Beating the Impostor Syndrome

Mount, Tardanico

• Publisher: Center for Creative Leadership Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781604915297
• eBook ISBN: 9781604916638
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

The Impostor Syndrome is a well-researched, well-documented phenomenon that occurs when successful and intelligent professionals feel they do not deserve their accomplishments and that they have faked their way to success. This syndrome can cause negative stress, fear, anxiety, loss of confidence, and can eventually lead to derailment. However, by overcoming inaccurate beliefs about yourself and your abilities, you can overcome the Impostor Syndrome and enjoy a more fulfilling career.

Overcoming the Impostor Syndrome

Flawed beliefs about success, failure, and self-worth lie at the root of the Impostor Syndrome. To overcome this debilitating mode of thinking, you need to become aware of inaccurate beliefs that you hold and realign what you believe about yourself and what you experience, observe, and do. These four steps can help:

• focus on facts

• challenge your limiting beliefs

• get clear on your strengths

• talk about it

Let’s look more closely at these actions by using a successful CEO with an enviable track record as an example. We will call him Steve.

Steve’s peers, employees, and customers see him as a smart, intuitive person and respect his views and his actions. Born and raised in Brooklyn by parents of very little means, he was determined to make a better life for himself. Steve attended a local college, obtained a job, rose through the ranks at two public companies, and then started his own company. Five years later, a major financial services company acquired his company, and Steve worked his way up to become CEO of the entire enterprise.

During his stint as CEO, Steve began working with an executive coach. It quickly became evident in their work together that not only was Steve unable to acknowledge his leadership strengths, but he also believed he needed to change who he was to deserve his position. Steve’s feelings of inadequacy stemmed, in part, from his belief that financial means and a pedigreed education equated to intelligent, effective leaders.

He diminished every career success he’d had, saying he was just lucky and that he had people who helped him along the way.

He also believed his Brooklyn accent and distinctive style of communicating was not CEO-like, despite feedback from colleagues and other stakeholders that they loved his refreshingly direct and honest style. In order for Steve to overcome his feelings of inadequacy, his executive coach directed Steve to assess his own skills and performance through a new lens by taking four steps.

Step 1

Focus on Facts

Dumb Luck

People who suffer from the Impostor Syndrome often pass off their successes to “dumb luck.” Smart people put themselves in a position to get lucky. And once the “lucky break” takes place, the diligent, resourceful, strategic person capitalizes on it.

Steve’s track record of success (double-digit growth during a recession, high employee engagement, and impressive financial returns) belies his internal limiting beliefs. He sees the world around him through a distorted lens. If asked to explain how he achieved such impressive success, Steve’s stock response is “I’m lucky, and I work harder than everyone else.” Luck and doing whatever it takes may play a part in his success, but Steve needed to see that all of his success can’t be tied to those factors alone. Therefore, the executive coach had Steve conduct a personal success inventory to make the facts about his career visible so that he could focus on them.

Using the Personal Success Inventory worksheet, Steve listed dozens of his major successes and identified the core skills he drew on to achieve them. Steve pressed himself to honestly assess how much of each success was attributable to luck versus specific skills, strategies, and execution. His reflection and analysis showed him that the stories he was telling himself and others about his successes were more myth than reality. Like St...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Contents
• Are You an Impostor?
• Overcoming Impostor Syndrome
• Parting Thoughts