This is not an argument for inauthenticity. It is an argument for understanding what authenticity actually means as a communication practice — which is different from, and more useful than, the instruction to simply stop performing.

The Goffman complication: there is no unmanaged public communication

Goffman’s (1959) impression management framework establishes the foundational problem with the authenticity binary. In all social interaction, people manage the impression others form — calibrating what is disclosed, how it is framed, and what is withheld. There is no public communication that is entirely unmediated. The entrepreneur who decides to “be authentic” is making a strategic communication choice — they are performing authenticity, which is a specific and learnable presentation style rather than the absence of performance.

This is not cynical; it is accurate, and the accuracy matters for how entrepreneurs approach public communication. The relevant question is not “am I performing or being authentic?” but “is my communication coherent with my actual values and behaviour?” — because that is what audiences can detect over time, and it is the only version of authenticity that has reliable trust-building consequences.

Kim, Dirks, Cooper and Ferrin’s (2004) trust violation research established the audience-detectable dimension precisely: the integrity signal that audiences can register is the coherence between stated values and observable behaviour — not the internal authenticity of the communication. The entrepreneur who states values consistently and whose decisions are consistent with those values over time is building integrity trust regardless of whether their individual communications are strategically crafted or spontaneously expressed. The one whose stated values are not reflected in observable decisions is producing the integrity violation signal regardless of how genuine the individual communications feel.

What audiences actually respond to: similarity, not complexity

Cialdini’s (1984) liking and similarity research establishes a specific and practically important complication. Audiences respond most positively to communication that makes them feel understood, similar, and belonging — not to the full disclosed complexity of the communicator’s authentic experience. The founder who communicates the genuinely messy, contradictory, unresolved texture of their actual experience may be more internally authentic but is frequently less effective at building the connection that the liking and similarity mechanisms produce.

This is not a reason to manufacture false simplicity. It is a reason to select, from the genuine range of authentic experience, the experiences that the audience’s psychological needs can connect with — which is itself a strategic communication decision that does not compromise the authenticity of the content selected.

Gable, Reis, Impett and Asher’s (2004) capitalisation research predicts the specific emotional register that audiences respond to most strongly: shared positive emotion expressed with genuine specificity produces the strongest connection response. Shared struggle narrated with strategic vulnerability — the genre that social media entrepreneurship culture has developed for relatability — produces weaker and more sceptical connection responses, because the audience can detect the gap between the managed nature of the disclosure and the genuine depth of the difficulty it acknowledges.

What values-based communication produces that strategic performance cannot

The ACT research on psychological flexibility and values clarification establishes the behavioural markers that distinguish genuine values-based communication from strategic performance — not through any single communication but through the pattern over time. Communication that originates from genuine values produces consistency across different contexts, situations, and audiences: the values expressed in a high-stakes investor conversation align with those expressed in a casual podcast interview and with the decisions observable in the business over years.

Strategic performance that is not rooted in genuine values tends to produce the inconsistencies that longer observation reveals: the vulnerability performed in the social media post does not match the way the entrepreneur responds to actual vulnerability in team situations; the values stated in the fundraising deck do not align with the management decisions the team observes; the acknowledgment of mistakes in the quarterly newsletter does not result in the changed behaviour that genuine acknowledgment would produce.

Tetlock’s (1983) accountability research adds the most practically applicable insight: public commitments produce authentic behaviour signals precisely because they constrain subsequent behaviour. The entrepreneur who publicly commits to a specific value or approach has created a monitoring context in which subsequent behaviour will be observed for consistency. If the behaviour is consistent, the commitment produces an authenticity signal that private communication cannot. If it is not, the inconsistency produces an integrity violation signal that is visible to exactly the audience the commitment was aimed at.

The vulnerability versus oversharing distinction

Brown’s research establishes the most practically applicable distinction for the authenticity-strategy tension: genuine vulnerability is sharing experience that is connected to values and that serves connection with the audience. Oversharing is sharing experience that serves the communicator’s emotional need rather than the audience’s experience. The distinction is not in the content disclosed but in the orientation — toward the audience’s need or toward the communicator’s own emotional discharge and relatability performance.

The curated LinkedIn vulnerability post typically fails this test because it is oriented toward reputation management rather than toward genuine connection with the audience’s experience: the struggle is disclosed after it has been resolved, the lesson is articulated before it has been fully enacted, and the framing serves the narrative the entrepreneur wants to occupy rather than the authentic uncertainty they are actually in.

The honest quarterly newsletter genre that many entrepreneurs have adopted succeeds or fails by exactly this criterion: the ones that produce genuine trust are those whose acknowledged struggles are subsequently shown to have been resolved through the approaches stated — because the consistency between acknowledgment and subsequent behaviour provides the values-coherence signal that audiences can actually detect over time.

Books worth reading on this

Authentic by Stephen Joseph is the most research-grounded available account of what psychological authenticity actually means — distinguishing genuine values-based living from the performed authenticity that social media culture has developed as a genre. For the entrepreneur who wants the most intellectually precise available treatment of what authenticity is and is not as a psychological construct and communication practice, Joseph provides the most rigorous available complement to the Goffman and ACT research.

If the dynamics described here are significantly affecting your wellbeing, speaking with a psychologist is the right next step. UK: Samaritans (116 123, free, 24/7). Mind (0300 123 3393). BACP: bacp.co.uk/search/Therapists. Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741 (US, UK, Canada, Ireland). International: internationaltherapistdirectory.com.

This article is for educational and informational purposes only. Sources: Goffman, E. (1959), The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Doubleday. Kim, P.H., Dirks, K.T., Cooper, C.D. & Ferrin, D.L. (2004), Removing the Shadow of Suspicion, Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(1), 104–118. Cialdini, R.B. (1984), Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Harper & Row. Gable, S.L., Reis, H.T., Impett, E.A. & Asher, E.R. (2004), What Do You Do When Things Go Right?, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(2), 228–245. Hayes, S.C. et al. (1996), Experiential Avoidance and Behavioral Disorders, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64(6), 1152–1168. Tetlock, P.E. (1983), Accountability and Complexity of Thought, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(1), 74–83. Joseph, S. (2016), Authentic, Piatkus. Cain, S. (2012), Quiet, Crown.