Why authenticity at work might be the opposite of freedom

At Danish Energy Company, Clever, CEO Casper Kirketerp-Møller proudly proclaims that they have abandoned all employee titles, having evolved as a company to the point where they no longer need them, as they have seemingly reached a new plane of consciousness (through 5 years of experiments).

Former CEO of Novo Nordisk, Lars Fruergaard, talks about how he and his leadership team explore childhood experiences and trauma to understand who they are and why they act the way they do.

Elsewhere in Denmark, a large Danish design organization “set itself free”, became an organism and a collective rather than a traditional organization, then wrote a book about it.

These examples represent a broader trend in organizational thinking. Call it Teal, Theory U, Regenerative Leadership or something entirely else: They all encapsulate similar strands of modern leadership philosophies focusing on flattening hierarchies, self-management, shared responsibility and decision making, the collective and communal – often dressed up in an evolutionary, sometimes spiritual organizational perspective (they, of course, represent the most evolved position).

Although doing away with titles, hierarchy, etc. raises many questions and has lots of practical problems. Just to mention a few: How does a board steer an organization that is without hierarchy? Or what are the consequences of the newest hire having equal influence as the most seasoned expert? Or how do you become senior when you were never junior?

But beyond these practical concerns lies a deeper philosophical problem.

Such theories constantly talk about how they develop organizations for “the whole person” (in Danish: det hele menneske). Here you can be your true self at work. You don’t need to wear a mask or take on a role, they say.

And this is precisely what makes me suspicious!

By stressing the idea of authenticity – the idea that there is a true you or me, that we need to find to rid ourselves of all these roles and identities we cloak ourselves in – this approach does, in fact, not evolve beyond a classic anthropocentric paradigm, but rather perpetuates the old idea of the human subject at the center of the universe.

But what if this quest for authenticity is not the path to freedom, but its opposite?

Have we forgotten the lessons of Michel Foucault: that there is always power wherever there are relations, and therefore we need transparent power dynamics rather than hiding them away or making them less competency-based?

Have we forgotten the lessons of Judith Butler: that we are constantly in process, performing who we are, and thereby creating a sense of being through our constant doing?

And have we forgotten the lessons of Deleuze: that we are not sovereign autonomous subjects but hopelessly intertwined with everything around us?

Here’s the fundamental paradox: authentic workplaces may actually undermine the very community they claim to foster. True community emerges when people actively choose to direct their attention away from themselves and towards each other. Community is to lean into each other. Doing that is taking on a role, playing only a part of what and who you are.

This is why our search for workplace freedom may be entirely backwards. We are looking for workplace freedom in the wrong place. Perhaps hierarchy and titles are not so much power structures we need to transcend, but rather something that actively contains and limits the scope of power. Accepting that who you are at work is not your true, whole self is liberating. Behind the mask of a title and playing a role, there is freedom. After all, it IS just a role. We are not confined to our “true selves”, but free to explore and performatively shape our own continual becoming: shaping and remodelling ourselves constantly through our actions.

The most radical act in the workplace might be not to bring our whole selves, but to embrace the productive constraint of being partial, finding freedom not in authenticity, but in the endless possibility of who we might become through what we do.