Episode 346 · 20 October 2026 · 58:11

Is Imposter Syndrome Fake? PLUS! McKinsey LinkedIn Drama, workplace 'larping', and the job EVERYONE hates.

#workplace support #employee turnover #job satisfaction #mckinsey #glass cliff #imposter syndrome #statistics #priorities

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Moving house and workplace support
news roundup#moving-house #workplace-support #relocation
Gen Z slang 'LARPer' and workplace authenticity
news roundup#gen-z-slang #workplace-authenticity #larper
Why people leave jobs: a robotics exec's take on turnover
news roundup#employee-turnover #job-satisfaction #robotics
McKinsey senior partner demoted over LinkedIn argument about the glass cliff
news roundup#mckinsey #glass-cliff #linkedin-argument
Truth or Lie: Is the 70% imposter syndrome statistic real?
truth or lie#imposter-syndrome #statistics #truth-or-lie
Workplace Surgery Q1: Struggling manager with no control over budget or priorities
workplace surgery#struggling-manager #budget-control #priorities
Workplace Surgery Q2: Did I hire a great interviewer but a poor employee?
workplace surgery#hiring-mistakes #interview-skills #employee-performance
Workplace Surgery Q3: What to spend a £100 monthly wellbeing allowance on
workplace surgery#wellbeing-allowance #employee-benefits #self-care
Wrap-up and preview of Thursday's guest
news roundup#podcast-wrap-up #upcoming-guest #preview

Show notes

Is Imposter Syndrome Fake? PLUS! McKinsey LinkedIn Drama, Workplace 'Larping', and the Job Everyone Hates

This Week in Work — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) break down the new Gen-Z slang taking over offices, why high-turnover roles might not be a hiring problem, and a McKinsey partner's very public fall from grace. Plus, in Truth or Lie: does 70% of the population really have imposter syndrome?

🔥 Stories Covered

1. The rise of the "LARPer" in the workplace Gen Z and Gen Alpha have a new word for people who talk like experts but lack the experience to back it up. Originating from "Live Action Role-Player", calling someone a LARPer means they're pretending to adopt a persona that doesn't match reality — from fake wine connoisseurs to LinkedIn "thought leaders" who've never actually run a business. Zak Asgard in The Times notes that as youth unemployment rises, more young people adopt the identity of a role when actual career opportunities remain out of reach. Source →

2. The job nobody stays in When multiple people leave the exact same role after a few months, the common factor isn't bad hires or flawed recruitment — it's the structure, status, and design of the job itself. Robotics founder Matthew Chang argues that leaders should look at turnover patterns before blaming hiring processes or individual employees. Leanne breaks down why job analysis is the unsexy but essential fix. Source →

3. McKinsey partner demoted after LinkedIn row over the "Glass Cliff" Chris Bradley, a senior partner with 27 years at McKinsey, has been stripped of his leadership roles following a public LinkedIn dispute with author Julia Carreon. After dismissing the "glass cliff" phenomenon — where women are appointed to leadership roles during periods of crisis — as "a very convenient way to always be a victim in the rain", McKinsey launched a conduct review. Bradley then doubled down, claiming there was "no evidence" for the phenomenon. The post has since been deleted. Source → | Julia Carreon: LinkedIn

🧠 Truth or Lie: Do 70% of us have imposter syndrome?

Leanne breaks down the wildly popular statistic that 70% of people suffer from imposter syndrome — and it's more complicated than the headlines suggest.

Key points:

Psychologists call it the imposter phenomenon, not a clinical syndrome — it's not a diagnosis, so there's no standardised cut-off
Studies in high-pressure environments (neurosurgeons, healthcare workers) yield figures over 60–90%, but these samples aren't representative of the general population
Broader career-spanning data, survey selection biases (people who feel like imposters are more likely to volunteer for studies), and publication bias (journals prefer significant results) all inflate the number
The Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale measures it on a continuum — where you draw the line changes the number dramatically
A meta-analysis by Omar et al. (2026) in medical education found prevalence varies wildly depending on the cut-off used

Sources:

💬 Workplace Surgery

Three listener questions, tackled live:

Bad manager or bad setup? "I get competing priorities from different leaders and responsibility without authority. Am I failing, or is the role set up to fail?" — Leanne explains role conflict and how to negotiate clarity from leadership.
Hired a great interviewer, not a great employee? "They talked a brilliant game in the interview, but now they can't deliver. Did I hire a LARPer?" — How to spot candidates who "talk the talk" during selection and avoid likeness bias.
What would you spend £100/month wellbeing allowance on? Ideas across physical, psychological, social, and financial wellbeing — from cleaners to experiences to meal prep subscriptions.

(Got a question? Submit it via the connect link below.)

Connect With Us

Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect

Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14

Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.

Full transcript

Expand full transcript

Al ElliottComing up this week in work.

Leanne ElliottIn a desperate attempt to remain relevant, I've been learning some Gen Z lingo this week, Al. That's right.

Al ElliottThat's clutch.

Leanne ElliottIsn't it? I've got a new word. That's clutch. Um, I'll be here to rearrange anyone over the age of 35 very shortly.

Al ElliottThat's both of us. Also this week, got a role nobody ever stays in? You've probably been blaming the hiring process, but a man who puts robots in Factories thinks you're looking in the wrong place.

Leanne ElliottAnd in Truth or Lie, is it true that 70% of us have imposter syndrome? It's a statistic that's thrown around quite a lot, but where did it come from, and is it even true? Well, I have read the research and I've got a verdict.

Al ElliottAnd in the Workplace Surgery, one listener asks, what would you spend £100 a month wellbeing allowance on? Their employer has introduced a new initiative and they're looking for some inspiration.

Leanne ElliottThis is Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. We are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

Al ElliottMy name is Al, I'm a business owner, and I'm here to ask the questions you might be afraid to.

Leanne ElliottAnd my name is Leanne, I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, and I'm here to answer them. And together, we'll help you simplify the science of work and build amazing workplace cultures.

Al ElliottBe right back after a quick word from our sponsors. If you have support tickets in your business, then this is going to sound frighteningly familiar. You open the queue on Monday morning, 200 tickets before you even First sip of coffee and you already know what's in there. Password reset requests, order updates, the same questions over and over again. Hey, what if that part of the job just handled itself?

Leanne ElliottHubSpot Customer Agent resolves those repeat tickets using your actual CRM data and knowledge base so your team can focus on the conversations that actually need them and your customers get answers faster.

Al ElliottCheck out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Welcome back. Welcome back. Leanne, what's been going on? I ask you this as if, like, I don't know anything about you, as if I've not seen you for months or weeks. I saw you 10 minutes ago.

Leanne ElliottYeah, you did. So what's been going on? We're moving.

Al ElliottWe're moving.

Leanne ElliottYeah, in the process of.

Al ElliottHands up any listeners who've moved. I reckon it's like one of the top 3 or 4 stressful things you can do in your life is move house.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Al ElliottYeah. We, Just, just in case you don't know, we spent about 5 or 6 years, maybe even a bit longer, on the road. And so for a long time, everything we owned in the world fit in the back of our, back of our car.

Leanne ElliottGenuinely did.

Al ElliottPlus 2 dogs. Well, no, there was only 1 dog at the time, wasn't there?

Leanne ElliottThere was only 1 at the time, yeah.

Al ElliottYeah. So, so everything fit in the back and now we have a storage unit that we are still afraid will not fit everything in.

