People are the key to your business success, and none more so than your executive team. When your team is working at their greatest potential, it feels like there’s nothing you can’t achieve. As their leader, you look for areas to improve and try to spot issues before they become a big problem.
But there is a destructive issue that affects 70% of high-achievers at some point in their lives. It creates stress-related illness, addictions, volatile behaviour, burnout and people simply quitting. And by its very nature, it is kept a complete secret.
I’m talking here about Imposter Syndrome; the secret feeling of being a fraud and the fear of being found out. At first, it can seem absurd; your carefully selected team are bright, capable, confident, talented and committed. That such successful people might feel like they’re a fraud – not good enough – appears counterintuitive.
Yet certain situations can trigger a latent belief that society teaches everyone from a young age; that our worth depends on what we do. It’s a belief so prevalent we don’t even notice it and rarely question it. Indeed the drive to prove our worth is often at the heart of an ambitious personality.
This latent belief turns into Imposter Syndrome when it taps into a specific event or role which is especially important to that person. They have attached their worth to doing well and not failing in that one thing. That event or role depends on the individual, so you can’t predict it in advance. And it’s unlikely your team could predict it in either.
Even so, once it has struck then your team member develops an anxiety that they are not good enough. They think that that they’re fooling everyone – especially you. That you must have made a mistake in hiring them, or it was pure luck, or they had some unfair help. They become hypervigilant that someone will find out that they’re not as good as you think they are.
As the anxiety increases their hard work becomes overwork, putting far more time and effort into a project than it needs. They also become perfectionistic, intolerant of any mistakes and will take to hiding mistakes.
Their independence turns into a refusal to ask for help, as they fear it will expose their ‘weaknesses’. The stress may cause them to develop volatile behaviours. Relationships at work and home may suffer, and they may turn to addictive behaviours to try and cope with the anxiety.
Above all, they’re going to try and hold it together, act as if nothing is wrong and not discuss it with their colleagues and certainly not you, their boss. Often a leader does not know about the problem until the crisis hits. Either the team member leaves due to burnout, a hidden mistake becomes a critical issue, or they quit with no real explanation.
What can you do?
So what can you do to help your team members if or when they suffer from Imposter Syndrome? How can you protect your business from such a management team crisis?
What you can’t do is try to spot it, vet your team for it and avoid hiring anyone who might be ‘at risk’ from Imposter Syndrome. This is because everyone is operating under the same latent core belief that our worth depends on what we do. It can affect anyone.
Nor is it a flaw or silly childish thinking that we ought to grow out of. It is a fundamental belief about the way we operate and survive in the world. It is as significant and constant as gravity. And as invisible.
There’s no point asking your team about it either. If they are feeling like an impostor, they would be unlikely to reveal that fact to you. Also, they are unlikely to understand what’s going on themselves. Unless they are aware of Imposter Syndrome, its prevalence and its common symptoms, then your team member will be confused.
They will be struck by a feeling of not being good enough when they’re used to feeling confident and capable. They will develop anxiety and not know the cause. They will feel isolated, thinking it must be just them. They will compare themselves to you and their colleagues, and to your confidence and success. They develop a growing sense that they don’t belong on the team. They worry that somehow they have become flawed and weak. And they fear that at any time you’re going to realise they don’t belong and fire them.
The exact circumstances that set off Imposter Syndrome are unique to the individual. But, there are two major triggers to Imposter Syndrome. This means that you can create conditions in which Imposter Syndrome is less likely to become a problem. You can mitigate the effects on your team and your business.
Trigger 1: Change
When someone moves out of their comfort zone, there is a risk of triggering Imposter Syndrome. Especially in a new role or doing something outside of their realm of expertise. Sufferers of Imposter Syndrome often avoid situations in which they might feel not good enough.
For example, I was uncomfortable with one small aspect of team management. After University, my psychological profile test results prompted a company to offer me a fast-track to top management. At the time I was completely unaware of my motivation, but I turned down this fabulous offer. Instead, I went back to University. I have a PhD because my Imposter Syndrome fears of team-management had me avoid that situation.
