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The Identity Paradox at Work: What the Research Says About Staying Yourself While You Grow.
Updated: Sep 28
The new executive has been in post for nine days, and on the ninth day she asks, very politely, whether the diary could run a little differently. Fewer meetings before ten. Papers the night before rather than on the morning. And could the colour coding go, because she finds it busy. Each request is perfectly reasonable. Together they take apart a system you spent six years building, and which, if you are candid with yourself on the train home, had become a fair part of how you think of yourself at work.
Nobody has done anything wrong. And still the question arrives somewhere around the second stop: am I still what they need, and am I still me? I wrote about this in 2025 as the identity paradox, and I described identity as a garden rather than a house of cards, because that was what I found when this very thing happened to me. Going back through the research since, the garden holds up well. What the evidence adds is a few surprises about the soil: that feeling like yourself is partly a reading you take after the fact, that being consistent matters less than most advice assumes, and that "be yourself" is excellent advice right up to the point where it is taken literally.
What you will get out of this
The two tugs that sit underneath the identity paradox, and the study of clergy that shows how people hold both
What feeling like yourself at work is worth, measured in studies of more than 4,000 employees, including what it does six months later
Why authenticity is partly a feeling you build, and the five conditions that reliably switch it on
Whether chameleons really get ahead, from a meta-analysis of 136 samples and 23,191 people, and the two faces researchers found behind the adaptability
The argument in the research about whether being consistent is good for you, and where I think it lands
What adapting to fit in costs, who pays more of it, and the ten minutes at the start of a team's life that changed its results four months later
What happens to your sense of self when your role is defined through someone else, and what to hold onto when they leave
How new chief executives stepped up while staying "sufficiently authentic", and why disclosing too much can backfire as you rise
The part of you that stays put: eight years of data on values, and a ten-minute exercise that lowered people's stress hormones
The identity check: a tool that reads where you are in a change at work and suggests what to keep, what to try and what to watch
The Identity Pages: three pages for knowing what stays, naming the chapter you are in, and auditing what adapting is costing you
Two tugs that arrive together
Most of us describe the identity paradox as one tension. The research treats it as two, and it helps to pull them apart.
The first is between belonging and standing out. In 1991 a social psychologist proposed that people carry two opposing needs at once, one to be included and one to be distinct, and that we identify most strongly with groups that manage to satisfy both at the same time. Too much inclusion and you disappear; too much distinctiveness and you are alone. The theory is called optimal distinctiveness, and thirty years of work since have kept it at the centre of how researchers think about identity in groups.
The second is between staying the same and growing. You want a stable sense of who you are, and you also want to become more than you were last year. Both needs are healthy, and they pull in opposite directions at exactly the moments work gets interesting: a new executive, a bigger remit, a restructure.
The most useful study of how people hold the first tension is a study of clergy, published in 2006. Few jobs ask more of a person's identity than one where the role is supposed to become who you are. The researchers found the clergy doing continuous identity work to find a balance between being absorbed by the role and keeping something of themselves apart from it, and they described a whole set of everyday tactics people used to manage the boundary between the two, letting the role in on some things and keeping it out of others.
Two later studies found that the balance never settles for good. A longitudinal case study of a police organisation going through change showed managers and staff negotiating the tension between similarity and distinctiveness in cycles, with the balance, in the author's words, elusive to achieve and difficult to sustain. And a study of design consultancies, whose staff wanted to see themselves as artists while hitting budgets and deadlines, found the firms that coped best did both at once: they separated the two identities in time and space when that helped, and they also built a combined identity, "practical artists", that let people be both.
The second tension has its own landmark. A study that followed 48 people with more than one job over five years found that they struggled with being, feeling and seeming authentic, both in each role and across their working lives as a whole. What they learned, over time, was to stop trying to be the same person everywhere. They moved from synchronising their different roles to harmonising a broader sense of self, and the researchers concluded that authenticity for them was not about being true to one identity across time. It involved making room for several true versions of yourself, which may change.
Authenticity turns out to be less about being the same person everywhere and more about being able to recognise yourself in each of the places you show up.
Try this. Write the two tugs at the top of a page, belonging and standing out, staying the same and growing, and note where each one is pulling you this month. Most people find one of the four has gone quiet. That quiet one is usually where the next useful move is, because the research says the balance is something you keep finding again rather than a place you arrive and stay.
The research behind this section
Brewer (1991) proposed a model of optimal distinctiveness in which social identity reconciles opposing needs for assimilation and differentiation, with identification strongest for self-categorisations that provide a sense of belonging and of distinctiveness at the same time, and reported an initial laboratory experiment in which depersonalisation and group size interacted to determine the strength of social identification. Leonardelli, Pickett and Brewer (2010) reviewed optimal distinctiveness theory as a framework for social identity, social cognition and intergroup relations. Kreiner, Hollensbe and Sheep (2006) studied identity work among clergy searching for an optimal balance between their personal identity and a highly demanding occupational identity, and described the tactics they used to manage the boundary between the two. Cuganesan (2017) used a longitudinal case study of a police organisation undergoing change to show how senior managers and employees negotiated the tension between similarity and distinctiveness as an emergent and cyclical process, finding the balance elusive to achieve and difficult to sustain over time. Gotsi and colleagues (2010) studied new product design consultancies and found paradoxical approaches to identity regulation in which firms used both differentiation practices, separating identities in time and space, and integration efforts that built a meta-identity as "practical artists". Caza, Moss and Vough (2018) analysed qualitative data gathered over five years from 48 plural careerists and found that people with multiple work identities struggled with being, feeling and seeming authentic, moving over time from synchronising their role identities to harmonising a more general work self, and concluded that authenticity for them involved holding space for several true versions of oneself that may change over time rather than consistency with one identity. Ibarra and Petriglieri (2010) introduced identity play, the provisional but active trial of possible future selves, as a complement to identity work during role transitions.
What feeling like yourself at work is worth, and what it is made of
Researchers split authenticity at work into three parts, and the split is useful for anyone who has had a strange quarter. Authentic living is acting in line with what you value. Self-alienation is the sense of not knowing who you are at work, or feeling cut off from yourself. Accepting external influence is how much you do what others expect rather than what you would choose. A measure built on those three parts, tested with 646 people, found each of them related to job satisfaction, performance in the role and engagement.
A second study, of 685 people, found that authenticity at work accounted for around 11% of the differences in a range of wellbeing and work outcomes, after taking account of the job itself and people's backgrounds. The strongest of the three parts was self-alienation. That matches what most people describe when a role goes wrong for them: the problem is rarely that they are doing things they disagree with, and more often that they no longer quite recognise the person doing them.