Leanne ElliottI don't think it will. I don't think it will. Like, it's taken a lot. To be fair as well, we have bought some stuff for the new house. So we had a new sofa that needs to go and is in there now. But it's things like we've got a dishwasher and a chest freezer and a breakfast bar. And I'm just not, I'm just not convinced, Al. I think we're going to need something else.

Al ElliottThe thing I'm most not, not worried about, I suppose I'm worried about is that if you've ever seen anything, any of our clips or anything on YouTube, you'll see that we've got a nice studio, which I built about 18 months ago. Uh, and I'm gonna have to take it all down and then re-put it together again, reassemble it in our new house. And that's got to sit in the, um, um, in, in the container. So, uh, we've got studio lights, we've got teleprompters, we've got multiple screens, we've got flashy stuff and lights and bangy stuff. And, um, yeah.

Leanne ElliottYeah. All, all the good stuff.

Al ElliottAll the good stuff. And also, I'm just, I'm all paranoid it's gonna Burn down or something and everything we own is gonna go.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Al ElliottI know.

Leanne ElliottYeah. We'll be fine.

Al ElliottWe have had a little bit of— we've had a run of medium bad luck. It's medium.

Leanne ElliottYeah. Al and I kind of come to the conclusion that we're never fully down, but we're never really up. And maybe that's just like what karma is meant to do, is just balance out at the end. But like, it doesn't feel like we're ever really up.

Al ElliottNo, no. We'll get like, I don't know, a big contract come out of nowhere.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Al ElliottAnd then suddenly we'll go, oh yeah, no, we have to go and pay for this thing that's just come out. It's almost exactly

Leanne ElliottYeah, something will break or— yeah, totally.

Al ElliottYeah, very much first world problems.

Leanne ElliottOh, absolutely.

Al ElliottProblems nonetheless anyway.

Leanne ElliottYeah, so just a little reminder, I guess, just check in if you've got any members of staff that are moving house. They might just need a little handholding over the next couple of weeks.

Al ElliottYeah, yeah, I'm sure we— did we not talk about someone who they did have a moving, like, what's the word when you get like 2 or 3 days off?

Leanne ElliottLike, oh yeah, paid time off.

Al ElliottYeah, PTO. Is that what you kids call it? Yeah, there was a moving allowance for that. So there's like bereavement, which included pets.

Leanne ElliottOh yeah, I agree with that. My beautiful sister just lost her puppy dog. Um, he was— he did well. He was 13, King Charles Cavalier. So an incredible age. But it is— I thought that this morning as she was having to go into work and, and get through her day, that, um, yeah, it should be more of a thing, shouldn't it?

Al ElliottYeah, when we were kids, we had a music teacher called Mr. Williams. I think I can say this because he about 140 back then in the early '80s. So I'm pretty sure he's not with us anymore. But he was the scariest bastard you've ever met in your entire life.

Leanne ElliottWho's this guy?

Al ElliottThis was a teacher at my school called Mr. Williams. Everyone was terrified of him. Yeah. And anyway, he came in one day and we all sat around with our keyboards. So we're sitting around a keyboard around this big desk and he just started crying. And he's like, yeah, I had my dog put down this morning.

Leanne ElliottOh,

Al Elliottand he was telling us all this. And of course, because everyone hated him because he was such a Ass to us all.

Leanne ElliottYeah,

Al Elliottwe didn't really have the, you know, we did, we were like, huh, yeah. But looking back, I'm like, maybe that's why he was really angry, he had a sick dog, or maybe he was just really emotional, but he couldn't, he wouldn't allow it to be shown at school.

Leanne ElliottSo yeah. Oh, Mr. Williams.

Al ElliottYeah, Mr. Williams. So, uh, and then the next time we went back in, he was back to being an asshole.

Leanne ElliottSo yeah, yeah, short-lived then, eh?

Al ElliottAnyway, Lee, is it time for the news roundup?

Leanne ElliottI've been looking at the Gen Zs. And the Gen Alphas and what mischief they're up to this week. And they've got a new word.

Al ElliottGo on.

Leanne ElliottLARPer. L-A-R-P-E-R.

Al ElliottI have zero idea. Although in Hot Fuzz, did you know that the guy who was also in Game of Thrones, um, the guy who was like, yeah, didn't he come along and go, LARP?

Leanne ElliottHe did.

Al ElliottLARP?

Leanne ElliottHe did. Why? I

Al Elliottdon't know. Is

Leanne Elliottthat his name?

Al ElliottI don't know. Well, maybe it's something to do with—

Leanne ElliottLike Hodor. But then it turned out to be hold the door.

Al ElliottYeah.

Leanne ElliottGame of Thrones.

Al ElliottYeah.

Leanne ElliottOh, devastating.

Al ElliottAnd then you've just spoiled Game of Thrones for someone who hasn't watched it, even though it's been out for about 20 years.

Leanne ElliottWell, they don't know why it has to hold.

Al ElliottThat's a good point.

Leanne ElliottAnyway, yeah, so it is because unbelievably, this was in the Times, the Sunday Times.

Al ElliottRight.

Leanne ElliottSo basically a larper, do you want to have a guess?

Al ElliottUm, it feels like someone who's perhaps a bit, you know, just works a bit slow, just larps along or something. Ah, no.

Leanne ElliottNope. A larper is basically to say that somebody is pretending to be something they're not. So they're adopting a personality or an identity that doesn't quite match reality.

Al ElliottDo we know where the word larper's come from? Has it got— what's the etymology of this?

Leanne ElliottYes, yes, we do. So apparently larper came originally from live-action role player. So it's the people that, you know, go and recreate the Civil War and stuff with like foam swords.

Al ElliottAll right. Okay.

Leanne ElliottLike the cosplay-ish type thing.

Al ElliottOh yeah.

Leanne ElliottSo live-action role player, which I guess isn't the same as cosplay. I don't— come for me. I don't know. It's not my world. But that's where it comes from. But the Gen Zs and Alphas have kind of moved on to something else. So this was an article by Zach Asgard, as I said, in the Sunday Times. And he tells a story about going—

Al ElliottDid you say Asgard?

Leanne ElliottAsgard. A-S-G-A-R-D.

Al ElliottSorry, I've been like, Ass guard, like something you put on your ass for a guard.

Leanne ElliottAsgard? I don't know.

Al ElliottSorry, sorry about that, Zak. Carry on.

Leanne ElliottIt could be Asgard. It could be Asgard. I don't know. You'd have to ask Zak. I don't have his number. He wouldn't answer the phone anyway, because I'm pretty sure he's a Gen Z.

Al ElliottThat's so true. It's so true. Go on.

Leanne ElliottAnyway, he tells a story about going out for dinner with some friends. He said one of them orders a bottle of wine and immediately starts behaving like a professional sommelier, inspecting the vintage, swirling the wine around, and talking about citrus fruits and green apples. At one point, he even announces that the wine is flirting with him.

Al ElliottOh,

Leanne Elliottand then another friend turns around to him and says, you're such a larper, mate, you don't know anything about wine. Um, so apparently that's what a perfect example of larper is.

Al ElliottOh, that story is a lot of fun.

Leanne ElliottIt's a lot of fun, isn't it? It's a lot of fun. Zach gives another example as well, though, of a friend who's decided he's a chef or wants to be a chef. No, he doesn't want to be. He is a chef after watching the Anthony Bourdain biopic, Tony giving Brooklyn Beckham this bit. So he's 26, he works as a paralegal, he's never actually cooked in a restaurant and apparently barely cooks at home, but he's adopted the entire chef persona and his Instagram bio now proudly says chef.

Al ElliottOh, that's a bit cringe.

