#89 | Authenticity Doesn’t Require an All-Access Pass

In this episode of Lead With SWAGGER, Jennifer Sukalo explores the difference between authenticity, transparency, vulnerability, and exposure. With a little help from Dolly Parton, a two-pound bean-and-cheese burrito, and her own experience as a private introvert who speaks to large groups, Jennifer unpacks how leaders can show their humanity while still honoring their personal boundaries.

Because being authentic doesn’t mean giving everyone unrestricted access to your life. It means knowing who you are, what you’re willing to share, and what belongs only to you. You can be real without revealing everything, relatable without performing vulnerability, and vulnerable without oversharing.

Discover how authenticity, self-awareness, discernment, and healthy boundaries can help you build trust, connect with others, and lead with humanity—without handing out the keys to your entire emotional house.

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Have you ever been told you need to be more authentic or show more vulnerability? I certainly have. Now, maybe someone said it to you in a performance review, or like me, gave you some timely and helpful feedback, even if it didn't seem like it at the time. Perhaps they said something like, you need to show people more of the real you. Or maybe you heard or saw something on social media around share your truth or be completely transparent. Let people see everything. And suddenly you're standing there thinking, uh, wait a minute, how much of me are we talking about here? Because honestly, I'm happy to be authentic, but I'd also like to maintain a little privacy, a few personal boundaries, and perhaps one or two stories that don't need to become content. Welcome back to Lead with Swagger, the podcast where we explore the human infrastructure behind how we lead, live, work, and create impact. I'm your host, Jennifer Socallo, and around here, we get real raw and ridiculously honest about the human side of leadership. And today we're talking about something we've heard so much about. But that doesn't mean we fully understand it, or more importantly, know how to strike the right balance with it in all aspects of our lives, at work, at home, in our relationships, in our communities. And that topic is authenticity. Now, here's a shocker for you. Authenticity is not the same as complete transparency. It's not the same as exposure. And it certainly doesn't mean opening every closet, cabinet, and emotional junk drawer in your life for public inspection. Absolutely not. And I know so many leaders, including myself, who have struggled with just how much of themselves and their lives they should share. Because we really do want to connect. We'd love for people to trust us. We sincerely desire to be seen as human. But we'd also rather not have our team know every detail of our marriage, our childhood, our medical history, our family drama, or what we said in the car alone after that difficult meeting. There's a difference between being real and being revealed. And I think we can take a lesson from the late great Dolly Parton. Dolly managed to become one of the most beloved, relatable, recognizable people in the world while still keeping a tremendous amount of her private life private. That's a masterclass. She shared her humor, her stories, her experiences, her struggles, her perspective. She let us see enough of her humanity that we felt connected to her. But she didn't give us an all-access pass. She didn't believe that authenticity meant she had to document every private moment or explain every personal decision. Dolly knew who she was. She knew what she wanted to share, and she knew what belonged to her. That is authenticity with boundaries. And leaders need that same wisdom. You see, we all have different aspects to who we are. We share certain parts of ourselves with our colleagues, other parts with our family, other parts with friends, other parts with our communities. That doesn't make us fake, that makes us human. And that doesn't mean I'm pretending, it means I understand context. Depending on the setting, I bring forward or dial up different aspects of who I am to meet the circumstances. Now, I happen to be a very private person and quite an introvert, which many people who only see me in certain settings might question. I speak to large groups, I facilitate, I meet new people, I can walk into a room and engage with people I've never met. But here's the part they don't see. That's not where I get my energy. My energy comes from the inside, it comes from solitude, reflection, thinking, creating, spending time with myself. I'm exceptionally good at keeping my own company. And some people might find that concerning. I, however, find it efficient. It's required for recharging my batteries. That being said, being an introvert doesn't mean I can't meet people, speak to large groups, or facilitate powerful workshops. It means I need to tap into parts of who I am and some of my strengths to do it. I might be tired before I walk into the room. I might be ready to put on my PJs approximately seven minutes after I leave. But when I'm there, I am wholly, completely there. The smile, part of the uniform. Not because it's fake, because I understand what's required in that moment. I understand that in order to create the right environment for people to connect with me, relate to what I'm saying, or feel safe enough to participate, I need to let them see a bit of me. My struggles, my missteps, my challenges, the things I've learned the hard way. That helps people see that we are more alike than different. But showing people a bit of yourself is not the same as giving them all of yourself. And that distinction really matters. I can share a lesson from a difficult experience without sharing every person involved. I can talk about a fear I've faced without telling everyone where the fear originated. I can acknowledge that I'm having a difficult day without providing a detailed emotional report. I can say I'm working through something and leave it there. That's still honest. It's still authentic. And sometimes I'm not ready to talk about that, is the most authentic thing you can say. Now, let me give you a very important leadership example. A while back, I was having dinner with some colleagues, and we started talking about favorite fast food places. Now, at the time, I hadn't been to one of those places in a very long time. So I thought, how can I be relatable? How can I join the conversation and find a humorous story so I can connect with them instead of sitting there like some kind of food snob who survives exclusively on organic vegetables and emotional restraint? So I told them about one of my favorite foods from when I lived in Arizona. There was a little place called Federico's. And I think it was open 24 hours. So I suppose you could call it fast food. It just wasn't one of the most common brands, let's say, in that category. Now I used to get a bean and cheese burrito that was absolutely unbelievable. The beans were, I'm pretty sure, traditionally made with lard. So probably not the wellness influencer meal of the year. Although now that we know more, perhaps I was ahead of my time since lard is all natural and the body has always known exactly how to process it. And then there was the cheese. I think they used an entire block of grated cheese on each burrito. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit, but you get the idea. The whole thing probably weighed like two pounds. And when you added hot sauce to every bite, it was literally like a piece of heaven here on earth. Well, at least for me. I would often stop there on my way home from the airport after a long trip because I was craving that burrito. Now, was that story authentic? Absolutely. Was it relatable? Apparently. Did it allow me to connect with people around the table? Yes. Did I need to tell them every detail of my life in Arizona? No. Did I need to reveal my deepest fears, unresolved childhood wounds, or name the person who broke my heart in high school? No. The burrito was enough. And sometimes the burrito is enough. That's what I mean by learning to strike the balance. When I facilitate or speak, I know in advance what I'm willing to share and what stays between me, myself, and I. That's not manipulation, that is discernment. It's leadership, it's self-awareness, it's self-respect. Now, for perfectionists and high achievers, this can be extremely difficult because many of us equate authenticity with showing vulnerability. And sometimes we equate vulnerability with weakness. But authenticity doesn't mean saying everything you feel the moment you feel it. It doesn't mean processing your emotions publicly while everyone else waits for the meeting to resume. It doesn't mean using your team as your therapy group. And it doesn't mean sharing something deeply personal simply because someone else shared something deeply personal with you. Vulnerability without discernment is not necessarily courageous. Sometimes it's just unprocessed. True authenticity requires choice. You get to decide what you share with whom, when, and why. And when you're willing to show your humanity, that demonstrates self-awareness, which is a leadership superpower. It shows that you know yourself, you understand your impact. You're comfortable enough in your own skin to admit that you don't have every answer. You can say things like, I got that wrong. I'm a work in progress. I'm still learning. I was more defensive than I needed to be. I don't know yet, but I'm going to find out. That kind of authenticity builds trust. It also creates permission for other people to be human. But boundaries are part of that humanity. Having boundaries doesn't make you deceptive. It demonstrates strength. It demonstrates a sense of self. It demonstrates that you own your worth. You don't need to provide unlimited access to prove that you are trustworthy. You don't need to tell everyone everything to be genuine. And you don't need other people to deem you worthy. You already are. So how do we practice this? I'd like to offer you three questions to think about before you share something personal, especially in a leadership setting. First, what is my intention? Am I sharing this to create connection, provide context, or help someone learn? Or am I sharing it because I need immediate reassurance? Second, is this mine to share? Now, this one matters because just because you're in the story doesn't mean the story belongs to you. I learned that lesson the hard way. I distinctly remember sharing what I thought was a humorous story about time differences. And now there was someone else involved in that story. And needless to say, she was less than thrilled that I had shared that moment with other people. I thought it was funny. She experienced it very differently, and it forever changed our friendship. That one still stings. But it also taught me an important lesson. Being part of a story doesn't automatically give you ownership of it. Before you share, ask yourself: does this story involve someone else's private experience? Could sharing it embarrass them, expose them, or affect their trust in me? Have they given me permission to tell it? Because authenticity should never come at the expense of someone else's privacy. Make sure it's your story to share. Just because you're in it, doesn't make it yours. And third, will I still feel comfortable having shared this tomorrow? Not five minutes from now, not while everyone is nodding sympathetically, tomorrow, next week, six months from now, because once something is shared, especially digitally, it can travel a lot farther than you intended. The internet has the memory of an elephant and the impulse control of a toddler near a bowl of candy. So pause. Think, choose, share what serves the moment, protect what deserves privacy. That is not withholding your true self, that is stewarding your true self. Now, here's your challenge for this week. I would like for you to create your authenticity menu, not a rule book, not a rigid list, a menu. On one side, write down the parts of yourself you're comfortable sharing in most settings. Things like perhaps your humor, your values, your passion, your lessons learned, your favorite books, your love of dogs, horses, travel, cooking, or two-pound burritos. Then create a second list called Share with Intention. These are the stories or experiences you may share when the setting, relationship, or purpose are right, but they're not automatically shared. And finally, create a section that's called private means private. These are the parts of your life that belong to you. Not because you're ashamed, not because you're hiding, because they are sacred, personal, unfinished, or simply none of anyone else's business. Then ask yourself this. Where have I been oversharing because I thought it was the only way to connect? And where have I been hiding so much of myself that people can't experience the real human being behind the role? You may discover that you don't need to expose more. You may simply need to reveal something more intentional. A little humor, a lesson, a story, a truth that helps people feel less alone. You don't have to tear down every wall. Sometimes you just need to open the door and perhaps put out snacks. As you move through this week, remember, authenticity does not require an all-access pass. You can be real and still have boundaries, you can be warm and still be private. You can be vulnerable and still be discerning. You can let people see your humanity without handing them the keys to every room in your life. The world does not need a perfectly exposed version of you, it needs the real you, grounded, discerning, human, and fully alive. Now, before you go, I'd like you to think of this. If somebody came to mind while you were listening, share this with them. And if you haven't already done so, hit the follow button so that this episode and more that come, the conversations you need hit you at just the right time. Now that's that's all for today. And until next time, bring your whole heart, bring your wisdom, bring your humanity, and keep a few things just for you. I'll see you next time.