It’s hard not to be attracted to the notion of authenticity in the workplace. The idea of working in an environment laced with duplicity is hardly appealing. But what does it really mean to ‘voice authentically’? And what might it look like if everyone did?

A recent piece by Adam Grant in the New York Times focused on authenticity and made me pause for thought: “…for most people, “be yourself” is actually terrible advice. If I can be authentic for a moment: Nobody wants to see your true self. We all have thoughts and feelings that we believe are fundamental to our lives, but that are better left unspoken.”

That strong sentiment attracted my attention, prompting me to re-focus on something which has sat at the back of my mind for sometime – how very often I hear the word ‘authentic’ used in place of ‘open’ or ‘transparent’. As I scanned across other articles on the topic, I began to see the same pattern emerge again and again.

But is that really what it means? By this measure, those whose nature may not be to let their inner thoughts or feelings trip off the tongue without giving careful thought to how they might be received are simply not ‘authentic’. Is unbridled openness a prerequisite for authenticity in leadership? Is complete transparency the same as ‘being yourself’?

An interesting article in Harvard Business Review earlier this year by Herminia Ibarra, outlined two types of authentic leader -“low self-monitors” and “high self-monitors.” Low self-monitors tend to say whatever comes to mind, whereas high self-monitors watch carefully what they say for its impact on others. Both can be considered ‘authentic’ in their own way and both ways of operating have their own unique advantages and disadvantages.

If there is a propensity towards high self-monitoring, then it may be perfectly natural to take some time to give careful consideration to how you express yourself, in both actions and words. What you eventually say and do is no less authentic but it is less instantaneous because there are more thought processes linked to it. That is something quite different to fabrication, self-censorship or keeping ‘on message’, all of which fall firmly outside the realms of authenticity.

In fact, if you are looking for the true meaning of ‘authenticity’ you need look no further than it’s origin. It is actually derived from the Greek word for ‘author’.

So, far from being premised on stripping back layers of self to publicly reveal your innermost thoughts and feelings, authenticity is perhaps more accurately rooted in the notion of developing deep self-awareness as a platform from which to act and speak more consciously and from a more profound sense of identity. Quite literally, creating the freedom and ability to ‘author your own life’.

Complete transparency in the moment might be part of one individual’s model but the absence of it does not necessarily denote a lack of authenticity. In fact, given the different behavioural preferences we know to exist and can identify very easily using the Kantor Behavioural Profiles, openess is likely to feature in different ways and to different degrees across individual models of leadership without any particular link to how authentic that leader may be.

Authentic leadership is more likely to be reliant upon a leader becoming aware of their own behaviours, what drives them; and how those behaviours interact with others, such that they can consciously craft their own model of leadership. In doing so, they develop the ability to notice whether they are exercising deliberate choice in line with their model or whether they being driven by stories, experiences and biases that they were previously unaware of or not in command of.

Whatever your version of authenticity looks like, it’s this work on ‘self’ that is universal and forms the bedrock of authentic leadership.