Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

Just be you, be a real you, bring your whole self and always be true to your values.

So actually, the beginning of authenticity is quite well-intended and well-meaning.

In the 1990s, William Kahn introduces the concept of employee engagement, which now everybody knows.

And he defined it as the psychological degree to which you identify with your work persona.

So imagine.

If you think you or your professional self is an integral part of your identity, you will work hard, you will be engaged, you will love your job.

And, you know, your manager won't need to be breathing behind your neck and telling you, hey, hey, hey, be productive.

Then we create better workplaces.

Then we are able to offer people a career that has meaning.

And then the extreme, maybe an extreme distorted version of that is like, oh, you know, just be you.

And, you know, your need for self-expression kind of,

can override your obligation to others.

And if you don't find that you identify almost in a cult-like level with your job, you should quit because there's something wrong with what you're doing.

And you can see how it starts in a good place, but then like all ideas, when you lose nuance and they become too radical, they become diluted and very incoherent or nonsensical.

The idea is that, hey, if you're part of an outgroup, a minority, or a diverse kind of employee, manager, or leader, we shouldn't put pressure on you to conform and become like the normative group or the in-group, right?

And so it was a very...

I think, naive but good attempt to improve inclusion because diversity without inclusion doesn't work.

If you bring people who are unrepresentative of the norm, it's not enough bringing them, you actually have to help them succeed or remove any barriers.

So, you know, clearly, if you resemble the status quo, you will be much better able to kind of bring your whole self, even at the job interview.

And let's not forget that, you know, if you really want to look at this invitation kind of explicitly, it's like, should I bring my whole self to work if I'm a grumpy me, opinionated me, entitled me, narrow-minded me?