Stop Saying “Authentic.” Start Being Clear.
By Camille Penrose
If you’ve spent any time with senior leaders, you will likely have heard the instruction: “We need this to sound more authentic.” It’s usually delivered earnestly, often late in the process, and almost never with a definition attached. At this point, “authentic” has become a seasoning rather than an ingredient: sprinkled on at the end to improve flavour, without changing what’s actually in the dish.
The irony is that most senior communicators know exactly what authenticity is not. It’s not polish. It is not warmth layered over ambiguity. It’s certainly not a tone you add to a final draft once everyone feels safe. Yet, we keep using the word as shorthand for a quality that actually comes from far more uncomfortable choices upstream.
A useful reminder of this came in May 2020, when Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky wrote to staff announcing widespread layoffs as global travel collapsed. Many leaders issued similar announcements that year.
Chesky’s message stood out because of its specificity. He explained how Airbnb’s business had fundamentally changed, why waiting was not viable, and why the cuts were deeper than many expected. There were no euphemisms about “resetting” or “future‑proofing.” He wrote plainly:
“The last thing I want to do is lay people off. But unfortunately, this is something we must do.”
Later, he acknowledged the limits of language itself: “This is painful for Airbnb, especially for those of you leaving, but it is the most humane way I know to handle this.”
Chesky’s rhetoric throughout the layoffs was clear, transparent and sensitive. He named harm without trying to disguise it. There was clear ownership.
We see similar dynamics closer to home. During Australian restructures and major employee changes, the communications that hold up over time are rarely the most carefully ‘crafted’. Sincere communication is explicit about constraints, trade‑offs and sequencing. Employees may disagree with the outcome, but they understand how it was reached. Trust comes less from likability and more from coherence.
This has become impossible to fake in modern channels when messages no longer live in neat, linear journeys from leader to audience. A CEO email becomes a screenshot in a group chat within minutes. A public value statement is stitched together with old posts, Glassdoor reviews and a TikTok explainer made by someone with no formal connection to the organisation.
Younger employees and stakeholders are not engaging with communications as a finished product. They consume it as raw material. They quote it back. They test it against lived experience. Digital natives notice when language sounds padded or defensive because they see it alongside earlier versions of the truth. In that environment, over‑managed messages feel evasive and polished ambiguity is not read as professionalism.
Good communicators understand this instinctively, even if it’s not always acknowledged in the room. We know authenticity is not a writing problem, but rather, a decision problem. What are we prepared to say clearly? What are we prepared to leave unresolved? Where are we willing to be specific, even if that specificity narrows our room to manoeuvre?
This is why the word “authentic” has stretched so thin. It sounds like a tone issue we can resolve with better words. In reality, it’s a leadership issue we can resolve with judgement.
So, the next time someone asks for a message to sound more authentic, a more useful question might be one only experienced communicators tend to ask: If a message needs the word “authentic” to explain itself, is it?