The pattern repeats elsewhere. In 680 bank employees, the resources a job provided, such as support and autonomy, went with higher authenticity, and authenticity in turn went with engagement, satisfaction and rated performance. In 360 public sector managers, authenticity went with wellbeing, partly because it made the work feel meaningful. In 867 workers, authenticity turned out to be something distinct from simply fitting the job, and it did more to protect people from burnout and boredom than to lift their satisfaction.
The strongest evidence is over time. A study of 1,243 employees across 63 parts of a social sector organisation found that authenticity at work predicted people's ability to do their work and lower levels of depressive symptoms about six months later, and that the relationship ran both ways: feeling well also made people more authentic next time. And a study of 715 employees in 109 teams found something I love, which is that your colleagues' authenticity is good for you too. People whose teammates were more authentic were more engaged and less emotionally exhausted, over and above how authentic they were themselves.
So the case for feeling like yourself at work is strong. Here is the counterweight, and it is the part of this research that changed how I think.
Feeling authentic is partly a reading, and the reading can be moved. Researchers now distinguish trait authenticity, a stable tendency, from state authenticity, the sense in a particular moment of being your real self. Across three studies, people said experiences of both authenticity and inauthenticity were common, whatever their trait level, and that they were strongly motivated to have more of the first. Then came the experiments. In three studies, putting people in a better mood, by several different methods, made them feel more authentic. The researchers concluded that people use their mood as information about whether they are being themselves.
It goes further. In three experience-sampling studies, people felt most authentic when they were acting in extraverted, agreeable, conscientious, emotionally stable and curious ways, regardless of their own personality. The introvert felt more like themselves being sociable, which is not what the "be yourself" advice would predict. A further study found people's sense of their own authenticity was contaminated by how good their behaviour was, and a line of work on the true self found people see the true self, in themselves and others, as fundamentally good. Observers were more likely to see a person's real self in behaviour they judged to be moral.
Two findings about power complete the picture. In surveys covering work, relationships and friendship, and in experiments, people who felt more powerful felt more authentic, and that authenticity explained why they were happier. And in five experiments with 715 people, it ran the other way as well: recalling a time you felt authentic made you feel more powerful, and observers judged people who seemed authentic to be better negotiators and leaders.
The most practical framework in this literature is called SAFE, for state authenticity as fit to the environment. It proposes three kinds of fit that make people feel like themselves: fit with how you see yourself, fit with what you are trying to achieve, and fit with the people around you. A test with 969 students, followed by an experience-sampling study of 269, found that moment-to-moment changes in all three predicted feeling authentic, and that the moments of fit with how people saw themselves went with more working memory and less emotional burnout.
Feeling like yourself is less a discovery than a reading you take, and the reading goes up when the situation fits, you have some say, and you are doing the work well.
The review that best explains why this matters calls it "true self as guide". People use the feeling of authenticity as a signal of whether they are living the kind of life they value. So a week in which you feel unlike yourself is information worth having, and it is also worth checking the obvious readings first: tired, powerless, in a room that does not fit you, or doing work you are not yet good at.
Try this. Next time you feel unlike yourself at work, run the five readings before drawing any conclusions about who you are. How is your mood? Are you doing the work well or learning it? Do you fit the room? Do you have any say in what is happening? And are you shutting people out, or letting them in? In one of the everyday studies, accepting influence from others was more often linked to feeling more authentic than less. If three of the five are low, the problem is probably the week rather than you.
The research behind this section
Cha and colleagues (2019) reviewed and integrated the fragmented research on individual authenticity in work settings. Van den Bosch and Taris (2014) developed the Individual Authenticity Measure at Work with 646 participants and found three subscales, authentic living, self-alienation and accepting external influence, each positively related to job satisfaction, in-role performance and work engagement. Van den Bosch and Taris (2014) found in 685 participants that authenticity at work accounted for on average 11% of the variance in various wellbeing and work outcomes after controlling for work characteristics and demographics, with self-alienation the strongest predictor. Wood and colleagues (2008) developed the tripartite dispositional measure of authenticity on which the work measure built and found each subscale strongly related to self-esteem and wellbeing. Metin and colleagues (2016) found in 680 Dutch bank employees that job resources were positively associated with state authenticity, which was positively related to work engagement, job satisfaction and performance and partially mediated the effect of resources. Ménard and Brunet (2011) found in 360 public sector managers that authenticity at work was positively associated with wellbeing, partly through meaning of work. Van den Bosch and colleagues (2019) found in 867 workers that authenticity at work was distinct from person-environment fit, with its mediated effect stronger for burnout and boredom than for engagement and satisfaction. Van den Bosch and Taris (2018) found in 546 participants that autonomous motivation was positively associated with authenticity at work and partially mediated its link with wellbeing. Emmerich and Rigotti (2017) analysed longitudinal data from 1,243 employees in 63 subsidiaries and found that work-related authenticity predicted work ability and depressivity about six months later, and that authenticity and healthy functioning reinforced each other. Emmerich, Knoll and Rigotti (2020) found in 715 employees in 109 teams that teammates' authenticity related positively to engagement and negatively to emotional exhaustion beyond the employee's own authenticity. Sutton (2020) meta-analysed 75 studies with 36,533 people and found authenticity related to wellbeing (r = .40) and engagement (r = .37). Knoll and van Dick (2013) found across two studies that employees' authenticity predicted more voice and less silence about problems at work. Lenton and colleagues (2013) found across three studies that experiences of state authenticity and inauthenticity were common regardless of trait authenticity and that people were motivated to seek the first and avoid the second; in a separate set of three experiments, Lenton and colleagues (2013) found that participants felt more authentic in a positive than a negative mood across several mood inductions, and concluded that mood is used as information about authenticity. Lenton, Slabu and Sedikides (2016) used day reconstruction and a smartphone app and found that state authentic living did not require rejecting external influence, that accepting influence was more often related to increased than decreased authenticity, and that authentic living went with positive mood, energy, self-esteem and flow. Sedikides and colleagues (2017) and Sedikides and colleagues (2019) set out a programme of research on state authenticity, including its determinants in congruency, positivity and hedonism. Fleeson and Wilt (2010) found in three experience-sampling studies that authenticity was consistently associated with acting highly extraverted, agreeable, conscientious, emotionally stable and intellectual, regardless of the actor's traits. Jongman-Sereno and Leary (2016) reported that self-perceived authenticity is contaminated by the valence of one's behaviour, and Jongman-Sereno and Leary (2019) critically examined the concept, noting researchers' disagreement about how to measure it and whether it is always desirable. Newman, Bloom and Knobe (2014) found across three studies that observers were more likely to see a person's true self in behaviours they judged morally good, and Strohminger, Knobe and Newman (2017) reviewed evidence that the true self is perceived as positive and moral, a tendency stable across actors, observers and cultures, and Bench and colleagues (2015) examined how people think about change in themselves and others through metaphors of self-discovery and the true self. Rivera and colleagues (2019) argued that perceived authenticity contributes to wellbeing through a lay theory of the "true self as guide" to a good life. Schlegel and colleagues (2009) found that the accessibility of the true self-concept predicted meaning in life and that priming it enhanced meaning. Kifer and colleagues (2013) found across four surveys and two experiments that power increased subjective wellbeing by making people feel more authentic, and that manipulated authenticity directly increased wellbeing. Kraus, Chen and Keltner (2011) reported that power elevates self-concept consistency and authenticity. Gan, Heller and Chen (2018) found across five experiments with 715 people that feeling authentic increased the sense of power and that perceivers inferred power, negotiating effectiveness and leadership from others' authenticity. Schmader and Sedikides (2018) proposed the SAFE model, in which self-concept fit, goal fit and social fit promote state authenticity, with contexts signalling social identities in ways that elicit authenticity for advantaged groups and inauthenticity for disadvantaged ones. Aday and colleagues (2025) validated measures of the three fits with 969 students and, in an experience-sampling study of 269, found that momentary variation in each fit predicted greater state authenticity, with self-concept fit going with higher working memory capacity and lower emotional burnout. Hewlin and colleagues (2020) introduced a special section on the shapes, triggers and consequences of authenticity at work, defining felt authenticity as the sense of being one's real self.
