Is Authenticity a Trap? What “Be Yourself” Really Means for Women in Leadership

Okay, pour yourself something good and let’s talk about the most confusing piece of feedback in corporate America.

“Be more authentic.”

Maybe it showed up in your review, right next to its best friend, “work on your executive presence.” Maybe a VP said it after a big presentation. Maybe it came from a leadership workshop with a lot of sticky notes. Either way, you nodded, wrote it down, and walked out with absolutely no idea what to do differently on Monday.

Because what does it even mean?

Here’s what I’ve noticed after years of coaching women leaders: almost nobody who says it can tell you. Ask for a specific behavior and you get a pause, then something like “just, you know, be more yourself.” Thanks. Super helpful.

The approved version of you

I think the feedback stays vague because the authenticity being asked for comes with a dress code nobody will write down. You’ve probably picked up the rules anyway:

• Be passionate, but never emotional.

• Be direct, but make sure everyone still likes you.

• Be confident, but not so confident that it makes someone uncomfortable.

• Share a struggle, but only after it’s resolved and you can tie it up with a lesson.

• Have a personality, but the kind that fits on the culture page.

So “be yourself” turns into “be the version of yourself that fits.” And the second your real self shows up, the one who pushes back in the meeting or gets visibly frustrated when a launch date moves for the third time, the feedback shifts. Suddenly you’re “a lot,” or “not a culture fit,” or you need to “work on your delivery.”

That’s the trap. You’re asked to be real, then corrected for it.

Our industry has its own version

In my industry (beauty, fashion and retail), you know this one in your bones. Image is part of the job. We’re surrounded by brands that want to look “real” and “unfiltered,” and those brands want the same from their people, as long as it’s on brand.

Be relatable in the founder’s Instagram post. Be polished in the buyer meeting. Be warm with your team and unbothered when the numbers miss. Look effortless the whole time, even though everyone in this industry knows effortless takes a lot of effort.

Many of us got very, very good at it. We learned to read a room in seconds and adjust our tone, energy and opinions to match. That’s a real skill, and it probably helped get you promoted.

It also has a cost.

The quiet cost of performing “real”

When you spend all day editing yourself, the editing becomes automatic. You stop noticing you’re doing it. The meeting voice, the softened opinion, the “just a thought!” in front of a perfectly good idea, the laugh at the joke that wasn’t funny. Each one is tiny, and together they’re exhausting.

I see this constantly with the women I coach. They’re smart, capable and great at their jobs, and they’re drained in a way a vacation doesn’t fix. They usually blame the workload.

So let me say the thing nobody says out loud:

Pretending to be yourself is so exhausting.

Showing up as the approved version of you all day, and calling it authentic? No wonder you’re tired.

And here’s the part that stings: after all that effort, you still get told to be more authentic.

So is authenticity a trap?

The way it gets handed to women at work, a lot of the time, yes. It’s feedback you can’t act on, attached to a standard that moves, measured against an image of “real” someone else decided on.

But I don’t think the answer is to give up on being yourself at work. You deserve to lead as who you actually are, and your team deserves that version of you too. She’s usually the better leader anyway.

The answer starts somewhere less obvious, and that’s what we’re getting into next. In part two, I’ll walk you through the skill that makes this possible, and why it has nothing to do with being louder, braver or more “on.”

For now, just notice. Where are you editing yourself this week? What’s the version of you that walks into the Monday meeting, and how far is she from the woman who’ll be texting her best friend about it afterward?

Tell me in the comments: What’s the most confusing feedback you’ve ever gotten about “being yourself” at work?