Erica Bailey
speaker
177 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Apr 2025
Erica Bailey’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
social harmony or moments where they feel really embedded in their social group or that there's a high level of social positivity among all of us in the room, maybe that's a moment that draws out this experience of authenticity. So it gets us to the same place, but maybe different pathways to get there.
Another important cultural belief is about how we think about the self as something that's really fixed or stable versus something that's really fluid and evolving. And so that can also be a predictor or a moderator on the situations that people feel the most authentic in or the types of self aspects that they relate the most to.
It could be for the individual. It also might not be. One thing we know from research is people do tend to take their own cultural lens and apply it to whether they think you're being authentic. So if you're someone who's living in a culture that's very different than your own, people often might be confused about why you're doing what you're doing.
Or if you're not as emotional when we're in a highly emotional situation, people might be curious about that emotionality that they're used to seeing in other people. So there is a sense of cultural matching, but it typically happens on the perceiver side when people are trying to make sense of why you're doing what you're doing.
I feel for Jennifer. I really hope she can find a new environment that helps her feel more comfortable. I have felt this absolutely as a woman in academia, as a younger professor. There are some people who you just cannot tap into that sense of self. You can't relax or be comfortable.
And it's so frustrating to know that you have more than you're able to surface in those moments and in those environments. It's really a shame and it's a struggle because work is such an ever present part of our lives. It's a huge part of our time and our energy and for a lot of people where we get a lot of meaning.
If I was going to give Jennifer advice, I would say try to find buddies or allies at work for whom she feels that she can be herself. and find those moments to sort of relieve that tension and see if there are ways that they can team up. Maybe in these meetings, she needs to look at a friendly face or a smile, or even after the meeting, decompress and talk to someone about how she came across.
Did you hear what that person said? Did you hear this other person repeating what I just said? And that made me feel like, did they even hear me? Did they even see me? The other thing I would recommend is there is a narrative that I hear a little bit in what Jennifer is saying that other people, on the one hand, are waiting for her to fail.
And at the other hand, maybe they could benefit from her being her authentic self. And I would sort of interrogate those narratives. Most people want other people to be authentic. And most people don't think about other people that much. And that kind of always makes me feel a little bit better. Like most people you're talking to are really wrapped up in their own heads.
They're thinking about whether they're being authentic, whether you think they're competent, whether you think they're intelligent.
And kind of the moment you realize most people are not thinking about you at all, maybe that will help her feel some of this freedom and autonomy to express herself authentically and take a risk and see, you know, are people excited when she steps forward or does she face that backlash that she's expecting? And then how can she recover?
I love taking cues from your environment to learn more about yourself. It might tell you the people you don't want around you. It might tell you that you don't like this job that much or maybe that you're just new at your job and you need some time to sort of relax and acclimate.
I do think it's important to pay attention to when she can find authenticity at work and what are the features of that situation. Maybe she can approach those situations or tailor her existing job to fit that. We also know from the research that that kind of environment is ultimately not going to be productive for her manager or her team.
It sounds like it's not a place where there's high psychological safety, where people feel that they can take risks. So to the extent she could maybe surface this with her manager or her leader and say, you know, I have a lot more to give and you're not maximizing on my potential. What can we do?
How can we break down these barriers that are either perceived but still feel very real or maybe are really real and preventing not just me, but likely other people at the table from sharing what could be really valuable for the company?
It's such a great question. It's very layered and complex. And I have some research that I'm working on that I would love to talk to her about. But it's going to be about a couple of years before that gets through the peer review process.
But she's absolutely right that there are these norms about professionalism and this idea of what researchers call the ideal worker stereotype that are basically built around highly competent white male techie workers that sort of have dominated the professional workplace. And those are difficult for many people to live up to.
I think even people who sort of fit that prototype feel that they might not always be the ideal worker. And these pressures can really, really limit our ability to feel authentic, to feel safe with the people that are around us. And I think that
From some of the researchers that I know, these boundaries between our personal and professional lives can be really important for people to stay safe, to protect their mental well-being, to engage in self-care. I don't think everyone has to be authentic all the time. And for some people, that can be a life or death decision with whom they share certain identities that they have.
And for others, it becomes a barrier that people see you with a visible identity, like your race or ethnicity, your age, your gender, visible disabilities, and they make assumptions about you.
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