Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

Great call by David Bowie when he was asked, who are you really?

Because he would change artistic persona from one year to the next.

And he said, I am only the person the greatest number of people think I am.

And of course, reputation matters more than identity.

We all get hired, fired, demoted, promoted, not based on what we think of ourselves, but based on what other people think of us.

It still starts with feedback from others.

In essence, you need to get some feedback from others as to whether you're too direct, too authentic, too yourself, or too fake.

And actually, we need to find that kind of middle gradient.

What's really important to understand is, again, going back to reputation, is that the kind of authenticity that really matters most

is in the eye of the beholder.

It's not how authentic you think you are that matters.

It's how authentic other people think you are.

And the research shows that leaders who are seen as authentic spend a lot of time in skilled strategic self-presentation.

Precisely because they don't want to overdo it, you know?

What did people say historically about people like Tony Blair, Bill Clinton?

You know, you can agree or not with how they ended up doing their parts, but they always said, when you speak to them, they make you feel like you're the most important person in the world.

Now, I can assure you, they didn't really think that, but they make you feel that.

And that's because they're very, very skilled at, they're almost like method actors.

And that sounds Machiavellian.

It doesn't have to be if it makes others better.