What Does It Mean to Be Your "Authentic Self" as a Woman in Tech?

We hear the word authentic everywhere. Be authentic. Bring your true self to work. Lead authentically. It shows up in job descriptions, in leadership trainings, in every second LinkedIn post. But when you actually try to picture what that means in your day to day work, the picture gets blurry fast.

You might be introverted, but your team lead keeps encouraging you to speak up more in meetings. You might genuinely love working alone, focused and undisturbed, but you keep getting pulled into group projects and brainstorms. Or maybe it's the opposite: you're expressive, you think out loud, you feel things and say so, but most of your colleagues seem to value silence and clean logical arguments, and your way of communicating starts to feel like too much.

So which version of you is the authentic one? The one that fits the room, or the one that doesn't?

The Tension Is Real, Not Imagined

This is one of the bigger difficulties of being a woman in tech specifically. The industry has its own unspoken rules about what competence sounds like, what confidence looks like, and who gets to take up space without being questioned for it. Fitting into that can feel necessary for being taken seriously. Stepping outside of it can feel risky.

So the tension isn't a personal flaw or a sign that something is wrong with you. It's a real gap between who you are and what the environment around you rewards. The question is not how to eliminate that gap through sheer willpower. The question is how to stay in relationship with yourself while you navigate it.

Step One: Actually Knowing Yourself

Before you can be authentic, you need to know what that even means for you, specifically.

Most of us has some idea with who we are. We observe some things, assume some things, have already learned so things about ourselves. At the same time we become so used to the patterns in our lives, that we don't distinguish anymore if something really feels good for us, or it feels good because we fitted to certain expectations. So the first step is to learn to notice when we feel relaxed and when we feel some tension to perform.

That distinction is subtle. Performing doesn't always look dramatic, sometimes it's just a slight tightness in your chest before you speak, a sentence that feels a little artificial, or this feeling that you need to control yourself not to say something stupid.

This kind of self-knowledge is the foundation everything else gets built on. Without it, you're trying to choose authenticity without knowing what you're choosing between. It's something to come back to.

Step Two: Noticing Where You've Been Performing, and Choosing Differently

Once you can actually feel the difference between relaxed and performing, the real work starts: choosing differently.

If you look honestly at your career and realize that most of it has been built on performing, that's a sign that something needs to change. There's no judgment, it's just something worth looked at with curiosity. That pattern usually didn't come from nowhere. You can unpack it step by step and see what exactly needs your attention.

Is it the role itself, something about the day to day tasks that don't really fit who you are? Is it certain responsibilities you've taken on because they were expected of you (or you thought were expected from you), not because they fit to your strengths? Or is it something less tangible: an idea of who you think you're supposed to be in this industry, in this room, in this stage of your career?

You don't need to have the full answer right away. You just need to start asking the question honestly, and letting the answer surprise you if it needs to.

Step Three: Experimenting With Showing Up Differently

Knowing is not the same as changing. The next step is experimentation, small and specific.

Take one situation. A meeting, a presentation, a difficult conversation with a colleague. And ask yourself: what would happen if, in this specific moment, I actually showed up as myself? Not the loudest version, not the most agreeable version, just the honest one.

If you're naturally quieter, that might mean speaking once, with something that actually matters to you, instead of forcing five comments to prove you're engaged. If you love working alone, it might mean asking for fifteen minutes of focused time before joining the group discussion, instead of pretending collaboration energizes you the same way it does for others. If you're expressive, it might mean trusting that your enthusiasm is actually an asset in the room, not something to be dimmed down to fit a colder tone.

Ask yourself, too: how can I use my actual strengths in this specific situation, instead of borrowing someone else's? Because very often, the version of you that feels most like yourself is also the version that produces the best result. Not despite being authentic, but because of it. In the end it all means: be honest with yourself and share what you need in order to feel comfortable.

Coming Back to the Foundation

None of this happens once and then stays solved. Authenticity isn't a fixed state you arrive at and never have to think about again. It's something you keep returning to, situation by situation, choice by choice. Some days you'll notice you performed, and that's fine. Noticing is the whole practice.

This is exactly the kind of work I do with women in tech in coaching: building that foundation of real self-knowledge, and then practicing, in real situations, what it looks like to choose differently. Not all at once, and not perfectly. Just one honest step at a time.

Where in your work do you feel like you have to be someone else to be taken seriously? That question alone is a good place to start.