Ep10: What is Imposter Syndrome REALLY?

We answer the following:

• What is imposter syndrome?
• Why do psychologists call it something different?
• Is it all made up?
• What are the facts?
• Are there any upsides to imposter syndrome?
• What should leaders do if they experience imposter syndrome?
• What should leaders do if someone in their team experiences imposter syndrome?

Resources

All the links mentioned in the show.

Interesting reads:

• https://hbr.org/2022/10/4-ways-to-combat-imposter-syndrome-on-your-team 
• https://hbr.org/2021/02/stop-telling-women-they-have-imposter-syndrome 
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinecastrillon/2022/06/05/why-imposter-syndrome-isnt-all-that-bad/?sh=182b0c142fa8 
• https://hbr.org/2022/05/impostor-syndrome-has-its-advantages 
• https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2013/11/fraud 

List of thinking errors:

• https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-mentally-strong-people-dont-do/201501/10-thinking-errors-will-crush-your-mental-strength 

Systematic Review in Full

• https://www.mentalhealthjournal.org/articles/commentary-prevalence-predictors-and-treatment-of-imposter-syndrome-a-systematic-review.html 

Diversity & Inclusion Audits 

• The Real World Group Embracing Diversity Inventory (EDI) – https://realworld-group.com/embracing-diversity-and-inclusion/ 
• https://www.diversematters.co.uk/our-services/diversity-and-inclusion-audit-consultancy 

Connect with your hosts

• Connect with Al on LinkedIn 
• Connect with Leanne on LinkedIn
• Join the discussion about this episode on LinkedIn
• Email: podcast@TruthLiesandWork.com
• Follow us on Instagram @truthlieswork
• Chat with us on Twitter @truthlieswork
• YouTube channel for the podcast @TruthLiesWork
• Check us out on TikTok (LOL!!!) @truthlieswork

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The Transcript

⚠️ NOTE: This is an automated transcript, so it might not always be 100% accurate!

Al Elliott
Hello, and welcome to the Truth, Lies and Workplace culture podcast. So my name is Al.

Leanne Elliott
My name is Leanne.

Al Elliott
And if you’ve been listening or watching for a little while, then you probably know already that Leanne is the expert in people and culture and I am not. So Leanne. Give us your 10 second introduction into how amazing you are.

Leanne Elliott
My name is Leanne, and I’m amazing – three seconds nailed it.

Al Elliott
Well, maybe maybe just expand a little bit on why

Leanne Elliott
Sure, my name is Leanne Elliott. I’m a Business psychologist. And I’ve been working in the world of people and culture for the last 15 years or so. And my job is to basically create work environments in which people can thrive and care as much about the business, as the business owners and leaders do too.

Al Elliott
Cool. And I am not that I’m a business owner, and co-founder of this. And so I will be asking Leanne questions that asked us founders who don’t have the expertise and the 15-20 years experience that Leanne’s got and asking the questions that really matter to us. So today, we’re talking about impostor syndrome. So we have a quiz for you listener. What do the following people have in common? Sheryl Sandberg, Serena Williams, Arianna Huffington, from Huffington Post, I think, Michelle Obama, Albert Einstein, and Howard Schultz, that’s the guy who did Starbucks, I think wasn’t it?

Leanne Elliott
Sure was.

Al Elliott
So shout out. Now, if you’re in the car, shout out the answer. Maybe not because that’s right.

Leanne Elliott
Great hair!

Al Elliott
That’s true. Einstein did have great hair. Okay,

Leanne Elliott
Michelle Obama.

Al Elliott
True. True. Okay, so what is the answer?

Leanne Elliott
The answer is they are all self proclaimed sufferers of impostor syndrome. So today, we’re going to dive deep into this famous condition in inverted commas. You’ll find out. And figure out the truth and lies behind this affliction and what it is and how it can possibly affect up to 82% of the population. Apparently,

Al Elliott
that is a lot of people, a lot of people. So should we start by saying, what is impostor syndrome?

