Executive Leadership and the Hidden Challenge of Imposter Syndrome

Creating a workplace where employees feel valued, understood, and confident is essential for organizational success. For executive leaders, acknowledging Imposter Syndrome (IS) within their teams can be a game-changer in fostering a culture of trust, innovation, and peak performance.

Even if you've overcome IS yourself, it's vital to recognize and address this common challenge among your team members. By shedding light on the impact of IS in the workplace through credible data, we can explore strategies for executive leaders to effectively support their teams.

Let's navigate this together and empower your team to thrive!

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In the realm of high-stakes decision-making and leadership, the echoes of Imposter Syndrome (IS) can often go unnoticed, yet its impact on individuals and teams within organizations is profound. IS, a psychological pattern where individuals doubt their accomplishments and fear being exposed as a "fraud," does not spare any level of an organization, from new recruits to seasoned executives.

However, the focus here is not on the leaders who have overcome or are dealing with IS, but rather on the responsibility these leaders hold in recognizing and mitigating its effects on their personnel.

Understanding the Scope and Impact of IS in the Workplace

• A Global Phenomenon: Research from the International Journal of Behavioral Science estimated that 70% of people will experience at least one episode of IS in their lives, highlighting its widespread nature across professions and cultures.

• The High Cost of Doubt: A study by Access Commercial Finance found that 85% of UK workers experience IS, with over half feeling it affects their health. This statistic underlines the critical need for executive intervention in promoting mental wellness.

• Innovation at Risk: Harvard Business Review points out that IS can stifle innovation, as individuals fearing exposure of incompetence may hesitate to propose new ideas or solutions.

• Leadership Development: Data from KPMG revealed that 75% of executive women reported having experienced IS at some point in their career, suggesting that IS could be a significant barrier to leadership development and diversity in executive roles.

• Organizational Performance: A study by Brigham Young University professors found that teams with members experiencing IS are less likely to engage in learning behavior, potentially hampering team performance and adaptability.

The Case for Executive Awareness and Support

Fostering a Culture of Belonging and Achievement

The acknowledgment of IS at the executive level is the first step toward cultivating an environment where all employees feel they genuinely belong and can achieve their best work. By understanding the nuances of IS and its effects, leaders can implement strategies that affirm individual contributions, celebrate diverse perspectives, and encourage professional growth.

Encouraging Innovation and Risk-Taking

Innovation is the lifeblood of any competitive business. Executives aware of the IS phenomenon can create safer spaces for their teams to experiment, fail, and learn without fear of judgment. This not only accelerates innovation but also builds a resilient organizational culture.

Enhancing Employee Engagement and Retention

Employees who feel supported in their professional insecurities are more likely to be engaged and committed to their roles. Addressing IS head-on can lead to higher job satisfaction, reduced turnover, and a stronger sense of loyalty to the organization.

Leadership Development and Succession Planning

By recognizing and mentoring potential leaders who might be held back by IS, executives can ensure a diverse and capable leadership pipeline. This approach not only breaks the cycle of IS but also promotes a culture of continuous professional development.

Strategies for Executive Leaders to Combat IS

• Open Dialogue: Create opportunities for open conversations about IS and vulnerability. Sharing personal experiences with IS can demystify the syndrome and foster a culture of openness.

• Recognition and Feedback: Regularly acknowledge individual and team achievements. Constructive feedback should be specific, focusing on strengths and areas for growth rather than criticisms that could exacerbate IS feelings.

• Professional Development: Invest in training and development programs that emphasize skill-building, leadership development, and emotional intelligence. This investment signals a commitment to employee growth and confidence building.

• Mentorship Programs: Implementing mentorship programs can provide employees with role models and advisors who can offer guidance, support, and reassurance, helping to navigate the challenges of IS.

• Promote a Growth Mindset: Encourage a culture that views challenges and setbacks as opportunities to learn and grow. This mindset can help individuals internalize successes and view their achievements as a result of hard work and learning, rather than luck.

• Resource Accessibility: Make resources on coping with IS readily available, including workshops, counseling services, and educational materials. Providing tools for self-help and professional guidance can empower employees to tackle IS proactively.

Conclusion: Your Role as a Leadership's in Diminishing IS

As executive leaders, the responsibility to cultivate a supportive and empowering workplace culture is paramount. Recognizing the pervasive nature of Imposter Syndrome and taking proactive steps to mitigate its impact is not just an act of compassion—it's a strategic imperative. By fostering an environment that celebrates achievements, encourages risk-taking, and supports professional growth, leaders can unlock the full potential of their teams, drive innovation, and secure a competitive edge in the ever-evolving business landscape.