Leanne ElliottYeah, it is a bit, innit? So that would be another example of a larp. You can just shorten it as well.

Al ElliottIt's a larp.

Leanne ElliottLARPer.

Al ElliottI'm just trying to think, so So what, so where does it become, where does it stop becoming kind of, by the way, hello Steph, if you're watching, because she mentioned about it on our WhatsApp group that she watched Tony and loved it. And she said she got all the feels from it.

Leanne ElliottOh, really?

Al ElliottYeah. Yeah. Um, so I'm trying to work out, LARP is when someone has obviously gone too far.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Al ElliottBut before LARP is someone, let's say it was like you and I, we, we quite like wine.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Al ElliottAnd you're quite good at like, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, this tastes a little bit like so-and-so, and I can smell so-and-so.

Leanne ElliottWell, Brian, Al's dad, is a wine journalist, right, and writer, isn't he? So he's taught us a lot over the years. It's not like we're just making it

Al Elliottup. I see, right. So LARP, so LARP would be you'd watch something on telly and then you'd be like suddenly, um, you'd watch, um, I don't know, uh, Grand Designs, then suddenly you go, I'm an architect because I've watched 10 Grand Designs or something.

Leanne ElliottYeah, basically. Basically, yeah.

Al ElliottOkay, right. I think I've got it. Didn't need my, my third example for that.

Leanne ElliottIt's good. It's good. So Zach advises us old people that you can LARP at pretty much anything. It can be like a tech bro, a health enthusiast, a football fan. You probably LARP a football fan from time to time, Al. And a political activist. Somehow brought Taylor Swift into this as well. I'm not sure why she needs to be dragged into everything. But you might be asking at this point, Leanne, why are we talking about this on a work Well, I'm so glad you asked. Zach thinks that LARPing has something to do with young people's career prospects.

Al ElliottRight.

Leanne ElliottThat's his hypothesis in terms of why this word is, is gaining popularity. So he points out that between May and July this year, 751,000 people aged 16 to 24 were unemployed in the UK, which was 109,000 more than the previous year.

Al ElliottOh.

Leanne ElliottYeah. His argument is that when it's becoming really difficult to get jobs and things that you actually want to do, whether it be kind of building a career or achieving a particular lifestyle, it's tempting to start pretending to be someone who's already doing it. Almost like manifesting, I guess, or fake it till you make it. Um, but he kind of put it, when you can't actually do something, you aim to be that thing instead. And I think social media makes this worse because we're constantly surrounded by people presenting themselves as richer, more successful, more interesting, definitely, or more accomplished than they really are. So rather than seeing the actual experience, people start adopting their identity and just go with it.

Al ElliottI think that's a little bit sad because, like, if they feel the need to do that, and they clearly don't— aren't happy with either the way that they are already being I said, clearly, I can't say that. It appears that they're not happy with the way they already presented themselves to the world or the way their life has gone. I mean, we all, we all had this, didn't we? Remember, remember the kids at school? There's always one or two weird kids at school and they'd be like, all these wild, fantastic stories about how their dad was the Prime Minister and, and how their, and how their dad invented the question mark.

Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.

Al ElliottYou know, all these things. Everyone knew they was just full of But, and they told them to their face, oh, belly bullshit, belly bullshit. But they still did it because that seemed like it was better than maybe what the actual reality is, which is kind of heartbreaking a little bit. Now, just to be clear, I'm all for fake it till you make it. Mm-hmm. Um, but, and in certain situations, I've probably larped before by going, yeah, yeah, I know exactly what we're talking about with websites. Yeah, yeah, I know how to build a website. And even though, um, at that point I'd probably just downloaded one WordPress, um, template and uploaded it. Um, But that was for a specific reason. It wasn't— I didn't present myself to the work. Mind you, maybe I did, huh? I wonder how many LARPers there are on LinkedIn. And if you look at the profiles—

Leanne ElliottOh, millions.

Al ElliottLinkedIn LARPer. Is that the new—

Leanne ElliottOh, LinkedIn LARPer.

Al ElliottLinkedIn LARPer. There you go. There's your new hashtag.

Leanne ElliottYeah, they're the people that are like, like, I fell outta bed and made 9 figures before breakfast. Dude.

Al ElliottYeah. Claude Code made me a millionaire this morning.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Al ElliottAnd I just used this one prompt that you can copy and paste. Yeah. Why would you give me the prompt? If you view it anyway, go on.

Leanne ElliottYeah, because they're redirecting to something else, aren't they? They're selling part of their— I don't know.

Al ElliottYeah, everyone's got a course.

Leanne ElliottSo have we as well, actually. If you're interested in learning about how to be a great manager in the age of AI, um, we have a new course out. If you want to be part of the waitlist, go to my LinkedIn profile, type in your email. But that aside, we're not larping because we talk about this stuff all the time. I, I agree. I think it's sad, and I think— I don't think it's unusual for young people to be impatient about getting on and impatient about their career progress and all that stuff. I think it's just really sad that there's so, so few opportunities out there right now. It would seem— I'm not going to get into the argument of whether there are opportunities and people just don't want to do them, because I don't know, and that's none of my business. But I think there is a genuine lack of opportunities at the minute, which is why we're seeing kind of Get Britain Working report and all these policies coming out, particularly around NEETs. Do they call them?

Al ElliottNot in employment, education, or training.

Leanne ElliottYeah. Yeah. So, um, Yeah, the thing I would say, and I know it's hard to hear this from an old person, but genuinely, the number of things that I, particularly like living abroad, I'll see things on Instagram from people either in my professional network or my personal network, and then when I actually see them in person, it's a very different experience they've been having over the last 2 months than the one I've seen on Instagram or TikTok. So, I think you have to understand there's a whole load of bullshit that goes with social media.

Al ElliottMm-hmm.

Leanne ElliottAnd really just kind of not, Not buying the hype.

Al ElliottYeah, exactly. Things are never as good as they seem, but never as bad as they seem. And I think LinkedIn— well, not LinkedIn. Well, yeah, LinkedIn these days, but any social media. Yeah. Pinch of salt. Pinch of salt, kids.

Leanne ElliottIndeed. What have you seen this week, Al?

Al ElliottWell, I normally wouldn't. When I first read this, I was like, nope, nope, this isn't going to make the roundup. Then I read a bit more and I was like, actually, it might. It's an opinion piece by a guy called Matthew Chang, and he runs a robotics firm. So his job is putting automation into into factory, into factories. So he's going to go in there. So on paper, he might be a little bit of the baddie because he's actually automating stuff, which might mean people might lose their jobs.

Leanne ElliottSo would he have been the person behind the automatic toothbrush cap screwer that took Charlie off the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's job?

Al ElliottSure.

Leanne ElliottIn the '80s.

Al ElliottThat's an extremely, extremely specific— I don't remember that.

Leanne ElliottYou remember, that's how he lost his job and why they were so poor.

Al ElliottNo, I didn't.

Leanne ElliottAnd that machine just grew on the—

Al ElliottOh, really?

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Al ElliottGot it. I'm impressed that you know the backstory of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Leanne ElliottIt's one of my favourite Roald Dahls, actually.

Al ElliottYeah.

Leanne ElliottBehind maybe Danny the Champion of the World.

Al ElliottLove Danny the Champion of the World. My dad read me to that, read that to me when I was maybe about 5 or something.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Al ElliottOver a period of about 3 years, 'cause it's a big book.

Leanne ElliottAnyway.

