Should you bring your “whole self” to work? Why does authenticity matter for organizations? And what does being “authentic” even mean? On this episode of The Culture Kit, Jenny and Sameer sit down with their colleague Erica Bailey, whose research is changing how we think about authenticity and leadership. Bailey, an assistant professor in the Management of Organizations Group at UC Berkeley Haas, talks about why she began studying authenticity, generational differences in attitudes about authenticity at work, and how we might preserve our human value in the age of AI. Learn more about The Culture Kit and find the full transcript: https://haas.berkeley.edu/culture/culture-kit-podcast/ *The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*
Should you bring your “whole self” to work? Why does authenticity matter for organizations? And what does being “authentic” even mean?
On this episode of The Culture Kit, Jenny and Sameer sit down with their colleague Erica Bailey, whose research is changing how we think about authenticity and leadership. Bailey, an assistant professor in the Management of Organizations Group at UC Berkeley Haas, talks about why she began studying authenticity, generational differences in attitudes about authenticity at work, and how we might preserve our human value in the age of AI.
Learn more about The Culture Kit and find the full transcript: https://haas.berkeley.edu/culture/culture-kit-podcast/
*The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*
(Transcripts may contain a few typographical errors due to audio quality during the podcast recording.)
[00:00:00] Jennifer Chatman: Hello, and welcome to the Culture Kit with Jenny and Sameer, where we help you create a work culture that actually works.
[00:00:08] Sameer Srivastava: Whether you're in the C-Suite or just starting out, an effective workplace culture is essential to achieving your organization's goals.
[00:00:16] Jennifer Chatman: I'm Jenny Chatman, a professor and dean at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.
[00:00:23] Sameer Srivastava: And I'm Sameer Srivastava, also a professor at the Haas School. Together, we founded the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation.
Today, we're joined by our colleague from just down the hall, Erica Bailey, an assistant professor who is part of the Management of Organizations group, with Jenny and me here at Haas. Erica studies authenticity, leadership, and what people really want out of work and their leaders. She's done some really original studies, including a paper that challenges the traditional notion of what it even means to feel authentic.
[00:00:56] Jennifer Chatman: I'm really curious to hear more. Welcome to The Culture Kit, Erica.
[00:01:00] Erica Bailey: Oh, thanks so much for having me, Jenny and Sameer.
[00:01:02] Jennifer Chatman: So, Erica, when you tell people you study authenticity and leadership, what, kind of, reactions do you get? Like, are there any fun stories?
[00:01:11] Erica Bailey: I can put people's responses into two buckets. On the one hand, I have the true believers who are total enthusiasts about authenticity and the whole concept, and think that being an authentic leader… authentically connecting with your followers, is the only way to stand out and be successful in a modern corporation.
And then, on the other hand, I also have a host of authenticity skeptics, who just think that the entire construct, the idea that you want to be yourself at work, the idea that you should try and authentically relate to your followers, is all, kind of, marketing or PR, or soft skills, or fluff. I have to say, like I,, float between the two myself, and in some of my research, I'm very skeptical about the limits of authenticity, while at the same time, I still find myself being a true believer in the concept of authentically connecting and tapping into some sense of your real self at work.
So, I find myself on the side of the skeptics one day and on the side of the true believers the next.
[00:02:08] Jennifer Chatman: Spoken like a true academic. So, tell us how you ended up studying authenticity.
[00:02:15] Erica Bailey: So, I have my academic origin story and then my more personal origin story. I started my Ph.D. at Columbia Business School, working closely with Sheena Iyengar, and at the time that I got there, Sheena is an expert on choice, and she had started to think about how part of why people struggle with choice, especially when there's many, many options, is that choices start to feel self-diagnostic.
So, when you have an unlimited amount of sweaters that you could possibly purchase, it somehow matters which one you choose, because you're trying to find, like, my real, authentic sweater, “Which one really feels like me?” And that choice can really stress people out. It can lead them to be demotivated around choice, and they end up making suboptimal decisions. So, she was wrestling with that idea of, like, how choices become identity-relevant and salient, and through our conversations convinced me that authenticity was the question to be asking and the way to try to understand how people make choices.
