The Imposter Syndrome is alive and thriving in business

The Imposter Syndrome is alive and thriving in business

For most of my career, I've felt like an imposter. Fortunately for me, I learned that I was sabotaging myself and have been helping others move beyond the syndrome for around 5 years.

When I first started talking about the syndrome, purely from personal experience, I didn't realise that the act of talking about it to others triggered their feelings of being an imposter!

During my presentations, I got angry pushback from some members of the audience and was puzzled. I thought if people understood what was holding them back, they'd be happy to hear about it. Wrong!

Since those early days of presenting, I've learned heaps about the syndrome from personal experience, from academic research and from working with coaching clients.

And I've noticed over the years that people are becoming increasingly aware of the Imposter Syndrome and are (mostly) more willing to talk about it. When presenters – thought leaders from their industry – talk about success now, they're more willing to share their journey. For so many of them, that includes experiencing and dealing with the Imposter Syndrome.

The Stats on the Imposter Syndrome

If you've read anything about the Imposter Syndrome, you'll be familiar with the statistics:

  • The syndrome was identified in the late 1970's by Doctors Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes who were working with PhD and Masters students in their final years at Georgia State University. These female students had achieved high distinctions and distinctions throughout their careers and were now worried about failing. Clance and Imes investigated and subsequently identified the Imposter Phenomenon.
  • Key indicators are: feeling like a fake and fraud, focussing on weaknesses and failures, dismissing strengths and successes (either by not recognising them, or not realising their value). If they were successful, they considered that success to be the result of good fortune or someone else's mistakenly positive view of them. Success also led to fear about whether they could pull the rabbit out of the hat again!
  • Around 70% of people interviewed in any research study have experienced the Imposter Syndrome, and around 33% have experienced it frequently and intensely – almost like a pair of glasses they wear every day.
  • The Syndrome only impacts people who have achieved some measure of success. They have to have achieved success in order to be able to deny they had anything to do with it!

The Imposter Syndrome is an equal opportunity experience

The Syndrome is considered to be a female experience. Women certainly seem to be more willing to talk openly about it. However, research since the 1970's together with anecdotal evidence suggest this is not the case. A video filmed at a recent Capital Ideas event through the Edmonton Journal shows three successful entrepreneurs (one female and two males) talking about their experience with the Imposter Syndrome. Ray Muzyka, the third speaker, is the co-founder of the highly successful role-playing games company Bio-Ware gives the most wonderful demonstration of the syndrome in action. He describes the launch and huge success of their second game, something he should have been happy about. Instead, he lost sleep that night worrying that the success was a fluke and worrying about whether they could repeat the success with anything in the future.

The IS is latent until triggered by personal uncertainty

We can be working away merrily, feeling confident that we've got everything handled and BAM*! we get blindsided by a situation that immediately creates a feeling of personal uncertainty. It could be a colleague challenges us and we interpret the challenge as making us wrong. It may be an unexpected call up to the MD's office and our first response is 'what did I do wrong?' It could be you're in business for yourself and what you're selling ... no-one is buying. Perhaps the person you report into (before PC, that person was a boss) who totally micro-manages you causing you to wonder whether that person distrusts your performance and why? It could be unsolicited (or even formal) feedback that felt unnecessarily harsh and triggered a defensive feeling in you.

The point is, whatever triggers each of us is highly personal and linked to the conditioning we received up to the age of 7. Let's face it, most of us make it through the first three stages of psychological development with an unmet need or two around survival, belonging and self-esteem.

We engage in self-protective behaviours designed to reduce our feeling of vulnerability and increase our feeling of control. In doing so, we reduce the pain and the psychological static that comes with extreme stress and go back to merrily trotting along ... until the next time.

Today, business is all about uncertainty

Change is the new black (or is that being busy?!). Whether you have your own small to medium enterprise (SME) or you work at the large end of town (and everything in between), every day involves change. It might be a restructure, merger or acquisition. It could be evolving a business model before the market makes that decision for you. It might be as simple as changing supplier. It could be stepping back and looking at the business or your area of responsibility to see what needs to change to move it forward. We know that in the realm of product/service development we spend almost no time in the comfort zone before we have to innovate again.