Al ElliottYeah. I graduated and he said, son, you're gonna have to read the last chapter yourself. So, but the one thing that stopped me from just disregarding this was He says when his team walks into a factory, the first thing they look at isn't the machines, it's the job turnover. Which jobs do people keep leaving? Because his logic is, if you can't keep someone in a particular role, that role is telling you something. People do it for a few months and then try to picture doing it for the rest of the year, for the next 10 years, and just go, fuck this, and walk. And I think this applies way beyond factories. Now, Leanne, this— I hope I'm not gonna get too tenuous here, so you're gonna have to rein me in a little bit. Okay. Most of us have, or most of us have seen roles like this, or if you've got a larger company, you will probably have a few roles like this that you've hired for 2 or 3 times in a couple of years, every couple of years. And every time when someone leaves, every time we tell ourselves the same story. Oh, it was the wrong person. It was a bad hire. Perhaps the hiring process wasn't right. We'll get it right next time. But this is the, this is the thought I had. If 3 different people have left the same job, Yeah. The common factor might not be the people. It might be the job. For example, channeling my inner Leanne, I'd be like, is the work itself like kind of relentless? Have we given them what they need to actually do it well? Resources from the RX-7. Does anyone notice what they do? Recognition from RX-7. Um, does it— is it really clear about what they have to do? Is the status— or maybe it's one of those jobs that everyone goes, oh God, I hate to do that job. I kind of remember those people in compliance in one company I was dealing with, and I'm like, I would probably Well, I'm not going to use those words, but I probably wouldn't come to work if that was my job. Yeah. Anyway.

Leanne ElliottI knew a compliance team like that once too.

Al ElliottYeah. You're like, how do you do that? Yeah. What's the procedure?

Leanne ElliottAre you just being— is it just for fun? You're being a dick? No, I'm not saying I won't comply. Just please show me how. Oh, we can't do that. It's not part of our job. All I want to do is keep guessing until I get it right.

Al ElliottI saw this brilliant thing on Twitter around tax season in the US, and it's like, it's like someone said it was an imaginary conversation between someone who's submitting a tax return and the tax authority and then going, How much do I owe you? And they go, well, that's up to you to work it out. You go, okay, I reckon it's this much. And the tax authority goes, nope, you're wrong. It kind of is like, well, tell me if you know. Anyway, Leanne, is that just— have I been smoking something special, or is that actually a little something to consider?

Leanne ElliottNo, absolutely. It all requires investigation, isn't it? There's no way of saying people leave a job because of a recruitment process, or people always leave a job because of a manager. There may sometimes be other reasons that people leave. Leave a job. It could well be all those things you said, Al, that they haven't— there's lack of clarity in terms of what it is they're doing and why it's meaningful. There's conflict amongst that role in terms of who's telling them to do what. They're not getting recognised. It could be loads and loads of different things. So yeah, it needs investigation. But I would always think the easiest place to start is the recruitment process, right? Because you've got it wrong 3 times. I guess the question is, was the person performing before they left or not?

Al ElliottYeah, this is from, from a layperson's point of view. I'm like, okay, but there's too many variables here because if I've got a bad recruitment process and it's a bad job and they weren't performing, I'm like, what do I fix first?

Leanne ElliottWell, do you know what any great job hiring process will start with, Al?

Al ElliottWhat?

Leanne ElliottA job analysis.

Al ElliottA job analysis.

Leanne ElliottAnd what are you going to learn in that job analysis? Or should you learn in that job analysis?

Al ElliottUm, all the things I've just said.

Leanne ElliottExactly.

Al ElliottThat's another job that I'm glad you do those because that would bore the hell out of

Leanne Elliottme. Yeah, they're not sexy. That's why no one talks about them. But tell you what, they save you tens and tens of thousands of pounds.

Al ElliottNow I'm listening. Okay, talking of listening, what else have you seen, my love?

Leanne ElliottWell, I was— I feel like I've been LinkedIn heavy this episode. I'm— I, you know, I have been starting to get back into it. Been a bit quiet on the old LinkedIn recently. Got a bit jaded over summer. I think it was just the kind of the AI and, you know, do you know what I mean? And I seem to miss all the gossip, so I play with my settings and I'm I'm trying to, trying to follow the cool kids. And I completely missed this to the point where I saw it in The Telegraph and was like, what? LinkedIn is my area. And how did I miss this? So basically, a McKinsey consultant off Australia completely put their foot on it in LinkedIn. Like, like bad.

Al ElliottUh-oh.

Leanne ElliottBad. He's been at the firm for 27 years. So likely from, from grad. He's been stripped of his leadership roles. after getting into an argument on LinkedIn.

Al ElliottRight. What did he say? What'd he do? What'd he say?

Leanne ElliottWhat did he do? What do you think he did? What would get you kind of really in trouble?

Al ElliottUh, he got drunk and flashed his nipples.

Leanne ElliottWould that be a demotivable offense? I don't know.

Al ElliottUh, no, I suppose it probably wouldn't. I, I think anything further south might be demotivable.

Leanne ElliottIndeed, indeed. Well, it was— it didn't involve any nudity of any kind before we get sued by, um, the man in question, Chris Bradley.

Al ElliottOh, thanks for naming him. Now we know

Leanne ElliottOh, people have named him. There's no hiding this dude. So Chris Bradley is a senior partner at McKinsey, as I said, based in Australia. He got into a LinkedIn exchange with Julie Karen, a former Wall Street executive and co-author of a book about the glass cliff. Now, regular listeners might remember we have covered the glass cliff before in one of our Truth or Lie segments. It's basically the phenomenon where women are more likely to be appointed to senior leadership positions when a company's already struggling.

Al ElliottYes. Well, it does sound a bit like a C.S. Lewis book, doesn't it?

Leanne ElliottYes, it does a little bit.

Al ElliottThe Glass Cliff.

Leanne ElliottYeah, it does. It does.

Al ElliottSorry.

Leanne ElliottNo, it's okay. So yeah, point being, they've finally broken through the glass ceiling, get to that kind of C-suite position, only to find themselves basically walking off a cliff because the company's fucked. So Chris Bradley on LinkedIn in public wasn't buying this. Bearing in mind, this is somebody who's written a book on The Glass Cliff. Chris was like, mm-mm, I'm questioning this. He suggested that we spent years worrying about women not getting CEO jobs, and now apparently we're complaining that the jobs we're getting are too difficult. And by, by we, we're complaining, women are complaining. He described the glass cliff as a very convenient way to always be a victim in the rain.

Al ElliottOh,

Leanne Elliottding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Al ElliottShots fired. Oh man, Chris. I mean, there's thought leadership, but you've got to have a little bit of thought behind the actual leadership, haven't you? But you can't just post random shit like that. Go on.

Leanne ElliottAt that point, you think he might take a step back. No, Chris doubled down. So when the point of research was raised, that there was some research on this, he said he wasn't going to bother looking into it because he didn't think the glass cliff ranked among the world's 1,000 most important problems, which is a bold enough statement, but it's quite the statement from somebody working for one of the world's biggest management consultancies, who for many decades have produced research around women in the workplace.

Al ElliottOh dear.

Leanne ElliottCan we start to figure out now why our Chris got demoted?

Al ElliottYes, I think it's very, very clear. I'm surprised he's still in the company though.

Leanne ElliottWell, that's— I think that's— everyone's a bit surprised about that. Yeah. Thoughts?