Chameleons, and people who stay the same
Every profession has its version of the question, and this one has it more than most: are you better off adapting to each room, or being the same person in all of them?
Psychologists have measured the adapting tendency since 1974. They call it self-monitoring, meaning how much you watch the social cues around you and adjust how you present yourself to fit. High self-monitors read the room and change with it; low self-monitors behave much the same whatever the room, guided by their own attitudes and feelings.
On the career evidence, the chameleons do well. A meta-analysis of 136 samples and 23,191 people found self-monitoring relevant to job performance and to who emerged as a leader. A study that followed MBA graduates into their careers found high self-monitors more likely to move between employers and to be promoted. In a technology firm of 116 people, high self-monitors were more likely to sit at the centre of the social network, and both their self-monitoring and their centrality independently predicted their performance. And a series of studies found high self-monitors won status among their peers by becoming known as generous helpers: they were more likely to be sought out for help and less likely to ask for it. For a profession built on reading people and helping them, none of this will be a surprise.
The same research has a second face, and the researchers used exactly that phrase. In two samples, the status motive behind high self-monitoring took two forms depending on who was watching. In public, it made people behave better than their personalities would predict. In private, where nobody could see, it made low conscientiousness worse, with more behaviour that harmed the organisation. The adapting is a skill, and like most skills it goes where the incentives point.
Then there is the question of whether varying yourself is good for you, and here the research argues with itself.
The case for consistency. A 1997 study found that people whose personalities varied more across their different roles reported lower wellbeing, and that they felt least authentic in the roles where they departed furthest from themselves. A study of self-concept differentiation, the tendency to see yourself as a different person in different roles, found it went with poorer emotional adjustment in both students and middle-aged women, and followed people over thirty years. Its authors read it as a sign of a fragmented self, and found that frequent changes of job and relationship predicted it nine years later.
The case for flexibility. A set of experience-sampling studies found that the typical person routinely shows nearly every level of every personality trait in the course of an ordinary fortnight. Variation is normal. And in 2006 a group of researchers went back to the measures behind the consistency findings and found they mixed two things together: how much people varied, and how high or low their average scores were. Once the researchers separated the two, variability was no longer related to wellbeing at all.
My reading, having sat with both, is that the argument dissolves once you separate behaviour from reasons. Changing how you behave from room to room is normal and, on the career evidence, useful. What seems to hurt is feeling that the person doing the changing is not you, which is precisely the self-alienation the workplace studies found most damaging. The plural careerists in the five-year study got there by building a broader self that could hold all their versions, which is a better goal than either extreme.
Try this. Pick the two rooms where you behave most differently, perhaps the board and the team, and write down what changes and what does not. Most people find the tone, the pace and the vocabulary change, while the reasons stay put: the care about getting it right, the protectiveness about the executive's time, the dislike of surprises. If the reasons are the same in both rooms, you are adapting well. If you cannot find a reason that travels, that is worth a longer look.
The research behind this section
Snyder (1974) introduced the concept and measure of self-monitoring of expressive behaviour. Day and colleagues (2002) meta-analysed 136 samples with a total of 23,191 people and found self-monitoring relevant to many organisational concerns including job performance and leadership emergence, with sex differences that may partly explain disparities at higher organisational levels. Kilduff and Day (1994) followed MBA graduates and found high self-monitors more likely than low self-monitors to change employers and to achieve promotions. Mehra, Kilduff and Brass (2001) studied a 116-member high-technology firm and found high self-monitors more likely to occupy central network positions, with self-monitoring and centrality independently predicting workplace performance. Flynn and colleagues (2006) found high self-monitors more accurate in perceiving status dynamics and more likely to elevate their status by establishing a reputation as generous exchange partners, being sought out for help and refraining from asking for it. Oh and colleagues (2014) found in two samples that in public, interpersonal settings high self-monitoring suppressed the expression of low agreeableness in counterproductive behaviour towards others, while in private settings it intensified the expression of low conscientiousness in counterproductive behaviour towards the organisation. Sheldon and colleagues (1997) found that greater cross-role variation in the Big Five traits was associated with lower wellbeing and that people felt less authentic in roles where they deviated more from their general trait levels. Donahue and colleagues (1993) found in college students and middle-aged women that high self-concept differentiation went with poorer emotional adjustment, that characteristics at age 21 predicted it more than 30 years later, and that dissatisfaction with role performance and frequent role changes predicted it nine years later, interpreting it as fragmentation of the self. Fleeson (2001) found across three experience-sampling studies that within-person variability was high, with the typical individual routinely manifesting nearly all levels of all traits, while the central tendencies of each person's behaviour were almost perfectly stable. Baird, Le and Lucas (2006) showed that existing variability measures conflated mean-level variance with true variability and that, once mean-level variance was removed, intraindividual variability was no longer related to wellbeing. Caza, Moss and Vough (2018) found that plural careerists moved from synchronising separate role identities to harmonising a broader work self.
What adapting costs, and who pays more
There is a difference between adjusting how you come across and pretending to hold values you do not hold, and the research has a name for the second one. In 2003 an organisational researcher described facades of conformity: false representations people create to appear to embrace their organisation's values. A survey of 238 employees across many industries then found facades more common where people had little say at work, among people in a minority in their workplace, among high self-monitors and among people from more collectivist backgrounds. The facades went with emotional exhaustion, and the exhaustion went with intending to leave. A later study examined what happens when the facade is covering a real clash of values, and the part a leader's integrity plays in it.
