Regardless of their motives, it is first important to acknowledge that despite someone’s best efforts, true underlying emotions often do leak through, resulting in emotional mismatches that may make them appear inauthentic.

Even if there are no emotionally-relevant challenges to the situation itself, emotions often spill over from one moment to the next. A strong emotion from a prior interaction doesn’t automatically dissipate as soon as that interaction is done.

As a result, emotions may linger to contexts w...

While being perceived as authentic is ideal, actually always behaving authentically can lead to disaster. Imagine a manager who, while laying off an employee, expresses underlying happiness because her soon-to-be spouse just accepted her marriage proposal that morning. Or an exec...

It may be difficult to display the needed emotion due to challenges or conflicting factors directly related to the situation.

For instance, even when required by a job, it can be nearly impossible to engage in authentic “service with a smile” if a customer is yelling at you, or be emotiona...

When emotion is authentic, it is best to use the richest communication medium available, such as face-to-face or video communication. However, when needing to relay inauthentic communication, there was a surprising difference.

Email communication was not the best choice — ...

Being inauthentic by hiding underlying authentic emotions may be done with a prosocial motivation to benefit others, with a realization that true authenticity may not be appropriate for the context.

• If you are communicating authentically, try to use ...