Leanne Elliott
Yes, so bear with me. I’m gonna get my psychology nerd out now. Okay, I’ll stop me if I go too far. So, impostor syndrome, I actually prefer to call it imposter phenomenon. And it was first described by a couple of psychologists called Pauline Rose Clans and Suzanne Imes is back in 1978. And they basically observed that high performing or high achieving individuals, despite all of their successes, fail to internalise these accomplishments. Basically have lots of self doubt, a fear of being exposed as a fraud. And typically, when people are experiencing imposter phenomenon, they struggle to attribute their performance to themselves. They’ll either say, oh, it was luckk, or I had a massive amount of help here. So yeah, self doubt, I think, is the kind of the central theme of it. But more than that, people who do have imposter phenomenon are experiencing it, and do have a setback in life, that we all do. They’ll attribute that as proof that they are in fact an imposter.

Al Elliott
So how do you differentiate impostor syndrome from being very British syndrome? Where we tend not to take it we tend to go Oh, no, it wasn’t me. No, no, it was it was a we’re very lucky that day.

Leanne Elliott
Yeah, I mean, I think the thing with with imposter phenomenon in its purest sense, is such this kind of dissonance between achieving these great things and feeling like you had nothing to do with it causes a lot of stress, and that itself can lead to burnout. So yeah, that’s that’s the difference really, between being modest and actually or being having a self doubt or experiencing imposter phenomenon.

Al Elliott
Makes perfect sense. Okay. So, you call it imposter imposter phenomenon, not impostor syndrome, and positive what phenomenon?

Was there an extra nomenom in there.

Maybe every month watching the Muppets a little bit too much. So tell us what what is it? Why is it called a phenomenon and not a syndrome?

Leanne Elliott
Yeah, so I think the first and simplest answer is it’s not a syndrome. So in terms of kind of a syndrome, which be a collection of symptoms, which are usually associated with a particular disease or disorder, it’s not recognised as that in the DSM V, which is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. I love how psychologists are always with the catchy names.

Al Elliott
They’re very they’re very commercially minded, very dramatic name in their papers.

Leanne Elliott
Yes, but this is basically the the handbook that professionals will use all over the world to diagnose a whole variety of mental disorders. And imposter syndrome does not appear in the DSM. Similarly, impostor syndrome can be classed as other things in the psychology world or in mental wellness work. And one of those is a cognitive distortion, or what’s more commonly known as a thinking error, sort of thinking error is when we use inadequate data, or inappropriate data to draw conclusions. And because of that data being inadequate or insufficient means we’re drawing illogical conclusions and that’s what is it? That is not a thinking error is are a type of thing error.

Al Elliott
Did you just have a thinking error then when you said that?

Leanne Elliott
I’m having a whole day thinking errors, honestly. But yes, and in this context, imposter syndrome is known as phoney ism. So this is why exactly what the description I just gave you impostor syndrome is, it’s somebody feeling that, that if they get something wrong, if they fail in one particular task, people are going to generalise that failure to all aspects of their life and or work and call them out as a fraud that they are.

Al Elliott
That makes perfect sense. So it is a phenomenon and not a syndrome. And it is essentially down to when you have this thinking error, where you’re not just being polite and saying, Oh, it wasn’t me it was the team, you actually genuinely in your heart of heart believe that it was external forces that achieved this thing rather than you.

Leanne Elliott
Exactly and when we tie that together with what what we said earlier that people who experience imposter phenomenon are typically high intelligent, high achievers, it’s this, this mismatch this dissonance that causes stress and therefore burnout, and potentially dips in performance as well. The other thing to consider about impostor syndrome is the actual study that first found this phenomenon. And I think that’s really important if you’re considering any kind of intervention when it comes to people and culture and you’re using, quite rightl,y theory to inform your practice, don’t be afraid of scrutinising the theory, not all theories equal, not all theory is as high quality as another, or we have to bear in mind the time and context in which that theory was created. So we take imposter phenomenon, for example, it was found in 1978. And it was done with a sample there was 100% women. Now, let’s think about the world of work for a woman in the 1970s. What comes to mind, Al?

Al Elliott
The last season of Madmen. If anyone’s seen a UK drama called Life on Mars, where it was set in the 70s. Any kind of like drama from the 90s was often set in the 70s in the workplace, which seemed to be a lot of like, ooh smack on the bottom and run along, run around love and don’t get a cup of tea. So that kind of thing.