In conclusion, the battle against IS in the workplace is ongoing, but with informed and compassionate leadership, it is a challenge that can be met with success. As leaders, embracing the role of mentor, advocate, and supporter in the fight against IS can transform the professional experience for many, leading to a more engaged, productive, and fulfilled workforce.

To learn more about Coach Dave O’Connor’s unique approach to helping individual clients and teams overcome imposter syndrome, schedule a discovery call today.

Anxious? Here’s One Signal and Six Tips To Reclaim Your Attention

Does a certain type of infuriating friction arise when you become anxious? For example, do you get clumsy? Does time stop moving at its normal speed? When you’re under pressure, do your sentences become incomplete or incoherent? When you lose your sense of control, or when perfection kicks into overdrive, do you become forgetful and terse with coworkers or family members? If any of these experiences are true for you, you’re not alone. 

The good news: it’s happening because you envision more for yourself or those around you and you’re driving towards it, often as a high-achiever and a leader. The even better news is that you can leverage this friction as a signal to slow down, and use behavioral skills that shift your attention from imminent threat to calmly thriving. 

The Leader’s Instinct

If you’re a C-suite executive, a solopreneur, entrepreneur, do-er, creator, manager, or a problem solver you’ve likely experienced a similar compulsion as me. When a situation feels unsettled you work tirelessly to resolve it. In a business setting, you rush to feverishly gather resources, and mobilize colleagues and vendors to get to the bottom of your dilemma.

If this is your instinct at work, then it is likely the instinct you rely on at home, and even for your own body. You might work out more, feverishly write notes, chase leads (sales, information, or otherwise), burn the midnight oil, change diet, buy products online. Anything to attack the problem full force. Since you are a leader, you know instinctively that with enough effort, you can solve any problem. 

The Leader’s Choice

I have been wrong about throwing the kitchen sink at my discomfort more times than I can count. So I say the following to you with total humility: if you’re doing the same, you’re doing it wrong. Speeding up is not the antidote to screwing up, in fact the opposite is more often the case. See the graph below, for reference. 

When we are anxious, our fight or flight response kicks in. Special Forces Operators and First Responders receive exhaustive training to manage this instinct under pressure. However for most of us, when discomfort increases, time feels longer. When certainty shifts to the unknown, our resources feel more constrained. We want to act fast to take care of ourselves, or we freeze. 

There is another way.

Six Behavior Techniques for Slowing Down and Reclaiming Your Attention

When we slow down, we begin to notice reality with greater objectivity. We begin to notice that we are not operating in extreme scarcity, rather in a balance of scarcity and abundance, pros and cons, helpful and unhelpful. This attention to balance that results from slowing down helps us make decisions and behave in ways that are healthier and kinder to ourselves and those around us. 

Here are six behavioral techniques for slowing down and reclaiming your attention: 

1) Acceptance

Accept that things - as absolutely terrible or wonderful as they may be - are exactly the way they are. Accept the possibility that you have no or little control over the situation you so desperately want to change. Accept that your body is reacting to an uncomfortable or unfamiliar situation. Accept that your body may be associating a past experience with a present one, regardless of the fact that they are different.

2) Breathing Techniques

You can find breathing techniques via Google, Spotify, Calm App, Insight Timer App, and books related to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, PTSD, Anxiety and Panic Disorder, and Mindfulness Meditation. You can also do these simple steps in cycles of 5: 

• Place hand on belly and breath in through nose with a focus on expanding your belly (diaphragmatic breathing); you will feel your belly expand under your hand

• When full of breath in belly, hold for a count of four

• Exhale through a small space in your lips

3) Body scan

Body scanning is a mindfulness practice that brings your attention into your body. Because attention is finite, centering yours on your body helps to declutter the mind of external worries. At the risk of sounding cliche, worries are thoughts about something not yet in your control. Therefore, they do not serve you, especially in turbulent times. Having a mindful, active awareness of your body on the other hand, serves you immensely. 

To self-administer a body scan you can follow the script below taking between 5-7 minutes for the full body scan. The body scan creates an opportunity for you to come out of your mind and into your body; and for many people it helps us move from worried fiction to present moment truth - facts about what we actually feel here and now in our body. 

Body Scan Script 

• Find a comfortable seated position

• Close or open eyes, whichever is more comfortable

• Breath calmly, ideally from diaphragm

• Begin noticing bodily sensations by intentionally starting at the top of your head

• Move through your forehead, temples, eyes, nose, ears, cheeks, mouth and jaw

• Move through the front of your neck, the back of your neck, then move to your shoulder blades

• Move your awareness now down your inner arm, outer arm, over your elbows, and over your forearms, to your wrists, palms and finally fingers

• Now bring your awareness to your chest, sternum, ribs, torso, gut, lower back, pelvis and hips - notice feelings inside your body as well as on the surface of your skin

• Shift your awareness slightly now to your lower body, beginning with your buttox and groin, inner thighs, top of your thighs and lower thighs

• Move down your thighs to you knees, and now underneath your knees

• Roll down your knees to your shins, moving down your calves now and to your lower calves, outer ankle and inner ankles.

