Authenticity Over Presence: Fake It Til You Make It, or Be Real?
There is an old piece of advice that has accompanied ambitious professionals for generations: fake it till you make it. And before we dismiss it - as leadership development professionals are often tempted to do - it is worth acknowledging that there is something genuinely useful underneath the jokey title.
When you are new to a role, stepping up in responsibility, or navigating territory you have never covered before, acting as if you belong can be a legitimate strategy. It can quieten the inner critic long enough to take action. It can help manage the paralysing effects of imposter syndrome - that familiar feeling, experienced by the vast majority of senior leaders at some point, that you are somehow less capable than others believe you to be. In this sense, “faking it” is less about deception and more about borrowing confidence from a future self until your actual capability catches up with your position.
That is not nothing. It is, in fact, a real psychological tool.
But there is a line. And in twenty years of working with senior leaders, we have watched many talented people cross it without noticing - moving from temporarily borrowing confidence to permanently performing a persona. That shift is where the real problem begins.
A Personal Reckoning
I know this territory from the inside, having tried, if not succeeded, to “fake it til you make it”. My aim was to deliver on the expected script. When I was uncertain, I attempted to project certainty. When I had real concerns about the direction things were taking, I kept them to myself. When I felt out of my depth, I did my best to ensure no one else could tell.
At the time, I thought this was professional. I believed that showing doubt or fear was incompatible with being taken seriously at a senior level. What I understand now - and what twenty years of working with leaders and followers has confirmed - is that this behaviour was deeply inauthentic, and inauthenticity has a cost. Not just to the leader, but to every person they lead. My silence about real concerns modelled silence in others. My performed certainty prevented me from reaching out for help, when it was often needed.
This pattern is not unusual. Many of the senior leaders we work with arrive in coaching carrying a similar story. The higher you climb, the stronger the cultural pressure to project confidence and appear in control.
“Faking it” as a short-term bridge through doubt is one thing. Faking it as a permanent operating style is something else entirely — and it tends to produce cultures where difficulty stays hidden until it becomes a crisis.
For HR leaders, recognising this dynamic and creating conditions where it can be safely examined is one of the most valuable contributions you can make to organisational health.
What Goffee and Jones Got Right
The foundational work that has most stood the test of time on this subject remains Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones' *Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?* Their argument is deceptively straightforward: people don't follow titles or structures. They choose to follow real human beings who reveal something genuine of themselves — their values, their personality, and yes, even their vulnerability.
Goffee and Jones identified four core qualities in leaders that people willingly follow: they show their differences rather than hiding them; they reveal their humanity; they hold high standards while remaining deeply caring about the people delivering against them; and they read the context sensitively and respond with appropriate authenticity. Critically, the authors were not arguing for unfiltered self-disclosure. Their formulation - "be yourself, more of the time, in a skilled way" - matters enormously. Authenticity is not the same as saying whatever you feel, nor is it an absence of professional judgement. It is the disciplined practice of bringing your genuine self to the role, rather than hiding behind a performance of it.
This resonates deeply with what we have observed across hundreds of coaching engagements. The leaders who build the most enduring followership are not the ones who seem invincible. They are the ones who have the confidence, or the honesty to say "I don't have all the answers, but here is what I believe" - and they mean it.
This is, in many ways, the mature evolution of “fake it till you make it.” Not: pretend you are someone you are not. But: grow into who you genuinely are, and lead from that place.
What Current Research Tells Us
The field has continued to develop and throw up challenges over time. A comprehensive twenty-year review of authentic leadership research, published in 2024, examined over 300 scholarly articles and recognised the ongoing debate about the impact and validity of Authentic Leadership as a concept. It also found that the most effective understanding treats authenticity not as a fixed trait, but as a dynamic, ongoing process.
Authentic leadership, in this updated framing, is about the continual alignment between behaviour and values - and about being conscious of how that alignment, or its absence, is experienced by those being led.
Particularly relevant for HR leaders is the concept of bounded authenticity - the recognition that authentic leadership always operates within the legitimate constraints of role, context, and culture. This is a maturation of the idea, not a dilution of it. Even within the demands of senior executive roles, leaders can - and should - bring something genuinely human to the work.
The research also makes a compelling business case. Studies have found clear links between authentic leadership and reduced team burnout, lower turnover intention, and higher levels of psychological safety. When senior leaders model honesty about uncertainty, people feel safer to raise concerns early, surface problems before they escalate, and bring genuine thinking rather than defensive compliance. For any organisation investing in culture and retention, this is not a soft argument - it is a strategic one.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
The conditions of senior leadership have shifted profoundly. Leaders now operate under unprecedented scrutiny - from employees demanding transparency, from boards expecting adaptive thinking, and from a broader cultural shift in which traditional authority structures are increasingly questioned. In this environment, the leaders we work with who navigate complexity most effectively share one common quality: they lead from a settled sense of who they are.
They have done the inner work - frequently through sustained coaching - to understand their values, recognise their patterns, and distinguish between the role they occupy and the person they are. They have made peace with the reality that leading authentically sometimes means being uncomfortable, naming hard things out loud, and demonstrating to others that uncertainty is not a leadership failure. It is a leadership reality.
They have moved well beyond “faking it” - not because they never doubted themselves, but because they found something more sustainable on the other side of that doubt.
Earning the Right to Be Followed
Goffee and Jones' original provocation - “why should anyone be led by you?” - remains one of the most useful questions in leadership development. It reframes leadership from a status question to a relational one. Not: are you sufficiently impressive? But: are you someone worth following, for reasons that are genuinely real?
“Fake it till you make it” may get you through the door. Authentic leadership is what will keep people in the room with you.
In twenty years, we have never seen a manufactured persona earn genuine loyalty. We have seen it earn compliance. But loyalty - the kind that sustains organisations through difficulty and change - flows only to leaders willing to be known.
The most courageous leadership decision many senior leaders can make right now is not to project more confidence. It is to have the courage to drop the performance, walk into the room as themselves, and lead from who they actually are.
That is where authentic leadership begins. And in our experience, it is where the most meaningful leadership impact is made.
At Motion Learning, we have spent twenty years helping senior leaders develop the self-awareness and courage to lead authentically. If you'd like to explore what that looks like for you or your organisation, we'd love to have the conversation.
Sources
Authentic leadership: 20-Year review editorial
Effects of authentic leadership on the experiences of burnout