Impostor Syndrome: Does it belong in your life?

If anxiety is a lack of confidence, then the antidote to the symptoms of impostor syndrome is to build confidence through skills training.

“I’m always waiting to get found out” whispered my client; a highly capable senior executive in a global business. Despite all external evidence to the contrary, she simply cannot accept that she has earned her place at the table. She’s not alone. I hear similar phrases regularly from people you really would not expect: It can be found at any level of an organisation.

Impostor syndrome (noun)

1.   the persistent inability to believe that one's success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one's own efforts or skills.

Wikipedia goes further: ‘Impostor syndrome, also known as impostor phenomenon or impostorism, is a psychological occurrence in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud.[1] Despite external evidence of their competence, those experiencing this phenomenon do not believe they deserve their success or luck.’

The term was coined in 1978 when it was primarily associated with the female experience. However, from my perspective the feeling of being undeserving of one’s success and the anxiety it provokes is not confined to one gender.

I have seen impostor syndrome take a foothold when there are feelings of being less educated, experienced, articulate, beautiful, mature or credible than what we assume of someone in our position. Other themes relate to class, accents or ethnicity. In fact, the majority of people who have these thoughts are high-performing perfectionists and part of a minority group: Sad to say, most in my experience are women in their 20’s to 40’s.

At its most crippling, impostor syndrome paralyses our ambition; it makes us risk averse, resistant to change and it stunts our curiosity. It can make us miserable.

When we are fearful of making mistakes and the shame of being revealed as unworthy, we play it safe, we avoid change, and we struggle to be flexible. Clearly, this is not a recipe for a fulfilling career or a flourishing organisation.

So, how to manage impostor syndrome? Has it any place in our lives? I would argue that it has, to a degree.

I believe that it serves a purpose if it means we prepare, research and anticipate risk. For the audience, the preparation prompted by impostor syndrome feeds a credibility that comes from being specific on data and focused on delivering.

If we understand that the presence of anxiety in a given situation is a signal of ‘not enough confidence’, then the antidote to the symptoms of impostor syndrome will be to build confidence through skills training.

So, the challenge for a coach faced with a client who has identified themselves as experiencing impostor syndrome, is to get them to reframe and explore its impact so that it can be contextualised as a useful tool; something to be taken out of the toolkit when needed, then put back for the next time.

Indeed, company culture can drive impostor syndrome. An obsession with winning instils a zeitgeist of ‘less’ as the bar is always just beyond our fingertips.

When a colleague expresses their feelings of anxiety and of being overwhelmed, their concerned managers often pause their promotion to protect them from the pressure. In these scenarios, impostor syndrome is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Building confidence through building skills means reconfiguring one’s attitude to failure so that it is less a source of insidious shame and rather an opportunity to grow. Clients are encouraged to place their trust in their coach and in the techniques and tools we offer.

The language we use is key. Switching from 'impostor syndrome' to 'impostor feelings' is a good start.

It's also important to rethink failure when managing thoughts of being unworthy. Creating a safe place for learning from what ‘failure’ can tell us is one of the main coaching objectives for me. Only then can a client ‘road test’ the templates and skills in a way that fails, asks why, learns, and tries again. I am put in mind of Samuel Beckett’s famous aphorism “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Apologies to Beckett scholars for taking this out of its ‘tragicomic’ context!

Another client, let’s call him ‘Peter’ experienced a lightbulb moment in a recent coaching session. We gradually redefined his impostor syndrome from a crippling anxiety into a superpower.

Peter’s ‘otherness’ within his corporate culture means he impacts his customers in a very different way to his peers. His humility lands as approachability. This in turn means his customers are able to communicate more easily with him, expressing their needs, fears, and visions for their business. This is all vital intel for anyone who wants to influence others because, as we know, it is crucial to understand needs and show listening if we are to land our ideas with people.

Hence, Peter’s impostor syndrome means he is atypical within the corporate culture in which he works, and as such it has become his USP and makes him better at his job.

So, let’s embrace our impostor syndrome as a useful basis for understanding ourselves and building on who we are, rather than who we are not.

¹Langford, J., & Clance, P. R. (1993). The imposter phenomenon: Recent research findings regarding dynamics, personality and family patterns and their implications for treatment. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 30(3), 495–501. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-3204.30.3.495

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