• Now roll down under your heels, to the top of your feet, the bridge of your feet, and finally through to your toes.

You can also reference the sources listed in the Breathing Techniques above for body scan recommendations. 

4) Mantra

Mantra, originated in Buddhism and Hinduism, is a word or sound used repeatedly to aid concentration in meditation. In business and team sports, mantras are often used to focus energy and attention around a shared principle. Think of the Notre Dame Football team’s “Play Like a Champion Today” plaque, courtesy of “Rudy.”

A mantra costs no money, it’s entirely your own, and simple. For these reasons and more you can consider a mantra like a trusted friend, always there to help pull you through a difficult moment. The practice of repeating your mantra will help you dial into the present moment, uncluttered with worry, and boosted with a greater sense of control.

To use a mantra, quite literally repeat the word, phrase, or sound that suits you best over and over again. It’s that simple. You can combine mantra repetition with breathing techniques, or rubbing a token (for example a string of beads, a keychain, a pebble, or an object on your desk). Here’s the key: do this mindfully. What does that mean? Countless books have been written on the topic of mindfulness, but to keep it simple for you here, it means to repeat your mantra with your attention fully focused on the words, sounds, intentions, and/or bodily sensations associated with your mantra. Much like doing a body scan or a breathing exercise, this turns your attention to the one absolute fact you know to be true: you are alive, present, and caring for yourself in this moment. 

5 tips to find a Mantra

1. Use a motivational quote that genuinely inspires or calms you

2. Make up a silly, focusing, or playful sound that pulls you into the moment

3. Ask a friend or family member for three adjectives that describe your best qualities

4. Reference song lyrics, poems, or movie quotes that center you

5. Be still, listen to yourself, write down a simple statement you can experiment with.

To encourage you to think personally and creatively about your mantra, I’ll share mine. During times of overwhelming stress, I turn to “Just ‘cause you feel it doesn’t mean it’s there,” which I stole from the Radiohead’s, “There There.” This mantra reminds me that while I may be feeling or assuming something to be true, it may or may not be so. By reminding myself of this fact, I am able to check-in on other facts, and get objective about a bigger picture issue. Once I get objective, I can begin to plan, make decisions and take action. 

Please: If you don’t have one already, find a mantra, try it out, and share what you notice!

5) Positive Self-talk

A mantra will ground you. Positive self-talk will propel you. Yet, positive self-talk is one of those behaviors we tend to think of as rather cringe. If you do not practice positive self-talk on a regular basis because you’re embarrassed or unfamiliar it’s time to start. Here’s the thing I embraced in my late twenties that I’m going to directly challenge you on: you need to rely on yourself, full stop. 

Examples of positive self-talk statements

“I have done this before.”

“I am limitless potential.”

“I am loved, respected, and admired.” 

“I am capable of surprising myself.” 

“Five ways my friends describe my best qualities are …”

“You got this, [your name], here’s why …”

There comes a time when we all have to move out of our comfort zone with self-management. That’s not work talk, by the way. That’s life, in general. We have to self-manage because as adults most of our peers are busy with their own lives. They don’t have time to bail us out of every anxious, or worrisome moment. And as I’m sure you know, there are a lot more anxious moments in adulthood than easy ones. Next time you’re in a pinch, don’t be bashful about learning and doing positive self-talk on a daily basis. 

6) Fact-check

Finally, bolster your positive self-talk with indisputable evidence. Recall the real results you’ve created for yourself in similar situations. Are you facing a specific situation for the very first time? Great. Consider the qualities of your character that are transferable and find the proof that you can tap into those qualities again by reflecting on your actions and outcomes. Here’s what it sounds like to pair positive self-talk with fact-checking: 

“I may not have had this exact experience before, but I can rely on these three traits to get me through it…I know I possess these traits because I saw them in action when I handled [your real-life example(s)].”

Conclusion

My father often reminded me that I need to be more prepared for boredom and stress than for fun. As high-achievers, leaders, spouses, or parents, we all need to and can relatively easily adopt behavioral skills that help us through anxiety, lack of control, and change. I’ve provided just six coping and self-management skills, among hundreds of others at your disposal. If you would be so kind as to share your own tips for in-the-moment stress management, my readers and I would be grateful to hear from you.

If you would like to explore an ongoing coaching relationship to shift your energy from overwhelm to purposeful action, please contact me.