This is a great guide to being your true self at work while maintaining professionalism. From how to say no when things truly don't suit you and everything else in between, it promotes being true to your beliefs and understandings in a professional setting.

Wouldn't we all like to be ourselves everywhere we go, especially at work as we spend so much of our time there.

This book explores how to be authentic in the workplace and choose how much of yourself you want to share with those around you.

It's a great book for anyone entering the workplace or wanting to understand how to be themselves more at work, not only for themselves, but to allow others to share and be their authentic selves at work too,

Thank you for this ARC

There is a lot of incredibly helpful advice in this book, a roundup of essays from Harvard Business Review. Some of it is just basic people skills, like how to navigate the line between being open, vulnerable, and human at work versus setting boundaries and maintaining a sense of professionalism. There is wise advice about how to navigate situations when your values or personality are at a mismatch with your company culture. There is also a wealth of information for those whose identities are underrepresented in some way: how to resist pressure to maintain the model minority myth, how to share your pronouns at work, how to correct those who mispronounce your name, how to decide when to share "silent" parts of your identity (sexuality, neurodivergence, religion, etc.).

It's also a great resource for people who don't have an underrepresented identity: it serves as a reminder to how our coworkers and employees may feel in the workplace and helps us to better understand how we can make our workplaces more comfortable for everyone.

All this being said, however, this is not really a book for Teen/YA audiences (which is how it is categorized). I make recommendations to middle and high school teachers, and this is very much for post-college students in their early 20s who are navigating corporate jobs. High school students may find some of the advice helpful, but they're unlikely relate to the workplace examples; if they do have jobs, they're more likely to be in food services and retail at this point in their lives.

(Please note that this is a drafted review - I have requested this book be added to GoodReads so that I can post it.)

Thanks to HBR Press and NetGalley for advance access to this new digital book, which is part of the HBR Work Smart Series.

This is a timely book for those who are trying to balance appropriate work boundaries with their personal identity and masking issues. It is designed for early-career professionals, although I think a lot of leaders managing other professionals would benefit from it.

The book is a brings together a selection of relevant HBR articles, with the nicely titled "Introduction: Authenticity and the Power of You". The rest of the book is divided into sections to assist and summarise the most important aspects of navigating a professional life alongside the rest of who you are. There is plenty of practical advice from professionals who have been there to help improve your confidence in dealing with such situations.

The sections and articles give further detail on what the book covers - these are:
1. Understanding the Authentic You
- Getting Comfortable Being Yourself at Work
- How to Find, Define, and Use Your Values
2. Communicate Authentically Without Oversharing
- Using Authentic Conversation to Connect With Others
- My Pronouns are They/Them. What are yours?
- Self-Disclosure at Work
- Should You Disclose an Invisible Marginalised Identity at Work?
- Coming Out as Trans at Work
3. Dealing With Real Emotions
- Managing the Hidden Stress of Emotional Labour
- Do You Ever Second-Guess Yourself? (on imposter syndrome)
- Your Job and Your Identity are Two Different Things
- So, You Cried at Work
4. When Identity and Work Collide
- When You Don't Feel Comfortable Being Yourself at Work
- Why the Model Minority Myth is so Harmful
- My Colleagues Can't Get My Name Right
- How to Have Difficult Conversations Without Burning Bridges
- Are You Living a Double Life on Social Media?

I thought that the articles had been put together well, and covered a myriad of different situations and events where identity and work come together. The content was pretty individual-action-heavy, as expected with the nature of the HBR Work Smart series. It would have been great to hear more stories from leaders and organisations on the short and long-term benefits they have found in working with employees where identity and masking have been causing issues. This would enable individuals to better manage the risks associated with breaking long-term and entrenched barriers (even if only perceived) in organisations where diversity is not (outwardly) celebrated.

Thanks again to HBR Press and NetGalley for the ARC. Other books in this series are:
Bosses, Coworkers, and Building Great Work Relationships
Boundaries, Priorities, and Finding Work-Life Balance
Experience, Opportunity and Developing Your Career

#HBRWorkSmartSeries #NetGalley #ARC

This was a very interesting book! It's a quick read, but it stays in your head for a long while afterwards, and that's the goal with a book like that. It really helped me think about my values and what I look for in an ideal workplace, and I feel better prepared in my interpersonal relationships at work now.