THE AUTHENTICITY CODE: Fables and Failures

By Casey Erin Clark and Julie Fogh

This is part 4 of a multi-part series. Read more here.

For such a popular concept, WHY does authenticity often feel so difficult in practice?

In previous installments, we discussed the inherent tension between authenticity and our human desire to influence others’ perception of us. We introduced the gut brain and reasoning brain to establish how complex perception of the world is. We also established some of the incredible promises that authenticity is supposed to fulfill for both individuals and organizations. Next, we’ll lay out the definitions of authenticity and our current ideas of how we achieve it. And we'll explore why authenticity fails us on an individual and organizational level.

PROMISES, PROMISES

We’re told authenticity will deliver success, happiness, belonging, and self-actualization for the individual. So what might it deliver for organizations?

Authenticity awakens (and humanizes) leadership.

Most modern companies now believe that authentic leadership is desirable (although they may only extend the privilege of authenticity to people in positions of leadership). For established leaders, being perceived as authentic is considered a valuable tool for establishing trust and rapport with everyone in their sphere. Potential leaders need to be more self-directed and more self-expressive, as opposed to taking their cues from someone else. Someone who feels authentic to managers may be tapped as a person with leadership potential, and someone who has already been tapped may be encouraged to find a more authentic presence.

Authenticity promotes engagement.

Work hours have been expanding for decades—according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the average American workday is 20% longer than it was in the 1970. And now, digital communication (what Bryan Robinson calls “the smart phoning of America”) has thoroughly dissolved the boundary between “at work” and “not at work”. Work can (and often does) follow us everywhere. 

While organizations demand more of us, we are also asking more of our work. Millennials, in particular, want to find meaning, purpose, and identity (not just money) in their jobs.  

Is authenticity a solution to both these increased expectations? Instead of “balancing” our work/home lives and identities, we can “integrate” them. Embracing authenticity could turn this necessity into a virtue—or at least less of an imposition.

Authenticity inspires actualization

There is abundant, albeit relatively new, research that shows us how essential the feeling of psychological safety is to the ability to successfully collaborate, to solve complex problems, and be to creative—all prerequisites for most knowledge workers in the modern American workplace. When employees feel free to be themselves at work, that ought to engender a feeling of psychological safety, which then can give us access to their most inventive and unfettered ideas.

All of this should be good for everyone. Organizations get to attract and retain the best talent. Individuals feel engaged, successful, and are poised for advancement. It’s the very definition of “win-win.”

WHERE IT ALL FALLS APART

Defining the terms

(How many of us “authentically” started our college essays with a dictionary definition? Well, we’re bringing back the tradition. Turns out, it’s pretty useful.)

Authenticity is defined as the “quality of being authentic” (thanks, dictionary). Authentic has four definitions. And this is where things get complicated.

Definitions two, three, and four clearly rely on an external eye to determine the authenticity of the object or person in question. But the first (which is probably the closest definition to what we mean when we define human authenticity) primarily happens around other people as well. 

After all, whether or not you are “authentically” eating Doritos and watching Netflix on your couch by yourself doesn’t really matter much in the grand scheme of your life. Those promises of success, happiness, ideal partners and relationships, etc., rely on the presence of other human beings. Authenticity requires an audience.

It is a romantic notion that we alone could be the arbiter of our own authenticity: Do you feel “true to yourself”? Then you are authentic.

Except:

"Self" is complex and ever-changing.

We’re not great observers/interpreters of our own behavior and feelings.

Because we all live and communicate in concert with other human beings, their reactions affect our lives.

We’re even worse observers/interpreters of other people’s behavior and feelings.

Even an extreme version of authenticity — “I don’t care what other people think. My words and behavior may hurt people, but I don’t care as long as my actions feel true to ME.” — acknowledges the presence of other people in the equation. Someone observing this person in an admiring way (“He tells it like it is!”) may admire that freedom to “be authentic” (read: uncensored), but that admiration also acknowledges the effect on other people. Even as these observations reject the effect as unimportant, they don’t pretend it doesn’t EXIST.

All communication involves a sender and receiver(s). All authenticity happens in concert with, and is affected by, an audience.

When we talk about the fables and failures of authenticity, this disconnect—between individual and community, between cause and effect, between behavior and response—is the main theme.

Why do the promises of authenticity fail?

• Because we see authenticity as an individual, personal pursuit.
• Because we misunderstand or underestimate how bias affects our perception. 
• Because we misunderstand, or do not acknowledge, the role of power in creating the conditions for or against authenticity.

For the rest of this week, we'll be digging into each of these failures one by one. Read the rest the full project here.