So, that was my, kind of, academic entry into the concept of self-discovery and identity relevance and choice, and choice overload. But I would say… and Jenny knows a little bit more of my background, I grew up in a very high-control religious community, and I think there's some part of that which reflects my long-term desire to be a seeker, to try and figure out something true about our experience in this planet, in this world, our relationship to each other, kind of, what it all means. I've always wanted to know the answer to those questions. And when you grow up in a group where you're really unsure what the truth is, you really value it a lot.
So, when you feel like leaders or people in your life lie to you, you start to really, really value those moments of truth or those moments of genuine connection. And so, I think all of those things came together in my 20s and, kind of, propelled me toward trying to study this concept, you know, ad nauseam. It's, kind of, the thing that keeps me up at night, that I think about all day long, is what is true? What's true of me? What's true of you? What's true of our relationship? And how that pursuit of truth is always evading us, you know, to some degree.
[00:04:17] Sameer Srivastava: So, those are some deep questions that we could spend a lot of time diving into, but I want to actually get us back to the concept of authenticity. So, we often like to start the show with some clear definitions, and especially since this term is used a lot, really informally, how do you define authenticity? How do you go about studying it, and what are the outcomes that it relates to that matter for organizations?
[00:04:40] Erica Bailey: So, to be super simple, something is authentic when it's an attribution of truth. So, it's an attribution that something is genuine, it’s factual, it’s real. And where authenticity gets complicated is when we're applying that label to different entities. So, something is an authentic Belgian beer if it's produced in Belgium, usually by monks. So, there's something about the production that makes that beer authentic, versus authentic Levi’s, being here at Haas, Levi jeans are authentic because of the fabric that they're made of, the style that they're made in, so there’s something about the way it looks or even feels that makes it authentic.
And then when we apply it to people, what we typically mean is that there's some relationship or alignment or reflection between ″what's going on, basically, from the eyes behind." So, everything that we can't see, all of your thoughts, your feelings, your motivation, and values, there's some reflection between that aspect of who you are and what I'm seeing out in the external world. That could be what you're saying, what you're doing, the choices that you're making, even your body language. I have some sense that what you're doing reflects how you really feel inside.
So, I think of authenticity at the person-perception level as about alignment or reflection between your inner self, what's going on up in your head, and your external behavior, the choices or the things that you're saying. And then, in the workplace, what we've primarily studied is how feeling authentic, feeling that alignment for yourself, or observing that you are making decisions in line with your values, is an important predictor of feeling engaged with your work tasks, of feeling connected to your organization, and the feeling connected to your leader: That I can trust my leader, I feel that they have my best interests at heart, and I'm really able to plug in deeply with the work that I'm doing because it matters to me, and I'm not spending all of my time worried about how I'm coming across or how I look or managing your impression of me.
[00:06:26] Jennifer Chatman: So, before we get into your research a little bit more deeply, I want to ask another broad question that, kind of, speaks to the intersection of work culture and what we call big-C culture, or broader societal culture.
So, I'm thinking about this period of great polarization that we're in and wondering whether being authentic at work is a good idea right now, or does it present particular risks? You know, more broadly, do the advantages of bringing your true self, your whole self, to work outweigh the disadvantages? How are you thinking about that?
[00:07:02] Erica Bailey: It's a great question, and I know it's something people are really grappling with about how we create the space for people to feel authentic at work without maybe creating the bumps in the road that come about when we really are our full selves. And part of what happens, I think, is people get really stuck on this idea of “my whole self,” bringing my whole self to work. But our selves are naturally compartmentalized. We have aspects of ourselves that really come alive at work that are very different from the parts of ourselves that come alive when we're at home.