Al ElliottThere's a great exchange on X a couple of years ago where this woman, she wrote about— she wrote about, I think it was something going on in space. Like there was a rocket or a fricking something being launched and it failed. And, and she said it, um, to me it looks a little bit like it's down to— and you use some kind of like engineering stuff. And a guy came in and said, um, and said something like, why don't you do a bit of research before you actually, uh, before you actually comment on public— in public about things that you don't understand? Her reply was just chef's kiss. She went, I don't know, I got a PhD in astrophysics. I thought that might be enough. It's like, yes, go on.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Al ElliottDude, Chris, what the hell Even if that is your opinion, then kind of keep it to yourself, maybe. I don't know. Sounds very much like one of these people, a keyboard warrior who's sat in there, you know, in the basement of their parents' house, and they're just, uh, and, and they just want to be more important than they are. Maybe, maybe he was just mixing things up. Maybe he just wanted to see how far he could push this woman. I don't know.

Leanne ElliottMaybe. I mean, he's, he's a senior partner at McKinsey, and he works in the research department. Like, he shouldn't—

Al ElliottHe doesn't anymore. He does the post now. He's the mailman.

Leanne ElliottYeah, I mean, it's, it's Oh, the other thing as well is that he has since deleted the post and all the comments.

Al ElliottMm-hmm.

Leanne ElliottSo I think it's just a bit— but I think what's particularly frustrating, and I have encountered professionals like this before, and just anecdotally, all of those professionals have been men.

Al ElliottMm-hmm.

Leanne ElliottAnd all of them have been patronizing. And all of them have denied to look at the research. Like, it's one thing to have an opinion, but to then just refuse to look at the research. Especially when you're in the position you're in. It's just mind-blowing to me. I mean, I will leave a link to the episode. I think it was like 2/8 something when we talked about the glass cliff. I'll leave it in the show notes if you want to go back. But headline, we've studied it for about 20 years. There is a meta-analysis that has found a small but significant effect of the glass cliff. So there is a genuine research base. Yeah. There. But what I really enjoyed about Julia Caron, who has written a book on this, she's come off really quite brilliantly, I think, in the way that she's engaged with this very kind of provocative person. Was that the right word? Provocative? Do you know what I mean? Like poking the bear. Hmm. She has revealed that the day before the story broke, she was made aware the story's gonna break. She contacted McKinsey's global managing partner, a guy called Bob Sternfeld, to explain that she wasn't the person that leaked the exchange to Bloomberg. And she offered to speak to the firm about how it could better practice internally what it spent decades researching externally.

Al ElliottMm-hmm.

Leanne ElliottSo she basically put it, and this was a public post on LinkedIn, I wasn't looking for a firing or public flogging. I genuinely believe there was something useful to be learned from what happened. She said she never received a response.

Al ElliottOh dear.

Leanne ElliottI mean, I'm not all that surprised, but McKinsey, come on.

Al ElliottCome on, McKinsey, especially when you've got Claude and ChatGPT hot on your heels. Um, you know, it's, uh, they, they know. Yeah. A cautionary tale, I think, for white middle-aged men everywhere who think they've, uh, um, who think they know everything.

Leanne ElliottAnd there's nothing wrong with challenging the research, don't get me wrong. That's what we do every week, isn't it, in Truth or Lie? But if you know you can't refuse to look at the research, then still hold that opinion, you know, you just look like a doof.

Al ElliottYou look like a doof. Well, talking of white middle-aged men and refusing the research, we are going to go for a break, and then I am going to ask Leanne about imposter syndrome and probably tell her why she's wrong. So stay tuned for that. See you in a second. Quick announcement for all listeners. Yeah, I've got a, I've got a new toy on my, on my little deck thing so I can make my voice change. Anyway, sorry.

Leanne ElliottI love it. Do it again.

Al ElliottHello, Leanne.

Leanne ElliottDo another one. Hello. But we didn't interrupt your podcast listening for, uh, for this. We actually interrupted it to tell you about one of our new It's called Success Story. It is hosted by Scott D. Clary, and it is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Success Story features question and answer sessions and conversations on sales, marketing, business startups, and entrepreneurship.

Al ElliottOh, and if you like this podcast, then I think you'll love Scott's episode in— back in December, where the infamous Seth Godin talks about imposter syndrome. So go listen to Success Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to Truth or Lie. It's that time of the week where we take a popular workplace idea and ask if the research actually backs it up. Have you ever started a new job or sat in a meeting and thought, any minute now someone's gonna work out I shouldn't be here? If you have, you'll have been told there's a name for it, imposter syndrome, and that most people get it. The figure you usually hear is about 70%. But have you ever questioned where that 70% came from? Lee, I know I've been in lots and lots of rooms where I'm like, yeah, I hope they don't ask me this question because I really don't know the answer. Even though, thanks to MFD, she said I could lie my way out of anything.

Leanne ElliottYou are a very, you're a very, very good liar.

Al ElliottOh, don't say that.

Leanne ElliottBut about— no, no, you panic if it was actually lying about something serious. You can't even do it. But if it's just, if I just asked you like, like, where does cheddar cheese come from? You'll gimme this long spiel of who invented cheddar in a way that I'd absolutely believe you, probably until you told me that you were lying.

Al ElliottIt's true. It's true. Anyway, Leanne, is this a truth or is this a lie? 70% of people experience imposter syndrome.

Leanne ElliottWell, yes, imposter syndrome was coined. Well, that's not quite true actually. Let me start. Let me, let me, Let me roll that back. So the term, 1978, 2 psychologists came up with, Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes, but they didn't call it a syndrome, Al.

Al ElliottRight.

Leanne ElliottThe word, that word's since been using kind of online and in media. What they called it was imposter phenomenon.

Al ElliottOkay.

Leanne ElliottSo they saw it in high-achieving women, successful people who believe that their success was down to luck or a mistake or were afraid of being found out. So most psychologists do have a bit of an issue with it being called imposter syndrome because a syndrome would suggest it comes with a set of symptoms like a disorder, but imposter phenomenon isn't a disorder, psychological disorder. It doesn't appear in the DSM, which is a handbook we use to diagnose mental health conditions. So really, it should be called imposter phenomenon, but that is a slightly different, more difficult word to say, isn't it?

Al ElliottAnd spell.

Leanne ElliottIndeed. Also, because it isn't a diagnosis, it's measured with a self-report questionnaire. So that means that people write statements about themselves. And their answers are taken as given. Nobody questions them. And the most common one, which is the Clance scale from the seminal research, has 20 statements. So basically give you a load of statements. You rate each one from one to five in terms of whether you feel your success has been the result of some kind of error, and then it gives you a score between 20 and 100, and that score puts you in one of four bands. Up to 40 is low on the imposter syndrome scale. 41 to 60 is moderate, 61 to 80 is high, and 81 above is intense. So most studies count you as having imposter phenomenon if you score 61 or more. So the top 2 bands, just to give some context.

Al ElliottOkay.

Leanne ElliottSo in terms of where the 70% of people have it and questioning that, there's 2 parts to it. One, who was asked? Who are these people that 70% are? And how high did they have to score to count as having imposter So, if we start with where it comes from, so back in the mid-1980s, seminal research by Pauline Clance, the psychologist who named the phenomenon, ran a survey with a colleague called Gail Matthews. And according to a 2007 report in the Chronicle of Higher Education, they found around 70% of people, men and women from all sorts of backgrounds, had felt like an imposter for at least part of their career. Now, that survey, the original survey, is now 40 years ago. So, the real question is whether more research backs it up. So one study that certainly does was carried out in 2024. So the researchers gave the Clance questionnaire to 232 neurosurgeons across Europe. 94% of them scored 61 or higher, which I find highly, highly alarming that these people are digging around in people's brains and feel their success is completely down to luck and that one day they'll be found out as a fraud.