The costs fall unevenly, which is the uncomfortable part. The SAFE framework argues that workplaces signal, often subtly, which identities fit, producing a sense of authenticity for people from advantaged groups and a sense of inauthenticity for people from disadvantaged ones. The research on code-switching, adjusting your speech, name, appearance or behaviour to match a dominant group's norms, shows how that plays out.
In two experiments, Black employees who code-switched were consistently rated as more professional, by both Black and White participants. The researchers warned that the strategy may reinforce narrow professional standards and carry social and psychological costs for the people using it, and later studies found those costs. Interviews with early-career Black women in predominantly White workplaces found benefits and costs side by side, including the sense of inauthenticity. A two-wave study of 286 frontline hospitality employees found that code-switching went with identity threat, then shame, then depression, and then an intention to leave the industry altogether. A 2026 diary study found that on days people of colour code-switched, they felt less authentic. And a study of people bringing a social identity to work found that suppressing it went with perceiving more discrimination, which went with lower job satisfaction and a greater intention to leave.
So adapting pays in the short run and charges interest. Knowing that is useful whoever you are, and essential if you manage people or hold influence over how a team works.
Adapting to fit in is rewarded at the moment it happens and billed later, and the bill does not go to everyone equally.
The most hopeful finding here comes from the other side of the relationship. A study of 83 work groups measured interpersonal congruence, how far group members saw each other the way each person saw themselves. In groups with high congruence, diversity improved creative performance; in groups with low congruence, it undermined it. Some groups got there within their first ten minutes together, and the benefit showed up four months later. The authors' conclusion is worth quoting in spirit: groups can work well by expressing, rather than suppressing, what makes their members distinct. A study of transgender employees found the same mechanism in a very different setting, where being seen by colleagues as they saw themselves explained much of the link between authentic expression and better experiences at work.
A small study of service work adds a footnote any executive assistant will recognise. Customers could tell an authentic smile from a performed one, and the authenticity of the display was part of what they responded to. People notice more than we think.
Try this. List the three adjustments you make most often at work, and for each one ask whether it is a style change or a values change. Style changes, such as a more formal register with the board, are ordinary professional skill. A values change, nodding along to something you disagree with, is a facade, and the research links facades to exhaustion. Keep the style changes; find one facade you could drop, or one person you could say the true thing to.
The research behind this section
Hewlin (2003) defined facades of conformity as false representations created by employees to appear to embrace organisational values, and set out their antecedents and consequences. Hewlin (2009) surveyed 238 employees in multiple industries and found that perceived nonparticipative work environments, minority status, self-monitoring and collectivism were related to creating facades of conformity, and that emotional exhaustion mediated the link between facades and intention to leave. Hewlin, Dumas and Burnett (2017) examined facades of conformity together with values incongruence and the moderating role of leader integrity. Roberts (2005) set out a model of professional image construction in diverse organisational settings. Schmader and Sedikides (2018) argued that contexts signal social identities in ways that elicit state authenticity for advantaged groups and inauthenticity for disadvantaged groups. McCluney and colleagues (2021) ran two experiments manipulating a fictitious Black coworker's speech, name and hairstyle and found that employees who code-switched were consistently perceived as more professional by Black and White participants, while warning that the strategy may reinforce narrow professional standards and carry social and psychological costs. Dickens and Chavez (2018) interviewed early-career Black women in predominantly White workplaces and found both benefits and costs of identity shifting, including assimilation and inauthenticity. Garlington and colleagues (2023) ran a two-wave study of 286 restaurant frontline employees and found racial code-switching related to intention to leave the industry through identity threat, shame and depression. Sharma and Chen (2026) found in a cross-sectional pilot and a 14-day diary study that code-switching among people of colour was linked to lower subjective authenticity. Madera, King and Hebl (2012) found that efforts to suppress a group identity were positively related to perceived discrimination, which predicted job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Polzer, Milton and Swann (2002) studied 83 work groups and found that diversity improved creative task performance in groups with high interpersonal congruence and undermined it in groups with low congruence, with some groups achieving congruence in their first ten minutes and benefiting four months later. Martinez and colleagues (2017) found in two studies of transgender employees that relational authenticity, being perceived by others at work as one perceives oneself, mediated the relations between authentic identity expression and job satisfaction, person-organisation fit and perceived discrimination. Grandey and colleagues (2005) examined the authenticity of positive displays in service encounters and its effect on customers' perceptions. Swann, Johnson and Bosson (2009) reviewed identity negotiation at work, the processes through which people come to be seen as they see themselves.
When your job is defined by someone else
Here is the part of the identity paradox that belongs most particularly to this profession.
Researchers distinguish a relational identity, the way you define yourself through a particular working relationship, from your identity with the organisation as a whole. The theory, set out in 2007, argues that role relationships such as manager and subordinate, or colleague and colleague, become part of how people see themselves, and that this matters because the relationship carries so much of what the job actually is. For an Executive Assistant or a Chief of Staff, it is hard to think of a clearer case. The role is defined, day to day, by another person's goals, pace and preferences. Much of what you are good at is being good at them.
That brings real strengths, and a specific risk. When the relationship changes, a lot of self changes with it. The nearest research, and I mention it only because the mechanism is the same, is a set of studies on romantic break-ups: when two people's selves have become intertwined, the end of the relationship changed what people said about themselves and left them less sure who they were, and that uncertainty predicted how distressed they felt. The concept being measured, how clearly and confidently your beliefs about yourself are defined, has been studied since 1996, and it is exactly what wobbles on the ninth day of a new executive.
A theory of work-related identity loss describes what comes next: a process of letting go of the lost identity and moving towards a new one, which can go well or badly depending on how the loss is understood and supported. And there is evidence about what happens when the letting go stalls. A study of people who had moved from running their own business to working for someone else found that conflict between the old identity and the new one went with more burnout, because it left people feeling they were no longer growing professionally, and that nostalgia for the old role made it worse. Their romantic partners saw the same thing.
The practical answer is to keep a part of your working identity that belongs to you rather than to the relationship. A framework from 2010 suggests four ways people build a positive identity at work: seeing their identity as virtuous, valuing it, seeing it as growing, and arranging its parts so they fit well together. Only one of those depends on any particular executive.
This is also where speaking up comes in. When I wrote that your value lies in how you think and what you notice as well as in what you do, I was describing something the research has measured. In two studies, more authentic employees reported speaking up more about problems at work and staying silent less. And a study of new employees found that those who strove to be seen as they saw themselves went on to be more committed and to perform better. Speaking up is partly how the people around you learn who you are, rather than only what you do for them.
I used to describe myself, in lean moments, as the calm in the storm, and I still think it is one of the most useful things a person in this role can be. It is also a quality, which means it survives a change of executive. That was the thing I held onto, and it is the kind of thing worth naming before you need it.