And to me, there’s no contradiction, right? The self is a dynamic construct where certain things rise up in different social settings, and that’s a natural aspect of how we moderate through different social environments. And I think people get tripped up with this idea, like, your whole self, right? Which is completely unfiltered. That whole self, I’m not sure, ever comes out. There’s just not enough time and space in the world for me to express every single thought or every single feeling that I have.
Rather, our self is really an organizing feature that helps us make sense of our social roles in different environments. So, when I think about authenticity in the workplace, I also feel that I find new aspects of myself at work, and I discover new parts of who I am through these roles that are not necessarily contradictory or even confrontational with other people. It can actually be a way that I come alive into a new component of myself by trying something new at work, by taking on a new role, or by finding a new relationship with my colleagues.
I have some research that suggests that people tend to want to talk about political issues with their close friends and family, they really don’t want to engage in these conversations with people that they don’t trust or have a deep relationship with.
And so, to some extent, I do think it is, kind of a straw man to think about the whole self being one that’s just going to be completely unfiltered and combative with our colleagues, rather than a whole self that is genuinely and sincerely engaging with work tasks and trying to make real connections in the workplace, which I only see as most beneficial. Not completely in totality, but largely, the benefits outweigh the costs.
[00:09:05] Sameer Srivastava: So, sticking with this idea of multiple selves and how they present in the workplace, are you seeing any generational differences in how people go about expressing different parts of their self in the workplace?
[00:09:17] Erica Bailey: Absolutely. One of the most consistent effects in authenticity research is that the older you get, the more you tend to increase your experience of authenticity. And part of that happens because, as you age, you just know more about yourself. You’ve had a lot more time to observe your idiosyncrasies, to sort out all those bumps in the road, and make sense of really who you are, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are. You’ve experienced that growth and maybe increased that competence in the workplace.
So, older people tend to feel more authentic from that base of knowledge about themselves, but also, they just care less what other people think about them. They’re, like, less concerned with managing the impressions of everyone else, and they’re more like, “I am who I am, and at this point I’ve accepted it, and I hope that you do as well.”
One interesting thing that I’ve been seeing is this authenticity cynicism that I mentioned earlier does seem to be on the rise with younger people, which was very surprising to me. Because I think we think of authenticity as maybe a young person, a millennial, or a Gen Z/Gen Alpha thing.
But it seems to be the case that young people are maybe becoming cynical through all this social media and presentation of the self and the packaging of authenticity that they’re seeing in the world. And young people tend to have this sense of, “I don’t know right now if I want my whole self to be at work.” There seems to be a different norm about how they want to relate between their personal and professional selves. And so, I’m definitely sensing some generational differences in the appetite for authenticity in the workplace.
[00:10:42] Jennifer Chatman: That’s interesting. Yes, I have noticed that as I’ve gotten older, I’m less willing to impression-manage, probably to my peril. But, oh well. So, I want to ask about one of your recent papers on leadership, which shows the importance of looking at this really common topic from a different angle.
So, you switch things up. Instead of asking people what a typical leader looks like, you asked people what they wanted in a leader. And so, I’m wondering what you learned from taking this approach.
[00:11:14] Erica Bailey: We were inspired in this paper by an exercise that I do in my MBA classroom here at Haas, where we ask people to describe leaders that inspire them or the types of leaders that they want to be versus the types of leaders that they’re trying to avoid.
And what I noticed is when students talk about the aspirational leader or the ideal leader, they often use words that fall into a bucket that social psychologists call communality or warmth traits, which are really about how you treat other people. So, these are things like empathy, compassion, morality, trust that often describes the ideal leader that people both want to be and the types of leaders that people want to work for. And that you can very much contrast with a lot of the prototypical leaders that we see.
I think of, like, Logan Roy from Succession, who’s very brash and domineering and aggressive, which are traits that we often refer to as agentic traits. So, it’s this whole bucket of traits that refer to dominance, mastery, assertiveness, and aggression. That really typifies this prototypical leader that we tend to see in the world, which is very distinct from the types of leaders that people both want and the types of leaders that people want to work for.
