Skimming this thread, and especially reading this comment, it all seems so absurd.
Does this post really reflect how you operate on a day to day basis? By over-analyzing social interactions and figuring out their "rules."
> "I want them to like me. Should I be like this? Should I be like that?"
Have you not learned this already? Has nobody learned to deal with themselves that they seriously contemplate this article and the shallow "be yourself" advice?
The phrase, as it's most commonly used, is likely to be perfect for extroverts. I'm an extrovert, with many extrovert friends, and this is perfect advice for me and my friends. "Don't care what other people think, just do what you want to do and the rest will come." Nothing more. It was not meant to be deconstructed, as it wasn't made by an engineer.
It's not meant for introverts and the anxious. Do not apply it your lives. There are no universal truths for human happiness and behaviour.
As a semi-anxious person, I've found it is useful to deconstruct this stuff.
We don't all suffer (but in the practical sense we do).
In the advice context of the article, the goal is (for an arbitrary person) to be successful and liked by an audience (whether the TED audience, or an audience of employees, or an audience of TV viewers, or in front of friends and acquaintances). In that context, I'd say being authentic doesn't make you likable, but if you can be authentic while simultaneously being likable, people love that.
Brutal honesty, which is a different thing, will not win you friends. No one likes the person who says, "What? I was just being honest!" Social interactions are transactional and layered with meaning. "I want to have sex with you right now" is not merely a random act of stating a fact, and neither is a personal criticism (e.g. "you're ugly"). An exec who asks her employees for emotional support is making an ask that may not be comfortable.
My advice is to learn to be more authentic (with fewer self-inhibiting inner dictates), for your own personal reasons, and simultaneously to learn how to better relate to other people.