Why Authenticity Can Be Bad Advice

Why might ‘bring your whole self to work’ be terrible professional advice, and what should we be thinking about instead? Why does authenticity come into play more now than in previous generations? 

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is a professor of business psychology at University College London and Columbia. He is also the author of several books, including Don't Be Yourself: Why Authenticity Is Overrated (and What to Do Instead), Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?: (And How to Fix It), and The Talent Delusion: Why Data, Not Intuition, Is the Key to Unlocking Human Potential, I, Human: AI, Automation, and the Quest to Reclaim What Makes Us Unique.

Greg and Tomas discuss the overemphasis of authenticity in professional and personal settings, the nuanced insights from sociologist Erving Goffman on impression management, and how emotional intelligence often aligns with strategic impression management. Their conversation gets into the impact of AI on human potential and workplace dynamics, as well as the complex interplay between organizational culture and individual behavior, particularly among leaders. 

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

Why do people believe authenticity naturally leads to wellbeing and success?

03:08: In a world that is obviously not very authentic, pretending that we value authenticity or encouraging people to just be themselves might be quite fitting. I think it's not very authentic advice to tell people, "Oh, just be yourself. Oh, just bring your whole self to work. Oh, don't worry about what people think of you." But then, if somebody is silly or naive enough to follow that advice, the repercussions for them are not very positive.

Self-awareness requires paying attention to others

13:33: Professional success and personal development and self-awareness can only be achieved if you are receptive to what other people think of you. So, by the way, as I say in the book [DON’T BE YOURSELF], the notion that, I mean, you know, one of the mantras of authenticity or to authenticity advice, which is "ignore what people tell you," ironically,  the advice is trying to tell us how to behave, right? So you cannot ignore what people tell you. And the difference between somebody who has achieved basic emotional maturity and psychological maturity and somebody who still behaves like a child is that the psychologically mature person pays attention to what other people think of themselves, which doesn't mean being a sort of weak, feeble, conformist sheep. It means being a highly functioning member of society, of work, of community, not being trapped in your own narcissistic delusion.

How do you achieve self-awareness?

12:20: Self-awareness is actually achieved by internalizing the feedback from others from a very, very early age. We learn about ourselves from internalizing or incorporating the feedback we get from others. So your teachers, your aunt, your uncle, your parents, your older siblings, your friends will tell you, you are good at this, you are bad at that, you are funny. And then you understand that you are funny, right? It's obviously problematic if they're lying to you and then you realize, Ooh, outside my family, nobody laughs with my jokes, right? But there's no answer to who we really are. But the best way to understand who we are in the eyes of others is to not be self-centered and to actually be open to feedback. And that's something that people with high emotional intelligence do very well. 

Show Links:

Recommended Resources:

• Erving Goffman
• Core Self-Evaluations
• Emotional Labor
• Emotional Intelligence
• Self-Monitoring
• Elon Musk
• David Bowie
• 360-degree feedback
• Charles Horton Cooley
• Dale Carnegie
• Henry Ford
• Jeffrey Pfeffer
• Pope Francis
• Robert Hogan
• Machiavellianism
• Max Planck
• Amos Tversky
• Daniel Kahneman
• John Maynard Keynes

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile at University College London
• Website | DrTomas.com
• LinkedIn Profile
• Wikipedia Page
• Social Profile on X

Guest Work:

• Amazon Author Page
• Don't Be Yourself: Why Authenticity Is Overrated (and What to Do Instead)
• Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?: (And How to Fix It)
• The Talent Delusion: Why Data, Not Intuition, Is the Key to Unlocking Human Potential
• I, Human: AI, Automation, and the Quest to Reclaim What Makes Us Unique
• Confidence: How Much You Really Need and How to Get It
• Personality and Individual Differences, 3rd Edition
• The Future of Recruitment: Using the New Science of Talent Analytics to Get Your Hiring Right (The Future of Work)
• Personality and Intellectual Competence
• The Psychology of Personnel Selection
• Personality and Individual Differences
• Confidence: Overcoming Low Self-Esteem, Insecurity, and Self-Doubt

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