President and CEO of Center for Executive Excellence, a coaching and leadership consultancy organization.
getty
So many people have resonated with the concept of imposter syndrome since Harvard professor Amy Cuddy released her book in December 2015 that it’s easy to forget that the title was actually Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges. In the eight years since the book’s release, rarely has a month passed by that one of my clients doesn’t bring up the concept of imposter syndrome—the nagging feeling that those in power will realize any minute that you’re in a role that’s beyond your ability to deliver.
Eight years is a really long shelf life for a concept like imposter syndrome to live in the business and pop culture zeitgeist. But just in case you aren’t familiar, I recommend this excellent article by Porter Braswell published last month in Fast Company. Recently, I’ve been pushing back on my clients and colleagues who raise the imposter syndrome flag when feeling a lack of confidence or certainty about their abilities. Here are three tips to help you get clarity about whether you’re experiencing imposter syndrome or the normal challenges of an emerging leader in the U.S. workplace of today.
1. When You’re Pressured By Effortless Perfection
In Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, Susan Cain writes about the phenomenon of “duck syndrome” on the Stanford campus. Students try to be like ducks that glide smoothly along the water’s surface while they paddle madly underneath. Seasoned senior leaders—especially in the U.S.—have perfected the concepts of “playing it cool” and “never let them see you sweat.”
If your workplace role models are not sharing their vulnerabilities and humility, they’re not perfect—they lack emotional intelligence. Don’t try to justify their low E.Q. as your imposter syndrome. Show compassion, normalize talking about mental health and break the cycle of effortless perfection.
2. When Your Spidey Sense Is Tingling
Let me be clear. No workplace culture is always sunshine and unicorns. Nor should it be. Performance standards should be challenging. Accountability should be common practice. Senior leaders should be the first to model organizational values.
If your manager tells you one thing on Monday and the opposite thing on Tuesday, they may have had an off day. But, if they repeatedly deflect responsibility for their own behavior or try to make you question your own memory, the result can be disorienting. You don’t have imposter syndrome—you’re being gaslit. Trust your Spidey sense when what you see doesn’t match what you’re being told. Stand your ground armed with facts and without emotion.
3. When The Rules Of The Game Are Rigged
As Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey wrote brilliantly in Harvard Business Review, “In truth, we don’t belong because we were never supposed to belong. Our presence in most of these spaces is a result of decades of grassroots activism and begrudgingly developed legislation.” Women of color, people from lower income levels, nonbinary people and other marginalized groups are still not considered leadership material in most U.S. organizations.
If you feel forced to leave part of your identity at home so that you can better fit in at work, that’s not imposter syndrome—that’s systemic bias. If you can’t imagine yourself on the senior leadership team because no one on that team looks like you, that’s not a you thing—that’s a them thing.
Placing the focus of imposter syndrome on individuals enables leadership to conveniently ignore low emotional intelligence, gaslighting and unconscious bias. Trust your gut, stay clear-eyed and recognize that unhealthy institutional patterns won’t be fixed by internalizing the pathology.
Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?