Al ElliottYeah.

Leanne ElliottYeah. But of course, a single study can be a one-off, so we have to look at meta-analysis, which, as you know, Al, is when we look at lots of different studies with one question in mind. So in 2025, a team led by Nader Solari did exactly this with 30 studies of people working or training in healthcare. So doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and medical students as well. They gave it a big sample, 11,500 people. Wow. They found that 62% scored above the cutoff in terms of having imposter phenomenon. So, not too far off that 70%. Mm-hmm. A year later, a separate team pulled 34 studies covering about 9,500 medical students. Their figure was lower, 49%, but this was still 1 in 2 students. And let's bear in mind, they were students, they hadn't actually started their their full careers yet. Then we have a 2020 study. A team reviewed 62 studies involving just over 14,000 people, um, and they found that 86% scored moderate or above in terms of having imposter phenomenon. So again, actually higher, but there or thereabouts. Research has also looked, um, beyond healthcare, so to people in work, including managers, teachers, and accountants, found similar results. And it isn't limited to women, as we're often led to believe. So in 2024, a meta-analysis pulled results from about 42,000 people and found that women do score a little higher than men, but the difference is small, so barely significant. The scoring high isn't a trivial thing. So we have had two lots of reviews that have found that people with high scores do also report some pretty serious symptoms in terms of anxiety, high levels of depression. and more rates of burnout and are less satisfied in their jobs. So, when you put all of that together, there is real evidence behind the claim. Somewhere between half and two-thirds of people in these studies felt like an imposter. And once you included those who feel it some of the time as well, so just nudge that, that score down, several studies went beyond 80%.

Al ElliottOkay, so that's pretty conclusive. Are you gonna do that psychologist thing where you go into nuance and then you just weasel your way out of it by saying, oh, it's down to semantic changes or something.

Leanne ElliottThere's only one way to find out.

Al ElliottLet's find out. The case against.

Leanne ElliottSo the case against comes back to the 2 questions we started with. Who was asked? And how did the researchers count a score as high? So if we take the first one, who was asked? The claim is about people in general. This was from the seminal research. But that isn't really what the subsequent studies looking at it to try and validate and verify imposter phenomenon have really found. So, most of the studies have looked at people working in training or in healthcare. Some were medical students. Another review, half the studies were of students, which is very common in psychological research, with an average age of just 20. So, what we have is a picture of young people on demanding courses in high-pressure professions experiencing high levels of imposter phenomenon rather than 70% of people in general.

Al ElliottMm-hmm.

Leanne ElliottThere's also the matter of who chooses to fill in the survey. So, if you're looking for volunteers for a study looking at people who feel like a fraud, and you feel like a fraud, it's more likely to catch your attention. So, that's going to push the numbers up. Yeah. Then when researchers do manage to ask lots of people, so really big samples, The figure drops. So, there was a team that found, um, the bigger the study, the lower the number tended to be. So, one of the largest in their analysis asked more than 3,000 American doctors, and in that case, fewer than 1 in 4 scored as imposters. We compare that to the small sample of neurosurgeons earlier, that's quite a significant difference. That was in the kind of 90% plus. Yeah. There's also, I guess, the obvious thing to point out is that if you did a whole study that didn't find much of a case for imposter phenomenon, would you publish it?

Al ElliottProbably not, no.

Leanne ElliottNo, because nobody wants to read a 20-page boring research report that basically found nothing.

Al ElliottSo,

Leanne Elliottwe're only going to get the things published that have actually found something significant. So, the second question is how high you have to score. So, a study from Korea showed this problem really clearly. So, researchers gave the answer questionnaire to 654 people. When they set the pass mark at 62, which is what the research kind of said should be the bar, about 25% of people counted as imposters. But if you just lowered that by 4 points to 58, that would go up to 40%. Right.

Al ElliottSo,

Leanne Elliottthere's a very big difference, isn't there, between just a few points? And nothing in those lives of the people had changed or their views had changed. It was just moving the benchmark ever so slightly. Which leads me to the last point, which is what a high score means. So, one team of researchers said that these feelings are in all of us to some degree, a little or a lot, but we're asking people about it in a fixed point in time. We're not following them through the point of their career to see how many people are experiencing this for prolonged periods. And critically, what impact it's having on career outcomes and mental health and wellness outcomes. So basically, everyone's a little bit of odds, and that ultimately how we measure this might not be very accurate. Omar's team adds that in some workplaces, well, context is very important. So feeling like you don't belong may be a fair reading for how you were being treated, say, at the time the seminal work came out, referring to women's roles in the 1970s.

Al ElliottYeah, I suppose, to be honest, it also— there's parts of the year where I'm sure everyone's like, oh, I've been, you know, work's shit at the moment. And so then if you ask someone then, do you have imposter syndrome? They might go, yeah, yeah. Because, you know, let's say you bring in a new team who are suddenly like really, really good, or you get AI or something, then you could have it. Yes. So I can totally see that. So generally speaking, 70% of people experience imposter syndrome, imposter fears. Yeah. phenomenon. Is that true or is it a lie?

Leanne ElliottThe thing is, we don't really know yet. We don't really know.

Al ElliottRemember that thing when you said there was a load of research that just used to publish, we don't know?

Leanne ElliottYeah. Yeah. Well, I guess the thing is, if you flip it, if we look at how many people we might consider are the people that never doubt themselves, who blame everything else and everybody else that we describe maybe as narcissistic, what's the rate of that? Yeah, it's probably around maybe 20% of the population. So it makes sense that the rest of people just having normal feelings of being out of their comfort zone would experience imposter phenomenon. But I guess it comes down to what I said before in terms of, we can't really say for sure what the level is, if it's 70%, because we're only asking people in a self-report for a snapshot in time, snap point in time, and at certain points in their career and environment. What we'd have to do really is follow people throughout their career, measure it consistently, have some type of objective criteria to measure it so we're not just relying on self-report, and see actually what the outcomes were in terms of anxiety and burnout to really know for sure what it is. So, I think in the meantime, I would say it's not true and it's not really a lie. It's kind of we don't know. It is an actual thing and we need to be mindful of it. But I think my thought would be to anyone listening who feels like this a lot of the time, Be careful how much power you give to that label. If you sometimes feel that you're winging it, that puts you with most of the people in the world that aren't narcissistic or psychopathic.

Al ElliottMm-hmm.

Leanne ElliottSo that's okay. If you are trying to fight the feeling off, there's lots of things you can do as well to, to try and get over those feelings when they're intense. And one of the big ones is internalising your achievements and journaling on that. So what have you achieved this month, this year? In this job tenure. Believe your own hype, basically, from time to time. You should be fine.

Al ElliottLove that. I love that. I'm a big fan of— because I think it was Bill Gates who said something like, most people massively overestimate what they'll do in 12 months and massively underestimate what they'll do in 5 years. And I think that, yeah, you just need to take a moment, and especially at the end of the day or the end of the week or something, just take 10 minutes, just have a little sort of scroll down and go, Write down and just go, what have I done this week? What am I proud of doing this week? And it's like, you know, I hate to get all like bringing you quotes from different people, but you know that, um, I can't remember his name now, uh, Teddy Roosevelt, um, I think, who said comparison is the thief of joy.

Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.

Al ElliottUm, as soon as you start comparing yourself to other people, um, yeah, you can lose your joy. But then there's the other part is that you do want to compare yourself to other people because you wanna be stretched. So it's complex. It sounds like it's a job for psychologists.

Leanne ElliottYeah, as Danny Wearing would say, is it true? Is it false? It's just not that simple.

