The Impossibility of Authenticity. Master Performance, not Personality
Aeriis Insights Group delivers custom, data-driven coaching, consulting and keynote solutions for Director through C-suite executives. Powered by seasoned consultants and ai-enhanced assessments, they cut to the core of leadership challenges to drive measurable results. They don’t just develop and train your leaders; they transform them.
By Kevin Wright, Managing Partner and CEO, Aeriis Insights Group
The modern CEO portrait is a masterclass in managed perception. From the power suit to the smile – but not really a smile. The relaxed smile is artfully created, like every element in the photo, designed to convey an authentic, trustworthy leader. However, as research by Guthey and Jackson (2005) shows, this very act of construction exposes an "authenticity paradox."
The relentless demand for leaders to be authentic forces them into performance, where every step, every action is crafted and scrutinized for sincerity.
This manufactured reality creates an impossibility of authenticity for executives, who are told to "be themselves." “Authenticity” while wardrobe is selected, make-up applied, and lighting positioned.
The way forward is not to be fake but to be strategic, while navigating the competing expectations of boards, employees, and customers. This article offers strategic authentic self-expression as a new capability for leaders to skillfully and ethically reveal parts of their true selves that each moment demands.
Authenticity is a Performance, not a Personality Trait
The first step toward a more effective leadership style is to accept an uncomfortable truth: authenticity as defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary “to be true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character, despite external pressures” is an impossibility in a modern CEO or TMT leadership context. The very nature of the CEO position creates three fundamental conflicts that makes this ideal unattainable. Leaders who cling to this notion are not only chasing a ghost, but they could be limiting their impact.
The first conflict is the performance paradox. To be seen as authentic, a CEO must be visible, yet this visibility puts them on a public stage where every action is a performance.
As researchers Guthey and Jackson (2005) have shown, even something as seemingly straightforward as a CEO portrait is a carefully constructed event designed to project a specific image. This act of construction, they argue, “lays bare the elusive nature of authenticity itself.” The demand for visibility, which corporations believe is vital to build trust, forces leaders into a performance that inherently contradicts the idea of an unembellished “true self.” Consequently, the goal must not be to avoid performing, but to perform with integrity and awareness.
This challenge is compounded by the context paradox. A CEO’s authenticity isn’t even their own. It’s co-created in a dynamic negotiation between the leader, the media, and various stakeholders – surely inclusive of Marketing and/or PR representation. Research conducted by Liu, Cutcher, and Grant (2017) reveals what is perceived as “authentic” changes dramatically depending on the situation.
Their analysis of banking CEOs during the Global Financial Crisis demonstrates that leadership identity is “discursively constructed” and what counts as authentic is constantly being negotiated. A leader can’t have a single, fixed authentic style because the very definition of authenticity itself is unstable and dependent on external interpretation.
This manufactured persona renders the leader susceptible to being seen as authentic one day and inauthentic the next, without their core values ever changing.
Finally, even if a leader could navigate these external pressures, they face the internal complexity paradox. The job of a CEO is fundamentally incompatible with the expression of a single self. As Valikangas and Tienari (2018) proffer, CEOs “cannot be authentic in the strict sense of the word” precisely because they must be “many things to many people.” Effective leadership requires what researchers call “behavioral complexity”—the ability to play multiple, often competing, roles such as visionary, coach, and tough negotiator.
In fact, studies show that CEOs who master this complexity produce the best firm performance. Adhering rigidly to one “true self” would be a dereliction of duty, sacrificing organizational effectiveness for a simplistic and ultimately unattainable ideal.
Accepting this reality is not a call for cynicism or pretending. Instead, it is a call for a more perceptive, sophisticated, and self-reflective approach. The critical question for leaders is not, “Am I being my true self?” but rather, “Am I managing the perceptions of my true authenticity to lead most effectively?” To maximize effectiveness, one only needs a foundational mindset shift to strategic authentic self-expression.
Master Performance, Not Personality
The pursuit of a static, so-called authentic personality is a veritable waste of time for CEOs and TMTs. The paradoxes of performance, context, and complexity ensure the traditional architype of a single “true self” isn’t just elusive, but an impossibility. Leaders who continue to chase this phantom will find themselves trapped in a web of suboptimal leadership impact, executing a feigned, flawed and outdated model of leadership.
The way forward is not to abandon authenticity, but to redefine it. It is time to stop trying to be a personality and start learning to master the performance of the true you.
Strategic authentic self-expression provides the framework for this mastery, enabling leaders to consciously and ethically choose which parts of their genuine self to reveal in any given situation.
The most effective leaders build trust not by being one thing, but by skillfully revealing what the moment requires. These successful CEOs have abandoned the creation of being and mastered their performance of becoming.
Article References
Guthey, E., & Jackson, B. (2005). CEO portraits and the authenticity paradox.Journal of management studies,42(5), 1057-1082.
Välikangas, L., & Tienari, J. (2018). Lifting the veil: Seeking and contesting authenticity in CEO work.M@ n@ gement,21(4), 1264-1277.
Liu, H., Cutcher, L., & Grant, D. (2017). Authentic leadership in context: An analysis of banking CEO narratives during the global financial crisis.Human Relations,70(6), 694-724.