metaphor only gets deeper.

The partial image, along with the parental contribution (the “me” that exists in the mind of the Other), created before birth in parental hopes and daydreams (the me yet to be) means that our sense of self is indeed built on an incomplete picture and is almost entirely determined by someone else.

This is quite unsettling.

And so it is no wonder that we reach for strong and “whole” understandings of the self. That we are driven towards “knowing more” or finding our true selves.

I need to find myself.

I need to “get back” the real me.

Or perhaps we build our identity around our job or our workplace. But how many times have you seen someone completely destroyed by the loss of a role, only to find themselves again?

The role was never really who they were.

But that idea was useful, it was a temporary identity that made sense for a few years.

The job or achievement that would finally “complete me”.

Of course it didn’t...it never could. So where does this leave us?

It is wonderful and valuable to strive to learn more about yourself. It is sometimes useful to share the self you find with others. It’s okay to adapt to the role, surroundings and people you find yourself with.

Perhaps the trick is to know that you never reach the destination.

That lack is never filled and the self is never finally whole. The working identity is a temporary fantasy.

But that doesn’t mean we should stop.

Follow your desire. You’ll try and fail, and try again, and learn to do it anyway for the hell of doing it.

Build an identity that feels like you but hold it lightly.

Know what it is: something you have made, something that helps you move through the world, something that will change.

There may be no final, authentic you waiting to be found.