UpTrajectory Review

The authenticity-industrial complex has finally met its match. In this piece, organizational psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic dismantles one of corporate culture's most sacred cows: the command to 'be yourself' at work. He traces how authenticity evolved from a niche leadership concept into a moral imperative so pervasive that self-editing now carries the stigma of dishonesty. The argument is not that authenticity is worthless, but that its current incarnation is 'profoundly wrong and impractical'—a philosophy that sounds liberating yet collapses under the simplest question: which self, exactly, are we supposed to be?

For small-business operators, this lands with particular force. Unlike executives at Fortune 500 firms with dedicated HR departments and culture consultants, you are the culture. Every hiring conversation, every client pitch, every conflict with an employee is shaped by what you model. Chamorro-Premuzic's critique matters because the authenticity mandate creates a trap you cannot afford: employees who interpret 'bring your whole self' as license to offload unprocessed emotions onto colleagues, or conversely, who retreat into guardedness because they sense—correctly—that the workplace still rewards certain performances over others. You lack the buffer of bureaucracy; a misapplied authenticity culture can poison a twelve-person team in weeks, not quarters.

What is genuinely new here is the conceptual attack, not merely the practical one. Critics of workplace authenticity usually argue that it is selectively enforced—women and minorities are punished for the same emotional expressions that white men are praised for. Chamorro-Premuzic goes further, questioning whether the 'real self' is even coherent enough to serve as a guide. This is where the piece earns its keep: it exposes the philosophical sloppiness that lets companies weaponize authenticity against employees ('you are not engaged because you are not being authentic') while avoiding accountability for the structures that constrain behavior. We are largely persuaded, though we note the piece gestures at evolutionary psychology without fully developing that thread, and it risks replacing one dogma with another by leaving minimal space for contexts where genuine self-disclosure builds necessary trust.

The downstream effects deserve attention. If the authenticity backlash gains traction, expect renewed interest in older, more bounded concepts: professionalism, role clarity, emotional labor as skill rather than betrayal of self. For service businesses especially, this is consequential. Your barista, your consultant, your nurse—their performance of warmth is not fakery but craft, and Chamorro-Premuzic's framework helps legitimize the training and compensation of that craft. Conversely, industries that have built employer brands on radical openness may face retention challenges if workers begin to see those promises as naive or exploitative. The cost of rethinking authenticity is not zero: organizations that swing too hard toward 'just perform' may sacrifice the discretionary effort that comes from employees feeling genuinely valued.

Watch for two developments. First, whether HR tech platforms begin measuring 'authenticity' as they currently measure engagement—if so, resist the metric. Second, how younger workers, who have grown up with the authenticity mandate, react to its critique; generational fracture on this question could reshape hiring and management. What to do now: audit your own language. Do you tell employees to 'be authentic' without defining what behavior that actually requires? Replace the abstraction with specificity. 'I need you to flag problems early' or 'I need you to modulate frustration in client meetings' is more honest, more actionable, and ironically more respectful of the person's actual skills than a blanket invitation to unfiltered self-expression.

The core insight is worth sitting with: the workplace is not, and cannot be, a place where all selves coexist without friction. The question is not whether to perform, but which performances are skilled, reciprocal, and aligned with shared goals. For operators building cultures from scratch, that question is far more useful than any inspirational poster.

“If you edit yourself to suit the audience, you are just performing. Oh, and if you care about how others perceive you, you are just a fake, not to mention a sheep-like conformist.” — Fast Company

Takeaway: Replace 'be authentic' with specific behavioral expectations—it's more honest and more manageable for teams under ten.