Al ElliottIt's just not that simple. We're gonna have to get sound effects for these. Okay, thank you very much. If you've got your own truth or lie that you'd like Leanne to look into, then please get in touch. You can do it anonymously if it's something which you're a little embarrassed about, um, or you can just do it and we'll, we'll shout about you. Um, we'll shout your name over the airwaves. Okay, so it's time for my favorite time of the week. It is time for the world-famous Weekly Workplace Surgery where I put your questions to Leanne. It's only a little bit Leanne, of fun. this week we've had a few people to help you recently, but it's only you. It's only you.

Leanne ElliottI have to pay attention while you're reading these out.

Al ElliottI know. Okay, so this one's about, um, about whether a job's been set up badly or whether this person is failing. They say, I was promoted into management because I was good at my job, but a year later I feel like I'm struggling. I'm accountable for results, but I don't control the budget. I don't control the hiring or the timelines. I get competing priorities from different leaders and escalating problems can make it look like I can't handle the role. I'm starting to wonder whether I'm actually a bad manager or whether I've just been given responsibility without enough authority to succeed. Leigh, what we're talking about here, the difference between a manager who isn't, maybe isn't ready, and a management role that is set up to no matter who it was, they're going to fail.

Leanne ElliottYeah. And both things need to be right for managers to be effective and successful in their roles. I can get criticised sometimes for banging on about how important it is to train managers Because what's the point in doing that when you then put them in an environment where they're not going to be able to manage in the way that they've been trained to? I totally get it. My rebuttal, I guess, is, yeah, but if the majority of people are just trained in how to be great managers, then over time those workplaces will change because they're not being managed by people who don't know how to manage and therefore make toxic environments. Chicken and egg, chicken and egg situation. So, I think to kind of maybe analyse your email a little bit, because obviously I don't know, I don't know enough about you to answer this question. But I think things that I would say red flags: I was promoted into management because I was good at my job. You were good at the individual contributor role, and you were then promoted to manage the people doing that role. They're completely different jobs that require completely different skills and competencies. So, if you haven't received any training in management, and I'm talking anything from, from kind of those more transactional things like how to have difficult conversations, Yeah. to things like listening, empathy, all that good stuff, then you are going to find it more difficult, and that could be why you're struggling. That said, there's a big word in this for me that is, is double red-flagging me, Al.

Al ElliottMm-hmm.

Leanne ElliottIs where it says, um, I get competing priorities from different leaders. This is what psychologists call job conflict, and it's one of the 3 job Role stresses, and it is the most predictive of basically everything rubbish in terms of poor performance, you feeling inferior and insecure, and probably at this point starting to feel a bit— impacting your wellbeing because you don't feel like you're doing a good job. It's the biggest predictor of lots of bad stuff, having role conflict. And competing priorities is one of the— especially from different leaders. is a key feature of role conflict. So, in this situation, I would say it's probably a little bit of both.

Al ElliottRight.

Leanne ElliottMy advice on how you can, you can go about that, you can't necessarily change your environment, but you could try and have conversations with leaders. Who is your line manager? Go to them and say, look, I'm getting different, different requests from different leaders. Obviously, I want to make sure I'm prioritising these in the best way. Can you help me do that? Escalating problems similarly. It's not that you won't— it won't make you look like you can't handle the role. It will look like you're seeking help at times that are important so things don't break down and things get done. There's a difference between looking incompetent and not asking for help at a point that you're then going to become a bottleneck or, or a real problem. So, I think there's conversations you can have with your line manager about this role conflict to try and get some clarity over. Yeah. what your priorities are and what you should be doing in this role. And looking at other ways to develop yourself is also going to be really helpful, whether it be some CPD courses, whether it be listening back to episodes of Truth, Lies and Work when we've covered topics around management skill development, whether it be going on a coaching programme or an official management training course. I think that's going to help as well. So, it needs to be a little bit of both looked at to figure out the situation.

Al ElliottExcellent. Excellent. And I think, like you said there, the key thing, I get competing priorities from different leaders. I don't control the budget, the hiring, or the timelines. And my feeling is if I escalate a problem, it can make it look like I can't handle the role. I think that is, unless it's a really unfair workplace, if you went to your boss and said, look, you want me to do this, just so you know, 6 other people want me to do that. But I don't have a budget. I can't hire more people. Um, and, you know, I don't know when you want it done by. Can you help me to, to, by giving me better and more specific outcomes that you want? And also, please try and do it one at a time, guys. Yeah, don't give me all at the same time. That's not, you can't handle the role. That's, I don't have what I need to be outstanding.

Leanne ElliottYou don't have the resources you need. Absolutely.

Al ElliottAbsolutely. Okay, great. Thank you, Leanne. Question number 2, did I hire a great interviewer, Rather than a great employee. So this person says, I hired someone who was brilliant at the interview. They were confident, they were articulate, and sounded exactly like the experienced person I needed. But once they started, the reality was very different. The quality of their work was poor. They struggled to manage their own responsibilities. Feedback was often met, met with defensiveness. I kept thinking that with more support, clearer expectations, and better coaching, the person I interviewed would eventually show up, but they never did. Looking back, I think I spent far too long trying to make it work. Leigh, is there a way we can tell the difference between someone who's great at interviewing and someone who's great at doing the work?

Leanne ElliottYeah, I think regular listeners are going to go, job analysis. Yeah, probably.

Al ElliottShould we have a guess? Right, so whether you're going to go job analysis, you're going to say something, and I've forgotten what the term is, but tell me about a time when you actually did The exact thing. And then the other one would be, would it be a test role or a test, like you can do a test task or something?

Leanne ElliottCould be, yeah.

Al ElliottRight, let's go on. Go on.

Leanne ElliottYeah, no, exactly. Yeah, job analysis, figure out what it is this role is going to do and what knowledge, skills, and abilities a person needs to be able to do it. Then design some various assessments around how to measure these competencies. It could be a competency-based interview, which, as you just mentioned there, Al, tell me about a time when you've done X, and you look for the behavioural indicators in there, whether it be great listening or communication or negotiation, whatever it is. It could be a work sample test where you send them a small task that's associated with the role and see how they do. It could be psychometric, it could be a whole host of other things. You use mixed methods, so using more than, more than an interview to try and understand if somebody is going to be good in this job in the future. So, yes, you need to start with that. But I think there's a bigger problem here. There is a bias of, of likeness. So, it sounds like you'll probably see yourself as confident, articulate, experienced, and independent as the business founder and entrepreneur that you are. And we really like people who are like us. And when we like somebody, we're more likely to judge their capabilities as much higher than they are. So, we let that bias inform our decisions. We also— people tend to like people who are extroverted. Yeah. More than people who are introverted. They gravitate towards them. So, again, it's understanding this bias, but if you've got a really great selection and assessment process, then it's going to help to eliminate some of this bias. We're never going to eliminate it entirely. Another thing could be to bring somebody else into the interviewing process, even if you just still do the interview, if that's all you've got the resources for. Make it a structured interview, send questions to everybody, get somebody else in to get their view, maybe somebody who's different to you. So, if you are quite extroverted, maybe get an introvert in and see see how they feel. I'm obviously simplifying this very, very much, but just to make the point that the more you can do to eliminate bias, the more likely you are to make a more accurate decision. And then there are just people who would just— what are they called, Al? I can't remember the word at the beginning.

Al ElliottPeople pleasers?

Leanne ElliottNo, the Gen Z word.

Al ElliottOh, LARPers.