Leanne Elliott
Get me a coffee sweet cheeks. Yeah, yeah. And sadly, you know that was the case, but if we consider the context, the political context at the time, the Sex Discrimination Act didn’t pass in the UK until the mid 1970s. In the US until about then, as well, the mid 70s. Did you know that women couldn’t apply for credit in their own name without a male co-signer?

Al Elliott
Well, they need to be controlled, Leanne.

Leanne Elliott
That was a thought of the day, Al!

Al Elliott
Joking obviously!

Leanne Elliott
Of course, and then the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in the US. A similar act in the UK, which basically means that women’s jobs are protected while they have babies, and go on maternity, that also didn’t come in until the mid 1970s. So there is an argument and I think quite a valid argument that this phenomenon was observed in a sample of women in the 1970s, who were more than likely in workplaces where their environment contained a lot of bias, a lot of discrimination. So feeling this kind of self doubt, or being being questioned in your role, I think actually just sounds like a fair observation of the environment they were operating in. So actually, it can be argued that is imposter phenomenon, a phenomenon, or was it actually just a result of bias and discrimination that was happening within the workplace, against women in the 1970s.

Al Elliott
So this makes me think, a little bit of I mean, I don’t know much about psychology, but I know what you’ve told me, the Freud where his sample survey was his children sometimes. Myers Briggs, where their sample survey was let’s sit down and make some shit up.

Leanne Elliott
I don’t think they even had a sample!

Al Elliott
Just had a whiteboard and an idea!

Leanne Elliott
A whiteboard and a dream. Oh, my God, they made it come truth, didn’t they?

Al Elliott
They did! But what’s interesting is that our need to kind of label ourselves. Kindof you don’t feel right now when people seem to want to go, Oh, well I am this, I am ADHD, I am bipolar, I’m whatever. This is a very convenient way for us to label ourselves without actually having to delve into our subconscious and all of our, all of our insecurities and sort of examine those in a bit more light.

Leanne Elliott
Yeah, I think you’re right. And I think that were my kind of main area of concern around the huge popularity of people associating themselves as having imposter syndrome is exactly that, that we have to be really careful with the with the words and sympto, or diagnosis we associate with. Yes, it can be empowering, and it can absolutely inform vital coping strategies. But in this case, there is a danger, I think, where what is just natural self doubt, particularly in environments where we are outside of our comfort zone, we are pushing ourselves or working in a field that’s very creative or innovative. There is going to be that element of self doubt, unless you’re a narcissist. That’s a completely normal feeling to have. So I think you’re right. And my theory is, you know about self fulfilling prophecy, if we really internalise this to the point where we start to really believe it, that it is going to inhibit our performance and ultimately lead to burnout.

Al Elliott
So are we saying that actually imposter phenomenon or syndrome, whatever you want to call it doesn’t exist, it’s a lie.

Leanne Elliott
It’s not so much that it’s a lie. And it’s not so much that the truth, there is a whole lot of grey, in any kind of psychological term or workplace or individual phenomena. I think it’s really just making sure phenomena is that the plural?

I like it, I don’t care whether it is or not.

Any term that we’re going to associate ourselves, we should really be taking the time to understand it. And if we boil down imposter phenomenon, even if we accept that initial sample of women, what it really boils down to is that these thinking errors, we internalise them to a point where our behaviours, our thoughts or feelings start to become destructive. So in terms of 82% of people thinking they’re experiencing imposter phenomenon, I’d say probably 80% of those are just humble and nice person that are trying to, you know, not come across as too braggy. Or more relatable. But yeah, in terms of it’s true sense, I think it does exist, but I’m not sure it’s quite as prolific as we’re led to believe.

Al Elliott
So let’s look at the other side of it. So let’s imagine that you aresay, for example, the 70s and you’re an immigrant into Australia, UK, wherever you are, then it is correct, based on what I hear from my parents, it is correct that there was definitely an environment which would make you feel less worthy. I remember you mentioned something something about was it a to Talisa lady, who did some stuff on this?