When I became a Director in a high-tech startup, I had a larger team to manage. Then the stress of Imposter Syndrome hit me. I didn’t see it as being a fraud in the classic sense, I felt like my ‘failure’ to excel was a fundamental flaw in who I am. This is not uncommon.
This example shows that anytime someone steps into new territory, it may trigger Imposter Syndrome as they may have been avoiding it. If this new territory happens to include their individual ‘worth trigger’, then their stress will increase, and their performance will suffer. You cannot predict who might get triggered or in what circumstances, but you can put in place some procedures that will help.
Strategies for Change
There are some simple strategies that you can implement that are effective at helping your team through change. These apply to everyone equally so that people don’t feel singled out. They make good business sense as well as proactively mitigating Imposter Syndrome.
- Provide training
- Plan for assistance
- Provide transition support
Provide Training
In new territory, there will be some areas with which your team are unfamiliar. But they may be reluctant to ask for extra skills training, for fear of looking weak or incompetent to you. They may feel a need to prove themselves (their worth) to you by going it alone or figuring it out for themselves.
Instead, you can require them to take some training to upgrade their skills because it is a new role or project, or change. Set up in this way, the training is not seen as a weakness or flaw in your team member. Instead, it is your proactive strategy for excellence. This makes sure the project or role is a successful as possible in every way. It is also good practice for continual professional development.
In the example of my Imposter Syndrome, the issue was a lack of skill in leading a large team. Looking into my past I see I never had good team management modelled; my family did not know how, not their fault. My boss at the start-up company was a brilliant team manager. He would have been delighted to mentor me, had I only asked. I didn’t see the issue to be my lack of skill, and so it never occurred to me to ask.
To mitigate Imposter Syndrome, the training you offer needs to be the right skill. Here simply discuss the areas in the new role/project with which the team member is most and least comfortable. The training will then be in the areas of discomfort.
Plan for Assistance
Many people suffering from Imposter Syndrome are reluctant to ask for help in any form, even when they need it. They view asking for help as an admission of weakness, and it will reveal they are a fraud and not good enough.
You can’t force people to ask for help. But you can ask them who they will be getting to help them and whether their project or role has enough resources to be successful. You make the explicit statement that assistance will be required to make this successful. This is a strategy for excellence and not a criticism of their worth or capability.
When you ask this in a team meeting, it models planning the resources for success to the whole team. It normalises asking for assistance to get the best results. Anyone who tries to look ‘tough’ and do it by themselves can be reminded that success is a team effort.
A classic source of anxiety in Imposter Syndrome comes from comparing themselves to colleagues. It is important for sufferers to be able to see their colleagues asking for help.
This needs to balance within your company structure, of course. If people resources are tight, then your team has some negotiation to do. Watch out for someone who tries to make a virtue of pushing through with superhuman effort. This can backfire, becoming a trigger for Imposter Syndrome in the rest of the team, or in themselves.
Provide Transition Support
With any major change in role, responsibilities and projects, several issues will arise for that team member. It may be Imposter Syndrome or it may be that adjustments need to be made and new relationships navigated.
One of the best ways to help Imposter Syndrome is for sufferers to share their situation and fears with a neutral party. A great strategy is to offer transition coaching with a professional who is not reporting back to you. This will provide confidential feedback, helping to reframe the distorted thinking that comes with Imposter Syndrome. It is a service offered to your team member for their support. If you are tempted to bring this in-house then you should be aware that with Imposter Syndrome, anyone at work finding out is a disaster, and so it is unlikely to be as useful.
Offering transition support to everyone in a new role makes sure that any issues are caught and resolved before they become a problem.
Fostering teamwork, addressing skills gaps and providing transition support as standard is good practice for your company to develop excellence and growth mindsets and enhance creativity and productivity.
Excerpt from ‘Fit-For-Purpose Leadership #1’ published August 2017 by Writing Matters Publishing.
