On “effective authenticity”, inspired by a Squiggly Careers podcast episode

I just listened to episode 500 of “Squiggly Careers” on “Why Bringing Your Authentic Self to Work Is Bad Advice“. They explore the concept of “effective authenticity […] where you project a version of yourself that resonates with others whilst maintaining a semblance of genuineness“. This sounds a bit off-putting at first (“a semblance of genuineness“??) but in their (very helpful workbook-style!) podsheet, they explain “[i]t means showing up in ways that feel true to you, but that also connect with the people around you“.

And I find this really interesting in the context of planning for our MOOC and how we want to present ourselves in the videos. I have written before about the challenges of authenticity in influencing on social media, and more recently about parasocial relationships that people form with influencers. Of course, how we authentically present ourselves — whether on social media, or as teacher, or in any context — is necessarily selective. But what became very clear to me while listening to this episode is to even more carefully consider the purposeful balance between self-expression and social connection. They suggest asking ourselves several questions:

Which facets of the authentic me are working for or against me; specifically, how can my values play out in a constructive way (or not, if I am not deliberate in which facets I share)? For example, I very highly value curiosity and in many situations that’s a good thing, but if I show curiosity towards everything all the time, that can very much derail any focussed work. I also very much value people showing up on time, but if I authentically show how very much it annoys me when people waste my time by being late, that does not set a good mood at the beginning of a course…

What does the team (or do the students) need from me? In the two examples I mentioned already above — while showing general curiosity towards students is a good thing, this cannot always be in the focus. And while it might be helpful to point out that I want to start on time, students also need a positive and up-beat start into a course.

Lastly, how can we choose the right “blend” of self-expression and social connection depending on the situation? And stay responsive, re-evaluate and adapt when situations change? This is maybe something that lies both in the preparation of considering values and how they can play out in different situations (as I did above), and then staying alert to feedbacks from our surroundings…

In the podcast, they mention that in many cases, trust is more important than authenticity. The example given is the classical pilot — who cares if they are a nice person as long as they get us safely from A to B? (Well, their crew might care, and that might actually have an indirect influence on whether we do get around safely… And the same goes for surgeons etc). But the point is that in a professional context, we are there to fill a role, and in our case, to be a teacher.

Speaking of trust, and being a teacher — we are currently working on exploring how teachers can build trust with students (in the presence of GenAI) in order to support learning. Of course, teachers need to actually be trustworthy and only then use the trust moves to communicate the trustworthiness, not use them to build trust that isn’t warranted. Part of communicating trustworthiness is to share who we are — but in a way that contributes to a relationship that is conductive to learning, which is exactly what effective authenticity means in this context. I just read this brilliant essay on “Human error is the point: on teaching College during the rise of AI“, and I agree: The magic really happens in the unintentional imperfections, and in how we react to them. And maybe that is where authenticity becomes unplanned and, for a lack of a better word, authentic.

Speaking of magic — here are some wave watching pictures from a magical sunset in Ayia Napa a little while ago.

I love how dark it looks on the inside of the breaking wave! This is my favourite stage of wave-breaking, btw (in case you were wondering), when the crest is juuuust about to tip over!

I always try to capture that stage.

Here again…

Fun fact: Sending that picture to a friend and my parents, both my parents and my friend asked if the rocks are volcanic. According to google, the answer is yes!

This was indeed magical!