[00:12:20] Sameer Srivastava: Yeah, and it’s not just in TV shows. We see real organizations selecting people that look very different from the kinds of leaders you’re describing, ones who might focus on things like caring and fairness, and empathy. Why do you think that disconnect persists in organizations, and how do you think it affects workplace culture?
[00:12:38] Erica Bailey: When I talk to my MBA students about this, I mean, they have so many good research ideas, sometimes I feel like they all need to be in my lab and keep doing academic research. A couple of things that they mention, which resonate with me, is it does seem to be the case that it’s easier to measure things like mastery, agency, assertiveness. It’s easier to measure these deliverable things rather than these interpersonal or soft skills or relational outcomes, which would require, you know, asking everybody on my team, if I was being fair, if I am being compassionate and empathetic, if I am being understanding. And it’s hard to measure. So that's one thing.
The other thing is, it’s just hard to do. It’s very easy to say, “I will just close my office door and be super productive and focus on myself.” And it’s much harder as a leader to think about what it means to be understanding and empathetic, and supportive for each person that I’m managing.
And so, it makes sense that, you know, as you progress in most organizations, where you’re under pressure, where you have a lot of stress, when you have a manager who’s looking at you to see if you can deliver on time, that you tend to become more myopic and focus on yourself and forget the hard work of looking toward those you’re leading and thinking about what they really want and what they really need. Which is just going to be a challenging task, and it’s going to require a lot of energy and effort.
[00:13:56] Jennifer Chatman: If people want warmer and more trustworthy leaders, but it’s easier to measure what leaders accomplish rather than how they treat people, how can organizations spot and support these less stereotypic leaders?
[00:14:12] Erica Bailey: I should also say, in the best world, I’m training these MBA students and we’re shaping these future leaders to both be agentic and communal, right? I want them to have mastery, to have competence, to be assertive in the right context, and also be someone who is trustworthy and compassionate as well.
So, in an ideal world, you get both. But I think what happens is we often just, sort of, replicate the leaders that we’ve seen because they seem familiar to us. We’re replacing someone in a role, and we tend to be fixed on the person who was just there. So, we get stuck in this prototypical idea of what a leader typically looks like, or what we see in our mind as a CEO, which is this more agentic person.
The other thing that happens is these people who are high in agency, they are often the ones putting themselves out there for these leadership positions. And so, in a lot of organizations, you know, you throw your hat in the ring if you want to go up for a promotion, and that, in our paper, is predicted by having high agentic traits. You’re more likely to select into leadership either because you are just more agentic to begin with, or you think you match with that prototypical leader idea that you see both, as Sameer mentioned, in the real world and in our movies and TV shows.
So, I think what people have to do is first recognize that there is a lot of value in these communal leaders, help them realize that they should be selecting themselves into leadership pathways, or even select them into consideration for a leadership role. And then, socialize this idea that people really do want and would be committed to a leader who does keep them in mind, who looks out for them, who’s not just nice, but really who is trustworthy, who has the hard work of being a moral leader, a moral exemplar, someone who puts other people first.
And it’s an old saying, but people stick around for their managers, for their good leaders. And I think over the long run, by having those leaders that people are really committed to, that they feel really connected to, companies will see those benefits in the long term.
[00:16:04] Jennifer Chatman: It's interesting, there's a parallel to the research we've done on narcissistic leaders, who also seek out those roles more frequently, and that's why the population at large is about 2% narcissists, but narcissists in CEO roles are about 16%. So, there's a, kind of, self-selection thing. That's an interesting observation.
[00:16:26] Sameer Srivastava: Absolutely. Erica, I want to go back for a moment to the prior conversation we were having about expressions of authenticity in the workplace. And one of the things that we've seen in recent years is some firms trying to create so-called safe spaces where employees can freely and authentically discuss their views about controversial topics, especially timely, controversial topics that are in the news.