Leanne Elliott
Yeah. And I think it still is very relevant. You know, we have moved on from the 1970s. But not sufficiently, the gender pay gap is still very real. There’s still massive bias against people of colour, depending on sexuality, on gender identification. It’s yeah, systemic bias and discrimination still exists. And this is a point that Talisa Lavarry, who wrote a book called ‘Confessions from your Token Black Colleague’, and she reflected imposter phenomenon exactly this way, that when you’re faced in an environment with a systemic bias, that lack of self confidence is going to be a fairly normal and expected reaction.

Al Elliott
Okay, so let’s get to some brass facts then. So talk us through the actual science behind the imposter phenomenon, give some some facts.

Leanne Elliott
So as I said before, if you’re gonna base your practice on some kind of psychology theory, dive into the actual study of it, who did it, what the sample was, where it came from, what the political and time environment was. Equally, if you are fortunate enough to be looking at an area of practice that has a lot of research in and you probably should, then there’s going to be things called either a meta analysis, or systematic review. And that’s when researchers will gather all the existing research and papers published to date, and draw conclusions on the findings. And those findings are going to have much higher reliability and validity or they’re going to be a lot more easier to generalise without making a mistake, if those conclusions are drawn from this type of review. So with that in mind, there were some researchers led by Bravata et al. in 2020. So recent research as well – also important! And this was actually the first systematic review of imposters syndrome, their choice of term. And it was actually published in the Journal of Mental Health and Clinical Psychology – if you want to be a super nerd about it, also look at the journal that it’s publilshed, because that’s going to tell you the credibility and quality of the research.

Al Elliott
Good tip!

Leanne Elliott
But what they found, they looked at 62 peer reviewed studies, over 14,000 individuals with impostor syndrome published between 1966 and May 2018. And they made some interesting observations. When you hear impostor syndrome, have you seen anythng, Al, that it’s beem more associated with women?

Al Elliott
Yeah, I guess like anecdotally, I’ve not like seen a study. But yes, I see, quite often, if I see that someone has got a women only group, for example, on Facebook, then it appears that they’ll in the description say they deal with impostor syndrome. So that’s where my thinking is coming from. Not that I think that women have impostor syndrome.

Leanne Elliott
Yeah, and I think you’re right, I think a lot more women may either talk about it, or vocalise it or identify with it, probably a combination of all three. What they actually found in the research was that imposter syndrome affects both men and women equally, the difference was actually that women described more symptoms of imposter syndrome or imposter phenomenon. So they felt that more aspects of their life were were impacted by it. But in terms of people who identify it, men and women identified equally. In terms of the prevalence, we said, you know, right at the top up to 82% of the population can be affected by this, or have experienced this. This is where I always kind of, especially if I see like a data point like that, and the headline or, you know, a bit clickbait, I’m always like, hmm, maybe, let’s see. But what they actually found is that, yes, up to 82%, in some studies do identify with impostor syndrome, but in other studies is as low as 9%. And that’s a fairly large gap 9 to 82%. So is it as prevailant? I guess, it depends on a number of things, how its defined, how its measured, how its profiled, there’s lots of different variants in there. And ultimately, as well, the thing to remember is that if a researcher, if you conduct some research, in impostor syndrome, particularly if you’ve got funding for that research, and you don’t find any evidence of impostor syndrome, it’s quite unlikely you’re going to publish that research. So we’re gonna have this publication bias within the research as well. Another, I guess, preconception of imposter phenomenon is that it tends to affect people who are either younger or in earlier stages of their career. And they actually found that while there was a little bit of a decrease in terms of feelings of imposter syndrome, as people got older, or later in their career, it wasn’t significant. So when we say, if you ever hear anything that says it’s not ‘statistically significant’ in the science world, that means that we’ve done lots of fancy calculations on the data, and it’s as much down to chance that we found that finding. So yeah, so while anecdotally, there seem to be some evidence that [age/career stage] wasn’t found to be significant.

So tell me are there is there a particular type of person who it’s more likely to effect?

Yeah, it’s gonna more than likely effect people who are highly intelligent, and are high achievers,

Al Elliott
I was about to say, I fit 50% of that. Maybe not 50%!