This uncertainty is the realm of business today. And to be honest a little uncertainty is a good thing. Complacency is the enemy of improvement and innovation. We need to perturbate to some degree to feel the dissatisfaction of where we sit and to move forward from there.

Yet so many organisations add unnecessary uncertainty – by ignorance or design – through poor leadership and management, inadequate communication, lack of involvement for people who are part of the process and are certainly impacted by the outcome, just to name a few areas that increase environmental uncertainty.

Like most things in life, it's not what happens, it's how we respond to it and that is dictated by what we make it mean.Some employees may thrive on change and may not be triggered into feeling 'not good enough'. Their trigger may lie in other directions. For others, a changing environment may feel like loss of control and predictability which may trigger feelings of inadequacy, activating the inner critic and leading them down a negative path.

Environmental uncertainty exacerbated by personal uncertainty triggers latent 'imposters' – up to 70% of talented people – into a full-blown experience. Employee engagement declines, personal performance drops, trust erodes, innovation leaves the building, customer service fizzles. Behaviour becomes fear-based, ego-driven and contracting, focussing on number 1, rather than looking out for colleagues and helping each other.

The answer is ...

... complicated. If we can reduce unnecessary environmental uncertainty and help individuals resolve the imposter syndrome, we flip the game completely.

Imagine you, your colleagues, business partners and your tribe all working together to achieve outcomes far greater than you could alone. Imagine humbly recognising your unique combination of talents and skills and the contribution you can make using them. Imagine experiencing such trust with your fellow workers that work becomes so easy – no second-guessing needed. Imagine being accepted by yourself and others for precisely who you are. No more mask and no more 'fake it til you make it'. Just you and that's enough. Imagine feeling connected with others around you and that being a good feeling. How could it be to be filled up with life, joyful, on purpose rather than separating from others and life itself?

That is what lies beyond the Imposter Syndrome.

If you can relate and want to change your story, you may be interested in my no strings free online workshop "Success by Design" to help you understand what barriers may be standing between you and success ... and what to do about them.

I'm Suzanne Mercier. I help talented female leaders, managers, business owners and seasoned entrepreneurs who feel derailed by self-doubt, frustration and lack of progress to recognise their talents, develop a strong inner core and increase their confidence so they can go after their dream career or business! I work face-to-face or online. Check out my book up on Amazon: "Liberate Leadership. How the imposter syndrome undermines leadership capability and what to do about it." If you're tired of feeling like an unsung song, let's dismantle those barriers and create the future you really want! Let's talk: suzanne@purposetoprofit.com.au


Mike Allen

Executive Coach, Transition Coach, Career Coach, EFT Practitioner

6y

A useful strategy I deploy is in times of trial -that old strategy which says "If you want to be treated like the Colonel act like Colonel" My way of dragging IS over in to the light

Robert Holmes

Consulting | Performance | Resilience | Change | Research

9y

I concur with your article Suzanne, it is rife in the business community. Celebrity Life coach Patrick Wanis PhD, puts it at the top of his list of issues faced by the famous. I run into this all the time in executive and business coaching. Removing uncertainty is important, I often use Stephen Covey's seven habits: circle of control and concern to address what the person can actually control (aside from the illusion of control).

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Bev Ryan

Book Coach & Book Production Manager: Ensuring you plan, write & publish your best book ⭐️ Specialising in memoir/self-help AND non-fiction that inspires action & growth. ⭐️ Contact me for an exploratory call

9y

I agree Suzanne - it is an issue that impedes many people, and often the people we would least expect.

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Bev Ryan

Book Coach & Book Production Manager: Ensuring you plan, write & publish your best book ⭐️ Specialising in memoir/self-help AND non-fiction that inspires action & growth. ⭐️ Contact me for an exploratory call

9y

Valerie Young has been researching, writing and working in this area for many years - http://www.impostorsyndrome.com/

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I think there is a little Imposter Syndrome in all of us. It is possibly a question of degrees.

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