What many leaders call authenticity is often loyalty to an outdated identity.
I hear versions of this every week in conversations with senior executives.
Most of the time, it sounds something like:
“That’s just who I am.”
Not because authenticity is unimportant. Quite the opposite.
But because what many people call authenticity is often an attachment to an identity that has served them well in the past.
One of the more interesting findings from developmental psychology is that human growth does not happen by expressing a fixed self more fully. It happens by expanding our capacity to think, feel and act in ways that were previously unavailable to us.
In other words, development requires us to become more than our current identity.
This is where many leaders get stuck.
The analytical CFO who has built a successful career on logic and expertise may need to learn how to create emotional connection and meaning. The highly collaborative executive may need to become more comfortable with conflict and difficult decisions. The successful expert may need to stop being the person with the answers and become the person who creates the conditions for better collective thinking.
None of these shifts feel natural at first.
In fact, why should they?
Anything genuinely new initially feels unfamiliar. Every capability we have ever developed once felt awkward and uncomfortable. Yet when it comes to leadership development, many people draw a different conclusion. The moment a new behaviour feels unnatural, they assume it must be inauthentic.
This assumption is worth challenging.
Neuroscience increasingly shows that there is no fixed self hidden somewhere in the brain waiting to be discovered. The brain continuously changes through experience. What feels foreign today can become natural tomorrow. What initially feels like “not me” can, through practice and integration, become part of a much broader and more mature way of being.
One of the hallmarks of human development is our ability to recognise that the identities which once helped us navigate the world can eventually become constraints on further growth.
This is why I believe authenticity is widely misunderstood.
Authenticity is not loyalty to a former version of yourself.
It is loyalty to your deepest values while remaining willing to evolve.
The most effective leaders I work with are not trying to protect an identity. They are willing to question it, expand it and, when necessary, outgrow it.
Because leadership is not about becoming more of who you already are.
It is about developing the capacity to meet realities that your current way of being can no longer adequately handle.