Try this. Finish this sentence in writing, leaving out your executive, your organisation and your job title: "At work, I am the person who..." Aim for three endings. If all three need your current executive to make sense, you have found the part of your identity most at risk from change, and the part worth building out, one observation and one question at a time.
The research behind this section
Sluss and Ashforth (2007) set out a theory of relational identity and identification, the ways people define themselves through role relationships at work, and how these connect to personal and collective identity. Slotter, Gardner and Finkel (2010) found across three studies that people experienced changes in the content of their self-concept after a romantic breakup and became less clear and certain about who they were, and that this loss of certainty uniquely predicted emotional distress. Campbell and colleagues (1996) developed a measure of how clearly people know themselves, the extent to which beliefs about the self are clearly and confidently defined, internally consistent and stable. Conroy and O'Leary-Kelly (2014) developed a model of work-related identity loss and recovery, including the processes of letting go and moving on. Nielsen and Gish (2024) found in a three-stage field survey of ex-entrepreneurs and their romantic partners that conflict between a lingering entrepreneur identity and a current work role identity went with more burnout and less boosterism of the employer, explained by lower perceived professional identity growth, with nostalgia strengthening the effect. Dutton, Roberts and Bednar (2010) proposed four types of positive identity at work, virtue, evaluative, developmental and structural, and the pathways for constructing them. Knoll and van Dick (2013) found in two studies that employees' authenticity predicted more voice and less silence in response to problematic workplace events. Morrison (2011) reviewed the research on employee voice behaviour. Cable and Kay (2012) found that newcomers' striving for self-verification during organisational entry related positively to their later commitment and performance. Swann, Johnson and Bosson (2009) reviewed how people negotiate their identities at work.
Stepping up without becoming somebody else
Stepping into a bigger role is where the two tugs pull hardest at once: you need to fit a room you have not been in before, and you need to grow into someone who belongs there. I have written before about trying a role on before you know it fits, and about the move from Executive Assistant to Chief of Staff, so this section is about the identity side only: how people stay recognisably themselves through the stretch.
A 2018 review of the research on identity work, the things people do to form, repair, maintain or revise their sense of who they are, found it running through almost every study of transitions. Three findings from that literature are especially useful.
The in-between is harder and more fertile. A 2016 paper on liminality, the experience of being between roles, argued that when a transition has no ceremony, no guide and no clear script, which describes most promotions, it is both harder to endure and more fertile for growth. And the process that helps is closer to play than to work: trying things on lightly, without committing to them yet.
Mismatch is the trigger, and customising is the response. A study of doctors in training found their professional identities were built when there was a mismatch between what they were doing and who they believed they were, and that they resolved it by customising their identity, adjusting both the work and the self until the two fitted. A case study of a senior manager found the same process from the inside and called it what it feels like: identity struggle.
The story matters, and it is written with other people. A study of 47 new chief executives found they used stories about themselves to propose and redefine who they were during the move, especially when the new role brought much more visibility. The stories worked best when they were built and validated together with people who mattered to the new chief executive, and when they let the person feel, in the study's lovely phrase, "sufficiently authentic" and "sufficiently impressive" at the same time. A study of soldiers facing an unchosen career change found that the transitions that worked kept continuity with people's foundational self-narratives rather than deleting the past. And a study of a company employing prisoners found that respect from the organisation allowed people to build transitional identities and move towards the selves they wanted to become.
You are also allowed to change. A meta-analysis of 92 samples found people become more conscientious, more emotionally stable and more socially confident across adulthood, especially between 20 and 40. Two 16-week experiments found that people who set goals to change a trait tended to change, and that turning the goal into specific if-then plans helped. And a review of 207 intervention studies found personality measures moved noticeably over an average of 24 weeks, with the change lasting. Growing into a bigger role is what adults do, and it makes nobody a fraud.
Now the counterweight, because "be yourself" can land badly as you rise.
A study titled, bluntly, "When sharing hurts" found that disclosing weakness undermined working relationships for higher-status people in particular. The same openness that makes a peer relatable can make a leader seem less able to lead. A theory of disclosure in diverse workplaces argues that the status distance between people shapes what disclosure does, which means what worked in the team may not work in the leadership group. And a study of job applicants found self-presentation that stuck to how people saw themselves helped most for candidates the organisation already rated in its top 10%. Authenticity amplified strength; it did not rescue weakness.
There is a nuance that makes this workable. A study of 566 employees in 143 work groups separated authentic self-expression, showing who you really are, from self-enhancement, making yourself look good. Authentic self-expression helped performance by building coworkers' trust. Exaggerated self-enhancement hurt it. And both effects were stronger under an authentic leader. So the move is to be yourself selectively and truthfully: choose what you share by what the room needs, and never claim what is not true.
Try this. Before the next big step, write the three-sentence story of why you are the person for it, in which every sentence connects something you have always been to something the new role needs. Then test it on two people whose judgement you trust, and change it based on how they respond. The new chief executives' stories stuck when they were built with other people, and yours will too.
The research behind this section
Caza, Vough and Puranik (2018) reviewed the research on identity work in organisations and occupations and set out an integrative framework and four dominant theoretical approaches. Ibarra and Obodaru (2016) recast liminality as a set of variables and argued that under-institutionalised liminal experiences are both more difficult to endure and more fertile for identity growth, with identity play more helpful than identity work in fostering that growth. Ibarra and Petriglieri (2010) introduced identity play as the provisional trial of possible future selves. Pratt, Rockmann and Kaufmann (2006) found in a study of medical residents that professional identity construction was triggered by work-identity integrity violations, an experienced mismatch between what physicians did and who they were, resolved through identity customisation within interrelated work and identity learning cycles. Sveningsson and Alvesson (2003) used an in-depth case of a senior manager to conceptualise identity as a process of identity work and struggle shaped by organisational discourse and role expectations. Felix, Santos and Teixeira (2023) studied 47 new CEOs and found storytelling identity work was used during the transition, particularly when the new position brought greater visibility and prestige, and was more successful when the stories were co-constructed and validated with significant others and let the CEO feel "sufficiently authentic" and "sufficiently impressive". Kulkarni (2020) found that the identity transitions of severely disabled soldiers facing discontinuous and involuntary career change preserved continuity of foundational self-narratives through collectively edited imaginations of the future. Rogers, Corley and Ashforth (2017) found that respect at a company employing prison inmates enabled transitional identities and positive identity transformation. Roberts, Walton and Viechtbauer (2006) meta-analysed 92 samples and found increases in social dominance, conscientiousness and emotional stability across the life course, especially between 20 and 40. Hudson and Fraley (2015) ran two 16-week randomised experiments and found that people's goals to increase a Big Five trait predicted actual increases in that trait and in trait-relevant daily behaviour, with an implementation-intention intervention helping. Roberts and colleagues (2017) reviewed 207 intervention studies and found marked changes in personality trait measures over an average of 24 weeks (d = .37), persisting at follow-up. Gibson, Harari and Marr (2018) examined how and why self-disclosing weakness undermines the task-oriented relationships of higher-status disclosers. Phillips, Rothbard and Dumas (2009) set out a theory of how status distance shapes the decision to self-disclose in diverse environments and its consequences. Moore and colleagues (2017) found in two field samples that candidates rated in the top 10% were significantly more likely to receive a job offer when they had a stronger drive to self-verify, and in a third study that such candidates were seen as less inauthentic and misrepresentative. Kim and colleagues (2023) studied 566 employees in 143 work groups over two waves and found that authentic self-expression had a positive indirect effect on job performance through coworkers' trust, that exaggerated self-enhancement had negative effects, and that these relationships were stronger under highly authentic leaders.
