Maybe you shouldn’t be yourself: 4 reasons why authenticity is overrated

Few self-help ideas are as prevalent and widely celebrated as the advice to “just be yourself.”

Whether in job interviews, workplace interactions, or career choices, we are frequently encouraged to act “authentically”—without compromise or concern for external pressures.

While this sounds comforting and empowering, authenticity as an interpersonal strategy is fundamentally flawed and at odds with hundreds of scientific studies on emotional intelligence, social skills, and career success.

As I illustrate in my forthcoming book, Don’t Be Yourself: Why Authenticity Is Overrated and What To Do Instead, authenticity is not a helpful life hack, but rather a misguided notion that can easily backfire and lead to undesirable and counterproductive behaviors.

Although there is no universal definition of authenticity, at its core, mainstream conceptualizations boil down to four general rules or principles:

1. Always be honest—with others and yourself.
2. Stop worrying about what others think of you.
3. Follow your “heart” and values no matter what.
4. Bring your whole self to work.

Despite their appeal and likely good intentions, there are multiple problems with each of these rules, namely:

1. The pitfalls of honesty

The advice to always be honest assumes that truthfulness is inherently beneficial, but this is not true. For starters, we lie to ourselves all the time, which makes it rather hard to be honest with others. For all the potential advantages of self-awareness, self-deception is the norm, and humans are prewired to interpret reality in self-serving ways. There is a practical reason for this: People with an inflated sense of their abilities tend to impress others more easily.

Put plainly, bullshit is self-fulfilling: The more you BS yourself, the easier it is for you to BS others. In contrast, those who accurately assess their limitations often struggle to project confidence, for self-doubt and self-criticism are also contagious. Being honest with yourself is also rather painful: There is a reason the technical term for people who are capable of interpreting reality in accurate terms is “depressive realists.”

Furthermore, deception—especially in the form of white lies—serves a practical purpose in professional settings. Job interviews, performance evaluations, and workplace interactions tend to reward those who present a polished, strategic version of themselves rather than an unfiltered one. Even when people tell you they value authenticity, they prefer you to be rewarding to deal with, which means telling them what they want to hear rather than what you think they need to hear, even if the former requires acting and faking while the latter requires truth-telling.

2. The importance of others’ opinions

The idea that we should ignore what others think of us may sound romantic, and almost smell of freedom, but it is both unrealistic and counterproductive. Humans are social creatures whose success depends on reputation, trust, and relationships. Research in social psychology highlights that other people’s perception of us is critical to career advancement—hiring, promotions, and professional opportunities hinge not on how good we think you are, but on how good others think we are.

Even when it comes to authenticity, a trait that is often valued by others, what matters is not how authentic we feel, but whether others find us authentic (trustworthy, reliable, predictable, and so on). This requires not just paying a great deal of attention to how people think of us, but also making the effort to impress them, which is the exact opposite to just being ourselves.

Completely disregarding external opinions can make individuals seem abrasive, insensitive, entitled, and even narcissistic. Instead of ignoring or rejecting feedback, a more effective approach to interpersonal relations is to manage one’s image thoughtfully and carefully. Caring about what others think of you isn’t a threat to your self-love, and if you decide to ignore what people think of you in order to boost your self-love, that’s precisely how delusional narcissism manifests.

Our reputation is not just constructed by others, but even owned by them. The only way to improve it is to understand how others see us, which requires paying a great deal of attention to other people’s views and opinions of us—this is not a sign of insecurity, but the essential hallmark of empathy and social skills.

3. The risks of blindly following your heart

Popular culture romanticizes the idea of following one’s heart, but emotions and instincts are rarely reliable guides. In fact, they are the source of impulsive, regrettable, and biased decisions, not to mention the major cause of prejudice, polarization, and tribalization. Making choices purely based on feelings can lead to short-sighted or detrimental outcomes, and it is already our default tendency: As behavioral economists have shown, we tend to “think fast,” which is a euphemism for not thinking at all.

Moreover, rigidly adhering to personal values without considering external factors—such as workplace culture and social norms—can create unnecessary friction. Effective professionals recognize that ethical decision-making involves nuance and compromise. Why be true to your values when you can be open to other people’s values, so you understand their perspective, feelings, and points of view? How are we meant to work together in a culture that recognizes and tolerates the rich diversity that underpins human nature, if we all stay rigidly put and fixed on our own values?

Furthermore, what if your values are toxic. For example, you may value your own selfish interests over the wellbeing of others; you may value greed, power, status, and even stepping on other people’s toes, as well as taking advantage of those who are weak, naïve, or vulnerable. If that is the case, do we really want you to be true to your values? If some values are better than others, where do we draw the line—how do we know which values can be expressed, and which should be repressed? In short, it is only through having the self-critical humility and open-mindedness to question our values and their consequences, and make an effort to tolerate other people’s values, that we can truly aspire to collaborate and cooperate in a modern and civilized work culture.

4. The Myth of ‘bringing your whole self to work’

Encouraging employees to bring their “whole selves” to work suggests that complete transparency and personal expression are always beneficial. While workplace engagement improves when individuals feel comfortable being themselves, there is a fine line between authenticity and oversharing. There’s a difference between liking your job and erasing the boundaries between your professional and personal self.

Professionalism requires emotional intelligence and situational awareness. Sharing too much personal information or treating colleagues as close friends can lead to misunderstandings, discomfort, or even reputational harm. If you assume your colleagues are interested in who you truly are, let alone desperate to meet your unfiltered and uninhibited self, think again. Your “whole self,” which includes your eccentric, inappropriate, and opinionated self, must surely be edited in a work environment. Different workplace cultures have different expectations—some encourage personal expression, while others prioritize formality.

Being adaptable and reading social cues is far more effective than insisting on uninhibited authenticity. In the best-case scenario, your whole or true self may be someone who perhaps three or four people have learned to love. Needless to say, many people see work as just that, work, rather than a central part of their identity. This is what work has always been for the majority of people, something they do to get paid, make ends meet, and make a living. There are plenty of other sources of meaning outside one’s job or career, so the assumption that people want to blend or integrate their personal and professional selves is simply naïve.

In short, authenticity is often presented as a golden rule for success, but real-world interactions require a more balanced approach. If anything, you are almost always better off not being yourself. Our freedom to “be ourselves” ends where our responsibilities to others begin, and a world in which everybody is just focused on being themselves and expecting others to adapt to their uncensored or unedited self would be an antisocial and chaotic world.

Navigating professional environments effectively means knowing when to be genuine and when to engage in skillful and ethical deception to manage impressions and develop a reputation for being kind, caring, and not too authentic.