Leanne Elliott
Yeah, I mean, you know, the meta analysis found overwhelmingly, that people who experience impostor phenomenon aggressively pursue achievement – as a one. And then the second one is not be able to except the recognition when the success is achieved. So if we even think about people who aggressively pursue achievements, what was that list Al? Sheryl Sandberg, Michelle Obama, Albert Einstein, these people are operating the forefront of their field, in environments where they might be doing things for the first time. So again, it makes sense that these things are going to be there. The real crux of imposter phenomenon the thing that makes it different from just kind of feeling like you’re operating outside of your comfort zone is that you are unable to accept recognition when success is achieved. That is what makes a kind of a lack of confidence or a bit of self doubt different to imposter phenomenon.

Al Elliott
That’s really interesting cuz I think that I used to externally say oh, it’s not down to me, it was down to my team when something really cool happened in business or whatever, or whatever success I had. But inside I was a bit like, yeah, yeah, it was me. It was me. So that wasn’t imposter phenomenon. That was just Britishness, the British phenomenon.

Leanne Elliott
Yeah, just being a nice person. That’s not you know, that’s not ego. No, yeah, no dick. But ultimately knowing that you need to, of course, you probably weren’t the only person that contributed to that goal. There’s going to be other people that contributed as well. But in terms of who led the charge for that, if that was down to you, then yeah, damn right, it’s your success and you should celebrate it.

Al Elliott
I want to talk about or I want to ask you about the upsides of imposter phenomenon a second, but I’m just thinking, is there an opposite to that? You know, you hear about especially on Reddit and on Tik Tok. Recently, there’s a lot of memes or videos going on around these, where the boss will take all of the credit for the team and not even mention the team, which kind of feels like the opposite of imposter syndrome. Is it? Does that such a such thing exist as a better term?

Leanne Elliott
I think I think it is. It’s narcissism, right? That’s what it really stems to that everything is driven by you as my success there is no, there’s no negative or constructive feedback that can possibly alter my, my very high sense of worth and value and how I see myself and operate in the world. I guess it’s that, I guess it’s similar in the case that people with imposter phenomenon will look at a setback and incorrectly attribute that to backing up their feelings of being a fraud, whereas a narcissist is gonna get a setback and probably attribute that to somebody else.

Al Elliott
I think we all know people like that. So if you do feel or you’ve all you realised, you now have imposter or someone’s listening and realise they now have imposter phenomenon or syndrome, then are there actually any upsides to having that?

Leanne Elliott
I mean, not really being honest, if you’ve got imposter phenomenon in the purest sense, this dissonance this disconnect between between what you think in terms of your role and the achievements and not be able to internalise that success, that is going to lead to a lot of stress, and ultimately burnout. So yeah, so it’s not, it’s not a good path to be on if you are genuinely experiencing imposter phenomenon. That said, we do know, the same research found that people with imposter phenomenon do tend to be better at building relationships, do tend to be better at managing sensitive situations. But I actually put that down to probably more than likely this person is also likely to have high emotional intelligence. And because they’re not ego driven, and they are probably more collaborative, then that is Yeah, building relationships is going to be a part of their strengths, but I’m not sure that’s a big enough priority to just accept I have imposter phenomenon. I’ll just accept it.

Al Elliott
Fair enough. Fair enough. So if you do have asked someone recognise that they’ve got this, then what sort of steps can they take to overcome this or fix this?