The part that stays put
If so much about us adapts, varies and grows, what is the stable part? The research answer is values, and it is reassuringly solid.
The leading theory of human values, set out in 1992, maps ten broad values, such as security, achievement, benevolence and self-direction, onto a circle in which neighbouring values sit comfortably together and opposite ones pull against each other. It has been tested across many countries, and it gives a vocabulary for something most people feel but struggle to name: the things you will protect when everything else is negotiable.
The stability data are good. An eight-year study of 270 young adults found the rank order of people's values held steady from one wave to the next, at correlations of .69 and then .77, and for three quarters of the people, their own hierarchy of values stayed closely similar over each four-year gap. Values do shift a little, and four longitudinal studies found that when they do, they shift in an orderly way: a value rising brings its neighbours up with it and pushes its opposites down. Big life events moved values more than getting older did.
So the stable part of you at work is less likely to be your methods, which a new executive can reasonably ask to change, and more likely to be the reasons behind them. The colour coding goes; the care about nobody being caught out stays.
There is also a practical tool here with a real evidence base, called self-affirmation. It usually means writing for a few minutes about a value that matters to you and why. A review of the field describes how threats to your sense of adequacy trigger stress and defensiveness that get in the way of growth, and how reflecting on core values widens your view of yourself so the threat matters less. In one experiment with 85 people, those who affirmed a personal value before a stressful laboratory task had significantly lower cortisol responses to it. A meta-analysis of 144 experimental tests found small but reliable effects on how open people were to difficult information, on their intentions to change and on their actual behaviour. The effects are modest, and I would not oversell them. But for ten minutes' writing before a hard conversation, they are hard to beat.
The last piece is the story. Narrative identity is the internal, evolving story of your life, joining the past you remember to the future you imagine. People whose stories feature their own agency and find meaning in difficulty tend to have better mental health and wellbeing. A study of 47 adults, who wrote almost 600 narratives across the course of therapy, found the theme of agency in their stories grew over time, and that the growth went with improving mental health.
Which is why I still like the exercise from my original post, of giving your current phase at work a chapter title. It sounds light, and it is doing serious work: it places this moment inside a longer story in which you are the one doing something. "Learning to lead quietly." "Starting over, but smarter." Even "the year I gave too many presentations" is a story with an author.
Try this. Write down three values that have held through every job you have had, and for each one, one thing you did this month that showed it. Then answer the two questions I asked myself when the ground moved: what is one part of me that has stayed steady through all this, and what is one part of me that is changing in ways I am proud of, even if it still feels shaky? Put the answers somewhere you will see them before the next reorganisation, not after.
The research behind this section
Schwartz (1992) set out the theory of universals in the content and structure of values, with ten motivationally distinct values arranged in a circular structure of compatibility and conflict. Vecchione and colleagues (2016) followed 270 young adults at three points four years apart and found rank-order stability coefficients of the ten values averaging .69 and .77, with the within-person value hierarchies of 75% of respondents correlating above .45 and .61 across the two gaps, and change patterns mirroring the circular structure. Bardi and colleagues (2009) found across four longitudinal studies that intraindividual value change mirrored the circumplex structure of values, with compatible values changing together and conflicting values in opposite directions, and that the extent of life-changing events predicted value change more than age. Cohen and Sherman (2014) reviewed self-affirmation interventions, in which people write about core personal values, and found they curb stress and defensive responses to threat, with benefits for education, health and relationships that sometimes persist for months or years. Creswell and colleagues (2005) found that 85 participants who affirmed personal values before a laboratory stress challenge had significantly lower cortisol responses than controls. Epton and colleagues (2015) meta-analysed 144 experimental tests and found small but reliable positive effects of self-affirmation on message acceptance (d = .17), intentions (d = .14) and behaviour (d = .32). McQueen and Klein (2006) systematically reviewed the experimental manipulations used to induce self-affirmation. McAdams and McLean (2013) reviewed research on narrative identity and found that people whose life stories feature redemptive meanings, personal agency and exploration tend to enjoy higher mental health, wellbeing and maturity. Adler (2012) followed 47 adults through psychotherapy across 12 assessment points and nearly 600 narratives and found that the theme of agency increased over time and that increases in agency related to improvements in mental health. Schlegel and colleagues (2009) found that the accessibility of the true self-concept predicted and, when primed, enhanced meaning in life.
The identity check
Every idea in this post comes back to a moment you can probably place in your own working life: something has changed, and you are not sure yet whether you are growing into it or bending out of shape. So here is a tool for that moment.
Put in what has changed, and answer nine short questions about how you are adapting, what it is costing, how others see you and how much of your identity rests on one relationship. It will tell you whether this looks like growth, stretch or strain, what the research suggests you keep and try, what to watch, and it gives you a short note to copy and keep.
Where to start
If you take one thing from all of this, make it the difference between your methods and your reasons. A new executive, a restructure or a bigger role can reasonably ask you to change almost everything about how you work. What it cannot take is why you work the way you do, and the research on values, on authenticity and on people who hold several roles at once all points to the reasons as the part of you that travels.
After that, there are three moves worth making.
Before you conclude you have lost yourself, run the five readings: mood, mastery, fit, say and openness. Keep the style adjustments that serve the room and drop one facade that costs you. And build out the part of your working identity that belongs to you rather than to one relationship, by saying what you notice as well as doing what is asked.
I have put the three pages I would use into a download: a page for naming what stays, a page for the chapter you are in and what you are trying on, and an adaptation audit that separates the adjustments worth keeping from the ones that are quietly costing you.
The research does not settle the paradox, and I do not think it should. What it does is make it a great deal less frightening. Feeling unlike yourself is common, often temporary and usually telling you something about the week; adapting is a skill with a price you can see and manage; and the self that grows into a bigger role is still recognisably the one that started out. The work in progress is still working.
How you keep doing this work well over years, without it costing you the person doing it, sits inside what the Connected Leader Assessment calls Sustainable Performance: the energy you bring, what adapting is taking out of you, and whether the way you work is one you could keep up through the next change and the one after that.
