Leaders who last: Authenticity is the new security strategy

Written By Elena Thurston

Why weird, real leadership is your best defense against AI-enabled fraud

Also, it’s Elena Joy, here, the CEO. This was such a special interview, I wanted to ensure I wrote the blog post summary of it. (authenticity and all, am I right?)

In the latest episode of Leaders Who Last, I had the privilege of speaking with Aarti Samani, a global expert in AI-enabled deepfake fraud prevention. What started as a conversation about cybersecurity quickly transformed into something far more personal and far more urgent for today’s leaders.

Because here's the truth: authenticity is no longer just a leadership virtue. It's a fraud prevention strategy.

Deepfakes and the Executive Identity Crisis

Aarti walked us through how deepfake technology is rapidly evolving, making it easier than ever to impersonate leaders online. Voices can be cloned. Faces can be faked. And bad actors are using these tools to manipulate trust and extract millions from organizations, like in the now-infamous case where an entire Zoom call of senior executives was faked, leading to a $25 million loss.

It’s terrifying. But it also reveals a powerful insight: the more consistent, recognizable, and human your leadership identity is, the harder it becomes to fake.

As Aarti said, “Voices can be cloned. But values can’t be altered by AI.”

Why Perfection Is a Vulnerability

In our chat, we explored the emotional toll of performative leadership. The energy it takes to be polished, poised, and perceived as perfect isn’t just a burnout risk, it’s a security risk. Because the more generic your leadership persona is, the easier it is to replicate.

But when leaders show up with quirks, values, (even vulnerabilities!) that’s what creates what Aarti calls a “watermark of trust.” It’s the unique, human fingerprint that tells your team, this is really me.

As an executive leadership speaker and consultant in Arizona, I’ve seen firsthand how embracing that weird, real, fully human leadership style doesn’t just build connection—it builds resilience. It protects teams from burnout and organizations from deception.

Culture as a Risk Surface

We also connected the dots between psychological safety and fraud resilience. Burned out teams with no space to question authority or admit doubt are the most vulnerable to manipulation. On the flip side, a culture of authenticity, one where leaders and employees are encouraged to be fully human, dramatically reduces that “attack surface.”

As Aarti put it:

“When you’re an authentic leader, you give your team permission to be human. That’s not just good for morale. It’s good for fraud prevention.”

So What Can You Do?

Aarti outlined several ways organizations of any size can protect themselves:

  • Train employees to recognize and respond to deepfake fraud attempts.

  • Educate executives in closed, psychologically safe environments.

  • Assess cultural risk by examining gaps between perceived and actual psychological safety.

  • Simulate attacks to test both process and human response.

Even a small business with just 2 employees can be targeted. Authentic leadership isn’t just a nice-to-have anymore. It’s now a critical line of protection.


Pursuing joy, preventing burnout, and now… preventing fraud.
If that’s not a case for cultivating sustainable and inclusive leadership skills, I don’t know what is.

Big thanks to Aarti Samani for blowing our minds and expanding our definition of sustainable leadership. Catch the full conversation here on our blog and stay tuned for next week’s Leaders Who Last episode with HR badass Terry Flores.

Because the future belongs to leaders who are too weird to fake.

Want to know more about how Aarti is helping companies prevent AI-enabled fraud?

Elena Thurston
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