Imposter Syndrome

This really ought to be called the Imposter Experience, but it has become known as Syndrome in popular descriptions.

Research has shown that it has nothing to do with a specific personality trait or type nor is it a mental health condition. Rather it is a response that people experience to a situation that prompts a response from them. These responses are typically “I am a fraud and I will be found out” or “I am not that intelligent or competent”, or “it’s just luck that I got that job/promotion/success”. So it is understandable that Imposter Experience rears its head more often than not when we are pushed out of our comfort zone, hence the negative thoughts, feelings and fear.

There are some who would say that this has become yet another trend of recent times to describe another psychological phenomenon. However Imposter Syndrome or experience has its roots in the 1970’s from the research of clinical psychologists Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes. Whilst in the early days of recognising the Imposter issue it was suggested that women experienced it more than men, more recent research has shown that both genders experience it almost equally. And I as a coach would endorse this; it is something that I have encountered with both male and female clients.

Interestingly some people who we associate with significant success such as Cheryl Sandberg, Tom Hanks, Maya Angelou and Tommy Cooper have all reported that they have experienced it. Indeed research has further shown that almost 75% of us will encounter it at some point in our lives.
The kinds of behaviours that have been associated with this are people:

• Who are hardworking or diligent
• Who have a tendency to respond to superiors in the affirmative
• Who uses charm to gain approval and navigate their way through life
• Who avoid conflict

The kind of feelings and outcomes are:

• Stress
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Low self-confidence
• Self-doubt
• Lack of personal esteem

Following research, Valerie Young in her book “the secret thoughts of successful women”, identified 5 competency types:

• The Perfectionist
  • Sets high goals that cannot always be achieved and have a tendency to micromanage. Personal success is hard to embrace with a sense that they “could do better”. In fact nothing is ever as good as they want to be and they experience a fear of failure and a need to do whatever they need to do to avoid it.
• The Super Woman/Man
  • These people are workaholics, always in first and last to leave. They push themselves to work harder and harder with the outcome that they are likely to experience stress, exhaustion and burnout and so are self-sabotaging. In addition this behaviour can create a sense in their subordinates that they too have to adhere to this way of working in order to be considered competent.
• The Natural Genius
  • These people are very bright indeed, probably very academic with a string of qualifications which they achieved quite effortlessly. They consider that if something does not come easily then they must be bad at it. If they don’t get something right first time then their self-confidence will take a hit and they will feel that they have fallen of a cliff. There is usually a lack of a sense of reality.
• The Rugged Individualist
  • This person considers that they are entirely self-sufficient, they don’t need help or support from anyone and feel that if they do ask for help that somehow  means that they are not competent. They tend to ignore their own needs focusing instead in the task or project at hand. This lack of collaboration can be restricting in terms of moving forward and this lack of a sense of progression can further endorse the need that they have to make it on their own.
• The Expert
  • This person feels that they need to know all the answers and that to say they don’t know or have the answer will reduce their status or reputation, however not doing so is to deny themselves the opportunity to find out and so grow. They have a fear that having set themselves up to be an expert that it will only be a matter of time before someone finds out that they are in fact a fraud or a phoney.

So where does coaching fit with this?

A good coach will already have identified how your Imposter Experience is playing out in your life. They will work with you to identify what it is that is shaking your self-confidence; they might have observed an approach or attitude or heard you say:

• I don’t deserve this job because I can’t do all of it
• I can’t go for that opportunity/promotion/new role
• I can’t make a success of this because I can’t get everything right
• I can’t ask for help because they will think I don’t know what I am doing
• I’m not going to be able to hold my own in that meeting with all those senior people

A coaching Client should be able to talk to their coach about how they are feeling; they should be able to able to talk through this with you and prompt you for evidence of the points above. They will let you know if they have a sense, from what you have said, whether your fears are relevant, justified or irrational. Either way it’s a good place to start work!

When coaching with Clients who are experiencing Imposter Syndrome I get them to consider their accomplishments to date. I call this the “on the hill” process. Instead of looking up the mountain they have to climb, I ask them to consider what they have achieved and their successes. I often get them to pace from a start at point A and then pace forward as they recount them. This physical movement has a number of effects; it stimulates thinking and creates a sense of forward momentum. They then turn around and see how far they have travelled. It is always amazing to watch Clients have that light bulb moment when they see that actually there is a huge amount of evidence that bashes away at the Imposter feelings.

It is also helpful for Clients to be reminded that someone competent and able to make an informed decision about them has believed the Client has what it takes and that they consider that they are deserving of where they are.

When looking at the issue that they might be struggling with it is worth reviewing the resources that they have available to them, where they might invest further in these resources and this might be people, processes or hard tools. Looking at what they can do with these resources can help them to use these in support of countering the Imposter feelings.
As a Coach I will also ask the Client to consider what is the worst thing that can happen if they do/don’t/refrain from doing something. Often it is the fear of the fear and not the reality that is at issue. I strongly believe that it is often the fear of the fear that is holding them back and restricting their movement forward.

I also work with Clients (through exquisite listening) to get them to reflect on the language that they use about themselves. Do they discount their successes, playing down things rather than accepting that they have achieved that success? Sometimes just reframing their language, not only about themselves but about others and circumstances too, can make a huge difference to how they feel about themselves.  It’s a learning process and has to be worked on but it is amazing what a difference all of these points can make.

In response to the number of times that I came across Imposter I developed a model that demonstrates the cyclical link to events and responses (which has its roots in Transactional Analysis) but which my Clients have found very useful. The steps they take are:

• Mapping out the events, issues or words that trigger the Imposter response which is usually either a physical or emotional response, but often both
• Noticing the impact that they have and how they feed into their response 
• Learning how to recognise their usual response and whether this reinforces the learned response so exacerbating the situation feeding into lack of self confidence and Imposter feelings

Often times being aware, taking time to connect with what is happening, recognising the trigger, noting the physical and emotional response and then noticing what our minds tell us to do is the first steps in managing the Imposter process.  What our minds tell us to do is known as the learned script, we all have this and it is put in place by our learning from exposure to “the bigger people” in our lives as children. This recognition and changes to the script provides time for them to provide a different response.

So it follows that the only thing that is under their control is their response to the events and that by altering the inner script they can make the start to changing the response. It needs practice, and when we are stressed or tired we do tend to revert to behaviour but the ongoing practice can be very powerful. 

A copy of my Event Response Cycle can be requested from the Getting in Touch page.

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