Leanne Elliott
Yeah. So I think if you’re a business owner, and you think that imposter phenomenon is something that you’re experiencing, I think the first thing to do, and I actually say this to any leader who’s going through a transition or transformation within their organisation, or just a setback, a hard time, spend some time to reflect. I know that can seem a bit indulgent when you’re a busy leader, and you’ve got lots of different things to do. But even if it’s just 10 to 15 minutes a day, for a week, try and reflect on those thoughts, feelings and behaviours that you’re observing as imposter phenomenon. And ask yourself, is it you? How genuine are these sorts of feelings? Or are they maybe more a lack of confidence or self doubt? Is it your environment or is it fair that you’re experiencing these things because your environment that you’re in is toxic, or there is bias and discrimination? It might be that it’s a combination of both. I think once you’ve started to reflect on those thoughts and feelings, coaching is a really great way to dive deeper into that. Working with a coach as a leader is one of the most important things that you can do to help you reflect, to help you process what is going on in your busy life. And really start to make sense of those thoughts and come up with some more constructive, and productive coping mechanisms. In terms of if you really, genuinely think you have imposter phenomenon. My advice would be to seek out what we call a cognitive behavioural coach. There are lots of different coaches out there and lots that will take very different approaches. So if this is particularly something that you’re suffering with, I would recommend cognitive behavioural coaching. The reason for that is the cognitive behavioural coaching stems from cognitive behavioural therapy. It’s an extension of that to what we call kind of people who are dealing with feelings of distress, in inverted commas, “normally”, it’s not causing any any acute mental health challenges. And what it’s basically going to help you do is explore these thinking errors, which are definitely a part of imposter phenomenon, but may also, ‘phoneyism, for example, which is feeling like a fraud, may be one of many thinking errors that you’re experiencing. And depending on these combination of errors, it might indicate something else that you’re struggling with mentally or cognitively. Or a cognitive coach is going to help you start to undo these ways of thinking, reframe your thinking, and again, start to come up with some some better coping mechanisms. So yeah, that would be my advice for leaders.

Al Elliott
Brilliant. And if you are looking for a coach, then we provide coaching services, we also have a network of coaches who specialise in certain things. So if you are looking for a decent coach and a good referral, then they’ll be some contact details in the show notes. Obviously, all of it is confidential naturally. Now, you talked about this thinking error, which I’ve not, I don’t think I’ve come across that that term before. So what what would you define as? I mean, are the different types of thinking areas or just one thing? What what’s, how does it all work?

Leanne Elliott
Yeah, there are many different types of thinking errors. And I guess what it is, it’s almost like a little spanner in our cognitive works, things aren’t quite being processed in the way that they should be, as I said, it’s coming to those conclusions based on inadequate or inappropriate data. And there’s many different types of thinking errors. One is like an all or nothing thinking. So things are very black and white. You know, there are good people, there are bad people, a project of either going to be a success or a failure, people will describe things as being awesome or terrible. There’s no kind of middle ground, it’s very extremist and that way of thinking, that’s a very common thinking error. I think another one that you’ll probably be familiar with, is mind reading. So basically, when you know, you’re never sure what somebody else is thinking, but you will, you will draw these conclusions based on your experience of it, and typically quite extreme conclusions. So for example, if you say something in a meeting and doesn’t quite get the response that you anticipated, you might walk out and go, they must have thought I’m an absolute idiot. How stupid am I? Did you see his face? He thought I was a loser. And that would be an example of mind reading.

Al Elliott
So we’ve started with to the first two all or nothing thinking and mind reading, I can definitely I can’t, I can’t. I can’t relate to the first one all or nothing thinking because I’ve really worked hard not to train myself not to think like that. But certainly mind reading. That’s so difficult not to think that, that you get off a call and you’re almost always like, oh god, did I make a fool of myself? Are they laughing at me? Or that kind of stuff? Are there any other types of thinking error that you think we might sort of accidentally start thinking? Doing?

Leanne Elliott
Yeah, and I think the thing is, you know, we all experience these thinking errors. It’s not to say that, that we have some cognitive dysfunction happening if we catch ourselves in this thinking error. And you made a really great point in there Al that you do have to train your mind and that’s exactly what cognitive behavioural coaching will do will help you retrain your mind to think differently. But I think another one that comes up quite a lot is catastrophizing. So basically kind of catastrophe, I guess it’s in the name. So say, for example, I have a monthly budget for savings. And I not only missed that, but I also massively overspent, then I’m going to start freaking out because I’m going to be bankrupt by the end of the year. What other possible conclusion is there other than I’m gonna be bankrupt by the end of the year. That’s an example of catastrophizing.

