Talking about authenticity is a helpful way to avoid working on our self-awareness

Every personal effectiveness class I teach… every executive presence workshop… somewhere along the way, a hand goes up and the question arrives: "But how can I be more authentic?" said with sincerity; often with frustration. As if authenticity were a fixed version of ourselves we just need permission to reveal. But what if that’s the wrong metaphor?

Authenticity, at its worst, is mistaken for emotional entitlement: “Take me as I am.” “I’m just being honest.” “That’s not my style.” That kind of authenticity is self-expression without self-regulation. It prizes individual comfort over collective impact.

Authenticity that serves leadership is anchored in strategic self-awareness. It’s not about abandoning your values or playing a part. It aligns who you are with what the moment needs.
-Professional, not performative.
-Grounded, not guarded.
-Present, not polished.

In the end, it’s not “How can I be more authentic?” It’s “How can I show up with integrity, so that my presence adds to, rather than subtracts from, the trust and purpose around me?” That’s the kind of authenticity that builds, not erodes, leadership.
 

My hypothesis: talking about authenticity is a helpful way to avoid working on our self-awareness. Thank youSteve Taylorfor asking me to expand on that thought in a discussion aboutJamil Zaki's posthttps://lnkd.in/ehybpMEAHere goes.

Authenticity has become a kind of modern workplace virtue. We tell people to “bring their whole selves” to work. We praise leaders for being “real” or “relatable.” And in coaching conversations, sooner or later, someone will say:

“I just want to be more authentic.” It sounds noble. It sounds human. It sounds like progress.

In every leadership class I teach, at some point the conversation bends toward authenticity. It’s often posed as a goal, a virtue, even a right. But lately, I’ve come to wonder whether our fascination with being authentic is sometimes a clever distraction: from the harder, quieter, and more transformative work of becoming self-aware.

It’s easy to mistake our preferences for our principles.
It’s easy to protect our habits under the banner of “this is just who I am.”
It’s easy to label discomfort as inauthenticity, when it may simply be growth.

Self-awareness, by contrast, demands more of us. It asks us to reflect not just on who we believe ourselves to be, but on how we are experienced by others. It invites us to examine the impact of our actions, not just the intention behind them. It challenges us to look beyond the comfort of personal consistency and toward the discipline of professional congruence. And that’s rarely a tidy process.

Authenticity is attractive because it lets us stay in the center of the story. Self-awareness shifts the spotlight. It asks how we fit into something larger. A team. A culture. A shared purpose. It should not be an excuse to stop evolving. The real work, the deeper work, is learning to hold both truths at once:
Who am I, really?
And how am I experienced by others?

This is what strategic self-awareness requires: that we neither betray our values nor ignore our context. That we stop confusing discomfort with dishonesty. That we get curious about how our “authentic self” shows up in the room and what it leaves others with.

In this way, self-awareness is the discipline that makes authenticity useful. It tempers self-expression with discernment. It keeps us honest, not just with ourselves, but with those we seek to influence and lead.