How do you think about that relative to the legal and reputational risks that firms face versus the need for people to be able to express themselves in a workplace setting? How should managers think about that trade-off?
[00:17:02] Erica Bailey: When I talk to leaders, what I tend to tell them, which is very difficult, is that the first thing is, as a leader, it's not really about you and your authenticity anymore, unfortunately, because you can make the best decision with the best evidence, and the best motivations, and people will not understand it. They don't see your perspective, they see you very specifically when you're in a leadership role.
And so, leaders have to take themselves out of this. That this is not about me expressing my authentic self or me spending all of my time trying to convince you that I'm being authentic. And rather, what leaders should think about is, “I am here to create a space, to create opportunities for my followers to be authentic, for them to express their authentic selves as they want to.”
So, not everyone wants to share how they feel. Not everyone wants to be called upon to talk about controversial political topics or even complex issues in the workplace. And what I tend to advise leaders to do is to think about how we can create environments where there is the ability to express yourself authentically without the mandate to do it, and even potentially removing yourself from those interactions so that there's the ability for horizontal authenticity between people who are peers.
So, there's a lot of pressure when your manager or your leader is asking you to be authentic or to weigh in, that you are very concerned about how you come across. There's a lot of risk in that environment. And instead, you say, “Hey, I'm going to sponsor this lunch for you to talk to your coworkers, to, kind of, debrief this difficult time that we're all going through, and take it if you want, and use that as a time to make a genuine connection if that's what you're interested in.”
So, it's more about opening those opportunity channels rather than forcing people to be authentic, or even worse, forcing them to be authentic with you as their leader, which people will really, really struggle with.
[00:18:46] Jennifer Chatman: So, we couldn't have a discussion these days without bringing up AI. I just heard a talk this afternoon about ways of convincing people that you're authentically a human, like by getting your iris measured. So, I'm curious about how you think about authenticity in a world where we're all going to be interacting with AI agents and AI-generated content on a regular basis. Is it important that we know who's human and who's not?
[00:19:17] Erica Bailey: Imagine if I said, “No, Jenny.” Yes, of course, it's so important. It's only going to become more and more important, and I think convincing people that you're real, making genuine connections. I mean, I think our reliance on technology and the ability to easily fool people is just going to make it more important to understand, “I'm talking to a real person, I'm having a real interaction, I'm getting a sense of who you really are.”
So, I'm not just reading some AI slop that you've sent me, that someone else has sent me, that six people applying for the same position have sent me. People are really going to be seeking out those genuine relationships and genuine expressions, and even just, I think, the desire for something real and true is only going to increase.
I have some recent research too, that part of what is happening with LLMs and their ability to mimic human content is it's also asking hard questions about what it even means to be a human. Like, what is our genuine value-add if these tools can mimic what we do? I think we need to think carefully in the workplace about how easy it is to offload parts of ourselves onto these tools.
And it can really be a question of finding that authentic self and finding that true connection in a world where it seems like AI could do a pretty good job, it could make a pretty good facsimile of Erica. So, that makes me think, what is really special about me, and how can I protect that and bring that out in my relationships?
[00:20:40] Sameer Srivastava: So, you mentioned hiring a minute ago, and I wanted to just dive into that. So, given that job applicants these days are using AI tools to present themselves in ways that they think the firms will want them to present themselves, and conversely, firms are using various AI tools to help screen those applicants, what advice do you have for people on both sides of the labor market, both job seekers as well as firms, to sift through the slop?
[00:21:04] Erica Bailey: Man, such a good question, Sameer. I've seen this in my lab where, you know, you're asking for new research assistants or you're looking for Ph.D. students who are interested in you. People don't often realize everyone else has access to these same tools. So, it becomes very obvious when everyone is using the same tool. And in that context, where everyone has the same ability to signal a lot of professionalism and a lot of competence, what really stands out is something genuine, is something script-breaking, or something that they've added an addition that feels new.