Al Elliott
Yeah. I, when I was, I was bankrupt back in 2005, 2007, actually, I think was was the date I went bankrupt. And so I was thinking, Oh, my God, I can’t pay my bills, etc, etc. And then I picked up a few books, I think, Mark Victor Hansen, a couple of others, Jack Canfield worked through those, and they weren’t really good at kind of like through the pages, teaching me things like I shouldn’t say ‘I can’t afford it’. Because that is automatically put in the back of my head. I haven’t got money. There’s other things like people, oh, they’re filthy rich, you know, and that’s just, I know that’s not catastrophizing, but that’s sort of going I’m associating that someone who’s got money is filthy, and therefore I don’t want anything to do with it. So I think there’s all kinds of things like this. And maybe an other one is like the people who, who overgeneralize who say things like all, like, I hear the perfect one, Oh all staff who worked from home or on Facebook. I know someone who says who says that quite a lot. Well, no one can work from home because they’ll just all be on Facebook, won’t they? I mean, this is just, as you say, it’s a thinking error, but also it’s kind of it’s gonna have a massive ramification on the way that you act if that becomes your belief because you’re saying it even if you’re saying it’s starting off saying in a flippant way?

Leanne Elliott
Yeah, completely, and I think that is the danger, isn’t it that and I think this is where kind of the, bring it back to the imposter phenomenon it can, it can become this flippin term that’s thrown around. Whereas actually, and I think in itself then kind of takes away from people that are either experiencing discrimination and bias in their workplace, or people who are genuinely authentically struggling with imposter phenomenon. So I think we need to, I guess it’s a lot of people, you know, saying oh, I’m depressed. It’s like, you might be a bit down, we’re not talking clinical level depression. I think this is the main thing. But yeah, I mean, if you, if you think you’re experiencing these thinking errors, my advice would be just to keep a little, a little journal, a little notebook. And if you catch yourself in a thinking error, just jot it down, and maybe make a couple of notes in terms of the time of day it was if you just come up with stressful meeting, if little Billy, the little kids are driving you crazy, because often environmental factors are gonna influence the severity and frequency of thinking errors.

Al Elliott
Brilliant. So do you think we’re ready to talk about if someone notices imposter syndrome on a member of their team?

Leanne Elliott
Yes. And I think I know that I’ve kind of made a point. Is it really imposter phenomenon? Is it something else? But I say that to you as a business leader? I don’t say this to an employee. If an employee came to me saying that they felt that they were experiencing impostor syndrome or imposter phenomenon, I would take that at face value. And I would accept that, that is the vocabulary that they’re comfortable to use to describe how they’re currently thinking and feeling about work. I think there’s a few different interventions you can take as a leader if you’re experiencing this in your team or getting this feedback. I think the first one is to look at some kind of psychometric and specifically a 360 psychometric. So we talked a lot about this on a previous episode. Myers Briggs, Brilliant or Bullshit. Good one! We talked a lot about psychometrics and how to scrutinise the quality of them so I won’t go into too much detail. But if we just take an example, Clifton Strengths, so a lot of my clients will talk about doing strengths, some kind of strengths profiling within their team, if they’re experiencing imposter phenomenon, or or think they are. Because sure, you know, if we do a psychometric that’s gonna call out our strengths, then that’s gonna give us confidence in what we’re good at. The difficulty is with a lot of strengths profiles is they’re self report. So self report is when I answer questions about myself based on my perceptions of my strengths. And the tricky thing with that is thay one, people aren’t always necessarily very accurate at identifying their own strengths. And two, if I am genuinely experiencing impostor phenomenon, I’m probably not going to be in a space where I can really talk about my strengths, comfortably. And honestly. So to flip that a 360 is going to assess a person’s strengths from multiple viewpoints. So yes, I will answer questions about my perception of my strengths. I will also ask my line manager to complete the same questions, I’ll ask my colleagues, my peer, to complete those questions, I might ask a customer, or one of my direct reports. And then we bring all of those, all that data together, will have a much fuller picture of not only what I believe my strengths are, but what the people around me in my work environment think. And 99% of the time, there is always a gap between what people think they’re good at what they’re actually good at, what they think they’re rubbish at what actually their peers and colleagues thinks they’re brilliant at, and I think this kind of honest data and fuller picture is going to enable much more easily the conversations that’s going to steer somebody through feelings of imposter phenomenon. And ultimately, you know, if you do have that data, again, the ethical and right thing to do to have the most impact is to make sure that that person has access to coaching, whether it be just a follow up feedback session to help digest the results, or ideally at least kind of three to five sessions to put in place some some great coping mechanisms.