The assessment is free, takes about twelve minutes and gives you a read across all five dimensions. If you want to go further on this one, the Skill Sprints are short, focused programmes on a single dimension, and the Irreplaceable Audit is the place to see which parts of your contribution are yours rather than your executive's, which is exactly the part of your working identity worth building before the next change arrives.
Stay savvy.
Meg ✌️
Free tools
The identity check, the interactive tool in this post, free
The Identity Pages, the download in this post, free
The Connected Leader Assessment, twelve minutes, free, with a read on Sustainable Performance, the dimension this post sits in
The Irreplaceable Audit, forty-eight activities across four kinds of work, free, for seeing which parts of the role are most yours
P.S. Want to Go Deeper on Identity at Work?
If this resonated and you want to go further, here is the evidence the piece is built on. These are the papers that shaped my thinking on staying yourself while you grow, and what adapting costs and gives, and they are well worth your time.
Every DOI below has been checked. Where I could not confirm a figure from the paper itself, I have left the figure out rather than guess.
📃 Cha and colleagues (2019) A review pulling together the scattered research on being your true self at work. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2016.0108
📃 Van den Bosch and Taris (2014) 646 people. Authenticity at work has three parts, each linked to satisfaction, performance and engagement. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-013-9413-3
📃 Van den Bosch and Taris (2014) 685 people. Authenticity explained about 11% of wellbeing and work outcomes; self-alienation mattered most. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2013.820684
📃 Van den Bosch and Taris (2018) 546 people. Authenticity at work went with self-driven motivation, which carried part of its link to wellbeing. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2018.00021
📃 Van den Bosch and colleagues (2019) 867 workers. Authenticity is distinct from fitting the job, and protects most against burnout and boredom. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2018.1516185
📃 Emmerich and Rigotti (2017) 1,243 employees. Authenticity predicted work ability and fewer depressive symptoms six months on, and vice versa. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00307
📃 Emmerich, Knoll and Rigotti (2020) 715 employees in 109 teams. Authentic teammates went with more engagement and less exhaustion. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046496419874877
📃 Ménard and Brunet (2011) 360 public sector managers. Authenticity went with wellbeing, partly through meaningful work. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683941111124854
📃 Sutton (2020) Meta-analysis of 75 studies, 36,533 people. Authenticity related to wellbeing and engagement. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109645
📃 Wood and colleagues (2008) The three-part measure of authenticity: authentic living, self-alienation and accepting influence. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.55.3.385
📃 Lenton and colleagues (2013) Three studies. Feeling authentic and inauthentic is common, whatever your personality. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2012.00805.x
📃 Lenton and colleagues (2013) Three experiments. A better mood made people feel more like themselves. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2013.778818
📃 Lenton, Slabu and Sedikides (2016) Everyday moments. Accepting others' influence more often raised authenticity than lowered it. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2033
📃 Sedikides and colleagues (2017) State authenticity: the sense, in a given moment, of being your real self. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417713296
📃 Sedikides and colleagues (2019) A research programme on what state authenticity feels like and what triggers it. https://doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000156
📃 Fleeson and Wilt (2010) Three experience-sampling studies. People felt most authentic acting sociable, kind, diligent and calm, whatever their traits. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00653.x
📃 Jongman-Sereno and Leary (2019) A critical look at authenticity, including whether it is always desirable. https://doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000157
📃 Jongman-Sereno and Leary (2016) How good your behaviour is colours how authentic you think you are being. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2015.1128964
📃 Strohminger, Knobe and Newman (2017) People see the true self as good and moral, across cultures. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616689495
📃 Newman, Bloom and Knobe (2014) Three studies. Observers saw a person's true self in the behaviour they judged morally good. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167213508791
📃 Bench and colleagues (2015) How people think about change in themselves and others through the idea of self-discovery. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2015.33.3.2
📃 Rivera and colleagues (2019) The feeling of authenticity as a guide people use to judge whether they are living well. https://doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000161
📃 Schlegel and colleagues (2009) Five studies. Easy access to the true self-concept predicted and raised meaning in life. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014060
📃 Schmader and Sedikides (2018) The SAFE model: fit with self, goals and people makes you feel authentic, and not equally for every group. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868317734080
📃 Aday and colleagues (2025) 969 and 269 students. Moment-to-moment fit predicted feeling authentic, and less burnout. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672231223597
📃 Kraus, Chen and Keltner (2011) Power raised people's consistency and sense of authenticity. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2011.03.017
📃 Kifer and colleagues (2013) Surveys and experiments. Power made people happier by making them feel more authentic. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612450891
📃 Gan, Heller and Chen (2018) Five experiments, 715 people. Feeling authentic made people feel more powerful. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167218771000
📃 Hewlin and colleagues (2020) Introduction to a special section on the shapes, triggers and consequences of authenticity at work. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2020.01.010
📃 Caza, Moss and Vough (2018) 48 people with several jobs over five years. Authenticity meant room for several true selves, not consistency. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001839217733972
📃 Sheldon and colleagues (1997) Varying more across roles went with lower wellbeing and feeling less authentic. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.6.1380
📃 Baird, Le and Lucas (2006) Once measurement problems were fixed, varying across roles was unrelated to wellbeing. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.3.512
📃 Fleeson (2001) Three experience-sampling studies. Everyone routinely shows nearly every level of every trait. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.80.6.1011
📃 Donahue and colleagues (1993) Seeing yourself as a different person in each role went with poorer adjustment over thirty years. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.64.5.834
📃 Moore and colleagues (2017) Two field samples. Being yourself in hiring helped most for candidates already rated in the top 10%. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000223
📃 Gibson, Harari and Marr (2018) Disclosing weakness undermined working relationships, especially for higher-status people. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2017.09.001
📃 Kim and colleagues (2023) 566 employees. Authentic self-expression built trust and performance; exaggerated self-promotion hurt both. https://doi.org/10.1177/01492063211063807
📃 Phillips, Rothbard and Dumas (2009) A theory of how status distance shapes what self-disclosure does in diverse workplaces. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2009.44886051
📃 Hewlin (2003) Facades of conformity: appearing to embrace values you do not hold. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2003.10899442
📃 Hewlin (2009) 238 employees. Facades went with emotional exhaustion, and exhaustion with intending to leave. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015228
📃 Hewlin, Dumas and Burnett (2017) Facades, a clash of values, and the part a leader's integrity plays. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2013.0404
📃 McCluney and colleagues (2021) Two experiments. Code-switching was rated more professional, at a cost to those doing it. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2021.104199
📃 Garlington and colleagues (2023) 286 hospitality employees. Code-switching led through identity threat and shame to wanting to leave. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijchm-11-2022-1335
📃 Dickens and Chavez (2018) Interviews with early-career Black women on the benefits and costs of shifting identities at work. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-017-0844-x