And I don't want to tell people to totally ignore these tools, especially people who find them really helpful. For example, people for whom English is their second language, they really want to be able to express themselves in a way that's more professional, more aligned with how they're really thinking. And these tools are amazingly helpful for those things, and especially if they're submitting to a job ad that’s just using AI to analyze them.
But I do think we want to look for ways to signal genuine interest where it is there, and to signal genuine fit where it is there, and to find, like you both are experts in, cultures where we really do feel like our authentic self is valued. And how can I signal that I'm going to fit with that culture, and I have a genuine interest in being part of your organization?
And how we work that out in these tools, yet to be determined. I think we'll do a lot more phone calls and in-person interviews in the future until we can sort out all these complicated questions about authenticity and AI.
[00:22:31] Jennifer Chatman: That's a great point about culture fit. Erica, this has been lovely. To wrap up, we always ask our guests for some key takeaways. Can you share what you think are the most important takeaways from your research on leadership and authenticity that organizations could use to build a healthier, more productive culture?
[00:22:50] Erica Bailey: One thing that often happens is people get very convinced that authenticity is a social mandate that they have to live up to, and so they spend a lot of time and energy trying to convince other people that they're being authentic and genuine. And my research has basically shown other people's perception of your authenticity has a lot more to do with them than it does with you.
And they're often really stuck in their own head and their perspective of who you are, or the stereotypes they have about you, whatever individual level of cynicism and authenticity they're dealing with, it really has almost nothing to do with you. So, I'm a skeptic about convincing other people that you're authentic, but I'm a true believer in that finding your authentic self, finding connections with who you are and your workplace, and your relationships, is so important for your well-being. It's really worth pursuing for yourself.
So, Lady Gaga has a great quote about this, “Authenticity is a project of one.” It is about you finding and tapping into that sense of self and not spending your time running around convincing everyone of your authenticity. So, that's the first thing. The second is for leaders. What really prompts authenticity in other people is something that our colleague Toby Stuart studies, which is status, which is respect and admiration that you have for the people on your team.
So, ideally, you've hired the right people into your organization, you really believe in them, and the value that they bring. By expressing that, you are allowing them to express themselves authentically. By creating an environment where we all respect what each person is bringing to the table, I'm going to allow those real opinions and real identities to surface without forcing or mandating that out of my followers. So, I think of authenticity as something that we can hopefully pull and draw out of people, rather than forcing them into it in an organization.
So, creating an environment of respect, where we're all on the same page, we have norms of engagement, and we have just a general invitation for people to bring themselves out when they see fit and when they feel comfortable, is really important. And then, the third thing I would say is we have a sense that we need to be vulnerable, that we need to put ourselves out there. And to that, I would say think about who you're being authentic with. You want to find your authentic allies in your organization, and often that will be peers.
People underneath you really can't see you outside of the power-dependent relationship that you're in, and people above you, you’re going to be concerned about coming across as competent, you know, someone that deserves to be promoted. So, find those peers who are horizontal to you, to whom you can vent, to whom you can show a little bit of the backstage of how you're really feeling, and that can help support your authentic journey and your career in those, sort of, safe spaces.
So, find people who really deserve and earn that vulnerability from you and nurture those relationships, even if they're not in your direct team.
[00:25:31] Sameer Srivastava: Well, Erica, your authentic enthusiasm for this topic really came through in that discussion. Thank you so much. That was terrific.
[00:25:39] Jennifer Chatman: Great insights and advice. Thank you.
[00:25:41] Erica Bailey: Thank you both.
[00:25:44] Jennifer Chatman: Thanks for listening to The Culture Kit with Jenny and Sameer!
[00:25:48] Sameer Srivastava: The Culture Kit podcast is a production of the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation at the Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to hit that subscribe button, leave us a review, and share this episode online so others who have workplace culture questions can find us too!
[00:26:09] Jennifer Chatman: I'm Jenny.
[00:26:10] Sameer Srivastava: And I'm Sameer.
[00:26:11] Jennifer Chatman: We'll be back soon with more tools to help fix your work culture challenges.