Impostor syndrome has less power over you than you think

A lot of leaders who come to me for coaching are struggling with impostor syndrome, especially if they’ve just stepped up to a new leadership role.

Common themes are feelings of anxiousness or panic, and a noisy inner critic saying things like, “You don’t deserve to be here!”, “Who do you think you are?”, “What if you fail?”.

Impostor syndrome has a habit of striking when we’re feeling newly exposed and vulnerable.

Like Leon*, just promoted to senior director. He already had several years as a director under his belt, but the step up was pressing all his buttons now that he was answerable to the CEO as well as the board. He felt overwhelmed and out of his depth.

Or Sian*, a Head of Marketing who thought she was pretty confident. But when she moved companies, her confidence took a nosedive. Nothing was familiar – the culture, the people, ways of working. Normally quite vocal, she’d keep quiet in leadership meetings, petrified of saying something wrong in front of authority figures.

These leaders are often desperately trying to keep on top of everything in the belief that they need to prove themselves, to justify the decision to promote them. Val*, a new sales director, didn’t feel she could push back in case people didn’t think she could handle the job, whilst scrabbling to get on top of areas of the job she wasn’t familiar with.

Sound familiar?

We’re perfectly designed to lack confidence.

We wouldn’t be here today if our nervous system hadn’t evolved to be on the alert for danger and learned how to keep us safe. The reason we’re here to tell the tale is that we’ve learned to eat lunch, not be lunch.

But even though we’re not facing life and death situations anymore, our brain can’t distinguish between the possibility of a hungry tiger showing up and the risk of saying or doing the wrong thing at work.

To quote Dr Alan Watkins, “We have 200k software and we’ve never had an upgrade.”

The consequence can be constant worry and self-doubt, our mind racing as we scan the environment for threats – think possible tiger in the bushes – and a full-on fight flight response when the equivalent of a tiger shows up. Like when we’re presenting to the board.

New situations are our kryptonite

When it comes to impostor syndrome, there’s something else going on here too.

Our brain predicts what’s going to happen based on our past experience. When we’re faced with new situations that it thinks could be threatening, it doesn’t have a template to work with so it activates our fight or flight response.

Chuck in all the things associated with a new leadership role or a bigger challenge – new stakeholders, new responsibilities, new environment – and it’s like kryptonite for our brain.

Are you feeling like an impostor or thinking like one?

In my recent workshop, I ran a poll to ask people what brought them to the workshop – a new leadership role, a bigger challenge, or whether they feel like an impostor a lot of the time.

It was a surprise to see that 37% of participants felt like an impostor a lot of the time, compared to 38% stepping up to a new role and 37% facing a bigger challenge.

The thing is, learning to eat lunch not be lunch means we’ve got an ingrained negativity bias. Research says that around 80% of our thoughts are negative – and, would you believe it, 95% are on repeat! It’s like a broken record player in our head.

The more we think negative thoughts, the more we generate them. It’s like turning your neural pathways from a donkey track into a motorway.

And when we think negative thoughts, we perpetuate negative feelings.

If you’re feeling like an impostor all the time, it’s likely you’re *thinking* like an impostor which is setting off a spiral of physiological events like your heart racing, your breath becoming shallow and your mind shutting down.

There’s nothing wrong with you

Whilst impostor syndrome is a term coined by psychologists in the 1970s, it’s not a psychological disorder. It’s just a shortcut to describe thoughts and feelings of inadequacy, especially ones like “I don’t belong here”, “I don’t deserve a seat at the table.”

It can feel all-encompassing, something you can’t do anything about – examples from workshop participants included “a big weight on my chest” and “a shadow following me around”.

But it’s really just a manifestation of what we’re thinking and feeling – what’s going on in our mind and nervous system in response to perceived danger. Because we’re outside our comfort zone.

When we break down what’s going on, we have the power to think and feel differently so we can stop impostor feelings holding us back.

Try this

When I’m working with my coaching clients, I ask them to get specific about times when impostor syndrome feels particularly intense. Then I can help them shift unhelpful ways of thinking and feelings so they can move forward.

If you’d like to try this, think about a situation where impostor feelings were particularly intense, perhaps presenting at a leadership meeting or being put on the spot.

• What did you do, or not do? For example, did you keep quiet, talk really fast, or freeze?
• What were the sensations in your body? Did you feel hot? Tense? Where was your breath?
• What was the thought – or thoughts – in your head? Were they unhelpful or helpful?
• Reflecting on this, what can you shift in your body to help you feel calmer? Our breath is usually a good starting point.
• What would be a more empowering and supportive thought? A great one suggested by a workshop participant was, “I’m here for a reason.” Or it might be, “I can handle anything that comes my way.”

As sports psychologist Rob Gilbert says, “It’s alright to have butterflies in your stomach. Just get them to fly in formation”.

*Leon, Sian and Val aren’t these leaders’ real names, and the details of their situations have been altered slightly for confidentiality.