Leanne ElliottLARPers. There's just LARPers, isn't there? People who talk the talk and haven't got the goods, but insist that they have, and you believe them. And before you know it, you're in a bit of a pickle with somebody who doesn't know what they're doing at work. It just happens sometimes. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? You're going to try and coach them through it, which is exactly what you tried to do. It's important to know that about 30 to 40% of people aren't really coachable in terms of certain, particularly what we'd call prosocial skills, which are the more kind of, I guess, human skills are being called now in the AI world. Yeah. It's really hard to coach people on that if they don't have some willingness to engage in that activity. So, it could be that you've hired a larper, and you tried your best, and it just didn't work out, and that's just the way it goes. So, I'd say invest a bit more in your recruitment process, maybe bring in an expert to help you do that, to try and look out for your own biases, and do what you can to mitigate them. Yeah. And hopefully, you know, don't hire a larper.

Al ElliottDon't hire a larper. There you go. I think also, yeah, just be a little bit kinder to yourself if you've— because it doesn't say how many people you've actually interviewed and how many people you've recruited. If you've only recruited 4 or 5 people and this is the 6th, for example, and this is the only person, you know, don't beat yourself up too much. That's— these things happen. Okay, right. Question number 3 that I'm slightly concerned that Leanne is going So this person has got £100 a month wellbeing allowance. What do I spend it on? So it says, my employer has recently introduced £100 a month wellbeing allowance alongside our new pay offer. I'm not really sure what to spend mine on. I get paid very fairly, so this isn't being used instead of salary. They genuinely want us to spend the money on ourselves and improve our wellbeing. They don't want it just to disappear into our account and get spent on bills. So what do you think? I'm 33. I don't really have any hobbies, and the only things I can think of are maybe a massage each month or a chiropractor or something like that. Lee!

Leanne ElliottThey're after some inspo.

Al ElliottThey're after some inspo. And also, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on, is this actually a decent thing that the employer has done, or is it more of a papering over the cracks?

Leanne ElliottI dunno. I mean, they said they're being paid fairly, so clearly this is a is a benefit that isn't trying to, you know, plug a, a low salary hole. I guess they haven't said anything about the organization, whether it's high stress or high pressure or high workloads, anything like that. So we'll just have to assume that things are pretty, pretty good. And I'm not mad about employees bringing in a kind of pound amount or dollar amount a month wellbeing allowance for people to use as they wish. I think, and I've seen, I've worked with clients who've done this more with development budgets And then they're like, oh, but nobody's using their development budgets. It's kind of like you've almost left it too open. Right. That people are now going, well, what do I do with it? They almost need that mentorship through in terms of what could be an effective way of using that development budget, or what could be a good way of using that wellbeing allowance. So, I think sometimes putting in some examples could be really useful. So, in terms of wellbeing, there's 4 areas of wellbeing. There's psychological wellbeing, which tends to be the one that we focus on. There's emotional wellbeing, things like relationships. and how we see ourselves in our community. There is physical wellbeing, so that'll be things like your massage and your chiropractor. And there is financial wellbeing. So I'm— I wouldn't be mad if you're struggling to pay your bills at the minute, or you get, you know, because electricity is so expensive. If that £100 a month goes on electricity and you don't have to worry about how that's going to get paid now, cool, you've just looked after your financial wellbeing. Lovely. It could be that actually You know, you're experiencing something that either stress at work, or you've just always wanted to maybe talk to somebody about how you grew up, or how you see the world you see it, and you want some coaching or some therapy, then that could fall into psychological wellbeing. It could be that you invest it more in social, which could include career development coaching, or looking at that. Mm-hmm. That is going to contribute to your wellbeing and sense of meaning and purpose as well, which is Which is lovely. Or it could be physical where you look at getting your massages or your, your back clicked or things scanned and poked. Um, it's all fine. It's whatever you wanna, whatever you wanna do with it. But I think we can sometimes be a bit narrow in our, in our kind of thinking of what, or understanding of what can support wellbeing. One of my favourite ones, which, remember the company? I can't remember what they were called, who they gave an allowance for cleaners.

Al ElliottYeah. Yes. Yes.

Leanne ElliottSo they didn't— they got that time back in the evening. Lovely. That's a, that's a great example of psychological wellbeing support, getting that time back to feel less overwhelmed and then engage in the social wellbeing activities you want to with friends and family and the like. So I think it's really being open to what these things could be. So yeah, I'd have a little think, maybe have a little think of those 4 areas. Where would you feel the most kind of low at the minute? Is it financial? Is it psychological? Is it social? Is it physical? And invest in that. And I think if everything's feeling pretty even, I just rotate, you know, invest that £100 a month into a different area of wellbeing each month. And if that includes paying some bills, that's, that's cool. And you can explain to your employer that, well, that financial obligation was stressing me out. I've now paid it off and it's not. So my financial wellbeing is better for it. Thank you very much.

Al ElliottNice, nice. And I think also Think like what you said there about cleaners. Think about, maybe think about the thing that you just really don't want to do each week or each month. And maybe it's like, I don't know, cleaning the car or cooking or whatever.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Al ElliottYeah. Maybe that can go towards someone to do that.

Leanne ElliottYeah. HelloFresh subscription. Other meal prep plans are available.

Al ElliottAlthough you bet you couldn't name another one.

Leanne ElliottNo. No.

Al ElliottCategory King.

Leanne ElliottThe only thing I'd say is don't, don't maybe don't try and spend it on stuff.

Al ElliottYeah.

Leanne ElliottSo if you're like, oh, you know, a new watch would make me happy, that will improve my wellbeing, it probably won't actually. Like, stuff doesn't do much, but experiences do. So it might be that you go and take your niece and nephews to go and play crazy golf at the weekend, or it might be that you go and take your, your partner on a cheeky weekend break or something like that. Although good luck doing that on £100 these days. But you know what I mean? Not stuff, experiences or things that are gonna support you.

Al ElliottNicely put. Nicely put. Brilliant. Okay. If you've got your own question for Leanne, then please check out the show notes. There's a way to get in touch. We have got, we have got a great person coming up this Thursday. His name is Noel, and that's all I'm gonna say. If you want, if you've got any questions about AI, whether it's You're thinking about

Leanne Elliottreplacing your team with

Al ElliottAI. Then you have to, have to, have to, have to join us this Thursday where we talk to Jitnol about everything. Now he's automated an awful lot of stuff and you think, oh, does that mean that you just got rid of your people? Not at all. He's now actually taken on more people. He loves creating jobs and he just takes away all the crap. Like we just talked about all the stuff you don't really wanna do, like, Like, you know, sending emails, go fill out that spreadsheet, go and do that dashboard. That's what he uses. And also, you're gonna see me and him having a proper bromance 'cause we start talking about Hermes agents and oh my God, I'm getting emotional thinking about it. I love my Hermes. Anyway, right. Anything else to add, Leanne, before we let these people go?

Leanne ElliottJust the usual. Head over to LinkedIn if you wanna continue to join in the conversation. We are posting loads of clips now on our Truth, Lies and Work LinkedIn company page.

Al ElliottWe are.

Leanne ElliottWe are. So go and have a look at those. You get to see— if you're not watching us on the, uh, on the socials, then you're not getting to see the faces of us or of our lovely guests, where you can go and do that over on LinkedIn. Uh, subscribe, like, join— well, I don't know what—

Al ElliottFollow.

Leanne ElliottFollow.

Al ElliottSend money.

Leanne ElliottNo, don't send money. We don't need your money. That's what we've got HubSpot for.

Al ElliottRight, okay, we'll see you all soon. Bye!

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