Al Elliott
I love it. I love it. And I think a coach, having a coach these days it just seems a lot more you know, okay than it was maybe 10-15 years ago. So I think it’s brilliant because you talked to a lot of people who’ve got coaches and and coaches have got coaches and you know, when you get into the probably the very successful people have got coaches, several different coaches who do several different things. So I really like now that coaching is a totally acceptable thing to do. So is there anything else that you think that you could do to help someone on your team who’s feeling this? This imposter syndrome?

Leanne Elliott
I think there are a couple of things. I think the thing was doing a 360 and then follow up coaching it it’s expensive intervention. I’ve imagined you will be lucky get lucky. least probably kind of 6-00 to 1000 pounds per employee to kind of go through that, that kind of tool and then have kind of three to four coaching sessions as follow up. So it is an expensive solution. You can run a similar or more informal 360 yourself, you know, by asking people to write down their strengths. And I think you actually have done this exercise Al, where you then ask other people to email you what they believe your strengths are. Yeah, yeah, so you can do it much more much more informally. I think it’s important to understand kind of the, the environment you’re operating in, and kind of how relationships are between your team at the moment, because if you are just asking for kind of a, a blanket, no guidance view of that kind of feedback, then it might open a can of worms that you can’t get the lid back on. Whereas using a structured psychometric is going to have standardised questions that will guide ultimately a much more positive and constructive outcome. So yeah, it’s something you can do. But with a warning, only do it if you’re really confident how your team operating at the moment. I think the final thing is actually really ask yourself as a leader, is it me? Am I creating an environment where there might be bias, there might be bullying, there might be discrimination, where these feelings of impostor syndrome are actually just feelings of a lack of confidence and self doubt based on the environment that somebody is currently operating in? That’s a really hard question to answer yourself, things that you could do something like an engagement survey, or a wellbeing survey is going to identify any pockets of toxicity or discrimination that could be a source of this. Or if you think it is, perhaps, or maybe more confident that there is an issue with discrimination or bias in your workplace. conducting some kind of diversity and inclusion audit is a really great way to go.

Al Elliott
Fantastic. So any closing thoughts for someone who’s listened to this this far? And things? Yep, I’ve either got it, I feel like I might have it myself, or I know one or two people on my team who’ve got any other thoughts.

Leanne Elliott
My final thoughts is that it is something that can be managed, it can be dealt with, but something that if it isn’t like anything in the workplace, if we pretend it doesn’t, it isn’t there, it’s gonna get bigger and bigger, and ultimately start to impact, wellbeing, performance. And all the things you don’t want it to affect. So I’d say nip it in the bud, take it seriously. And yeah, get some support.

Al Elliott
Brilliant. I’m pretty sure you’ve put together a few resources that people can, that we can link to down below in the show notes. I think Did you say you’re also linking to Dr. Audrey Tang’s book?

Leanne Elliott
Yes, there’s a good book from Dr. Audrey Tang, The Leader’s Guide to Resilience, there are a few exercises in there that touch on imposter phenomenon. But it really is more about building your own self confidence and belief and resilience as a leader. So yeah, we’ll do that. And then yeah, we’ll put some other links in there, either to 360s. But to be honest, any good big credible test publisheer is going to have that Real World Group for example, Hogan has a really good 360. But we will link them, link them below along with some articles that we’ve come across that just talk a bit about imposter syndrome, imposter phenomenon. The Do’s, Don’ts, ups and downs, truth and lies.

Al Elliott
Brilliant. Okay, so I think we’ll call that a day for today. As ever, if you’ve got a question about wellbeing, engagement, anything we’ve talked about today and you want to talk to an expert in this, then you need to email us just email Leanne@oblong hq.com And one of us will set up an appointment for you and you can chat for 15 minutes or you can set up a proper hour or so in a session that we can organise some kind of payment. Anything else you want to add before we call it a day?

Leanne Elliott
No, I think we’re good!

Al Elliott
Brilliant. All right. We’ll talk to you soon. See you next week. Bye Bye.