“Just be yourself” is the kind of interview advice most of us have heard at some point, usually from people trying to calm nerves rather than people doing the hiring.

There’s a workplace version of this too. “Bring your whole self to work” has become a common phrase in modern corporate life, and for understandable reasons. Most companies want people to feel comfortable being themselves.

At the core of these two ideas is authenticity, but this can sometimes be a tricky thing to navigate in interviews or at work.

I recently read Harry Whallop’s article in The Times about why you shouldn’t be your authentic self in interviews and it reminded me how often authenticity is confused with unfiltered honesty.

There’s a reason stories about the “taxi driver test” still do the rounds. The idea that candidates are judged on how they behave once they think the interview has finished. People are waiting to see how you act when your guard is down and when you’re not consciously putting your best foot forward.

The best leaders I meet can showcase the best version of themselves and are often quite self-aware.

The organisational psychologist Tasha Eurich talks about two forms of self-awareness: understanding yourself and understanding how other people experience you. The second part is probably the one that matters most in leadership.

Occasionally, you meet someone with an exceptional track record who struggles to create confidence in interviews. Rarely because they lack capability. More often because there’s a gap between how they think they come across and how they actually land in the room.

Perhaps that’s the more useful way to think about authenticity at work.

Not simply “being yourself” but being self-aware enough to know how you come across and a sense that the person in interview is fundamentally the same person clients, colleagues and teams will get once the job actually begins.

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If you’d like to continue the conversation, feel free to get in touch at pn@newsomconsulting.co.uk.

Alongside executive search, we also support clients with leadership assessment, helping organisations gain a clearer view of both current capability and future leadership potential.