📃 Madera, King and Hebl (2012) Suppressing a social identity at work went with perceiving more discrimination. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027724
📃 Roberts (2005) A model of how people construct a professional image in diverse organisations. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2005.18378873
📃 Martinez and colleagues (2017) Being seen by colleagues as you see yourself explained better experiences at work. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000168
📃 Sharma and Chen (2026) A 14-day diary study. On code-switching days, people felt less authentic. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2026.2702551
📃 Grandey and colleagues (2005) Service encounters. Customers responded to whether a smile was authentic. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2004.08.002
📃 Snyder (1974) The original measure of self-monitoring: watching the room and adjusting to it. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0037039
📃 Day and colleagues (2002) Meta-analysis of 136 samples, 23,191 people. Self-monitoring mattered for performance and leadership. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.87.2.390
📃 Kilduff and Day (1994) MBA graduates. High self-monitors moved employers and won promotions more often. https://doi.org/10.2307/256612
📃 Mehra, Kilduff and Brass (2001) A 116-person firm. High self-monitors sat at the centre of networks, and both predicted performance. https://doi.org/10.2307/2667127
📃 Oh and colleagues (2014) Two samples. High self-monitors behaved better in public and worse in private. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1856
📃 Flynn and colleagues (2006) High self-monitors won status by helping others and rarely asking for help. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.6.1123
📃 Caza, Vough and Puranik (2018) A review of identity work in organisations and occupations. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2318
📃 Ibarra and Petriglieri (2010) Identity play: trying on possible future selves lightly during transitions. https://doi.org/10.1108/09534811011017180
📃 Ibarra and Obodaru (2016) Being between roles without a script is harder to endure and more fertile for growth. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2016.11.003
📃 Conroy and O'Leary-Kelly (2014) A model of losing a work identity and recovering from it. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2011.0396
📃 Nielsen and Gish (2024) Ex-entrepreneurs. Clashing old and new identities went with burnout; nostalgia made it worse. https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12626
📃 Kulkarni (2020) Soldiers facing unchosen career change. Continuity with the old story helped the new one. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726719871087
📃 Felix, Santos and Teixeira (2023) 47 new CEOs. Stories built with others let them feel sufficiently authentic and sufficiently impressive. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1246887
📃 Pratt, Rockmann and Kaufmann (2006) Doctors in training built identity by customising it when work and self did not match. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2006.20786060
📃 Sveningsson and Alvesson (2003) A senior manager's identity work, and the struggle in it. https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267035610001
📃 Cable and Kay (2012) Newcomers who sought to be seen as they saw themselves were later more committed and effective. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2010.0397
📃 Swann, Johnson and Bosson (2009) Review of identity negotiation at work: being seen as you see yourself. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2009.06.005
📃 Polzer, Milton and Swann (2002) 83 work groups. When members were seen as they saw themselves, diversity helped creativity. https://doi.org/10.2307/3094807
📃 Sluss and Ashforth (2007) Relational identity: defining yourself through a working relationship. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2007.23463672
📃 Kreiner, Hollensbe and Sheep (2006) Clergy. Identity work to balance the self and a demanding role. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2006.22798186
📃 Brewer (1991) Optimal distinctiveness: the need to belong and the need to stand out, at the same time. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167291175001
📃 Leonardelli, Pickett and Brewer (2010) Review of optimal distinctiveness theory. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0065-2601(10)43002-6
📃 Cuganesan (2017) A police organisation. The balance of fitting in and standing out was cyclical and elusive. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840616655482
📃 Gotsi and colleagues (2010) Design consultancies managed identity tensions by separating and combining them. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726709342929
📃 Dutton, Roberts and Bednar (2010) Four ways to build a positive identity at work. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2010.48463334
📃 Knoll and van Dick (2013) Two studies. More authentic employees spoke up more and stayed silent less. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2013.804113
📃 Morrison (2011) Review of employee voice behaviour. https://doi.org/10.5465/19416520.2011.574506
📃 Rogers, Corley and Ashforth (2017) Respect at work let people build transitional identities and grow. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001839216678842
📃 McAdams and McLean (2013) Narrative identity: life stories with agency and redemption go with wellbeing. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721413475622
📃 Adler (2012) 47 adults, nearly 600 narratives. Agency in their stories grew with better mental health. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025289
📃 Schwartz (1992) The theory of ten basic human values arranged in a circle. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60281-6
📃 Bardi and colleagues (2009) Four longitudinal studies. Values change in an orderly way; life events move them more than age. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016617
📃 Vecchione and colleagues (2016) 270 young adults over eight years. Values stayed largely stable. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2016.06.002
📃 Cohen and Sherman (2014) Review of self-affirmation: writing about core values eases threat and defensiveness. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115137
📃 McQueen and Klein (2006) Systematic review of the ways self-affirmation is induced in experiments. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298860600805325
📃 Epton and colleagues (2015) Meta-analysis of 144 tests. Self-affirmation had small but reliable effects on openness and behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0000116
📃 Roberts, Walton and Viechtbauer (2006) Meta-analysis of 92 samples. People grow more conscientious and stable, especially from 20 to 40. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.1.1
📃 Roberts and colleagues (2017) 207 studies. Personality measures changed over about 24 weeks of intervention, and it lasted. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000088
📃 Hudson and Fraley (2015) Two 16-week experiments. People who set goals to change a trait tended to change it. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000021
📃 Campbell and colleagues (1996) A measure of how clearly and confidently people know themselves. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.70.1.141
📃 Slotter, Gardner and Finkel (2010) Three studies. Break-ups left people less sure who they were, which predicted distress. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167209352250
📃 Metin and colleagues (2016) 680 bank employees. Job resources raised authenticity, which went with engagement, satisfaction and performance. https://doi.org/10.1108/jmp-03-2014-0087
📃 Creswell and colleagues (2005) 85 people. Affirming a value before a stress task lowered cortisol. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01624.x
P.P.S. Why Do I Even Have the Nerve to Write This?
Fair question.
I am someone who has spent years working alongside remarkable executives, navigating chaos, translating vision into structure and figuring things out, sometimes beautifully and sometimes the very hard way. I have had the privilege of being the steady right hand to leaders who move fast, take risks and expect a lot. That environment has shaped me more than any classroom ever could.
I also happen to have an MBA, and I am studying psychology because people fascinate me. How we work. Why we disconnect. What actually holds us together when the pressure rises.
But really, none of that is the point.
I am here because I have lived the erosion and rebuilt from it. I have seen the cost of carrying too much and the relief that arrives when you finally stop disappearing inside your own competence.
So I share what I have learned in case it helps someone else. Take what is useful. Leave the rest. And remember this one truth that professionals like you often forget:
You are probably doing far better than you give yourself credit for.
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