Clare Josa | Author And Keynote Speaker

UK's Foremost Imposter Syndrome Expert, International Keynote Speaker & 8x Author

imposter syndrome

What Does It Really Take To Close The Gender Confidence Gap?

Soul Led Leaders

I came across an article this week, published in Forbes, on how to close the gender confidence gap and increase gender equity in leadership roles. The author correctly identified that Imposter Syndrome is at the root of this.

But - yet again - it's the case of a well-intentioned man completely missing the point, telling women that all we need to do to close the gender pay gap is to dress more smartly, pay attention to our grooming, adopt a confident posture, and to speak up more in meetings (with the correct tone of voice and mannerisms).

By implication, the author is telling us that women who aren't achieving their full potential are slovenly slouches, with near-zero communication skills, and no interpersonal skills, who deserve to be overlooked for promotions that men are then awarded - because men didn't need that advice.

Unfortunately, I come across articles like this every week, even in publications that should know better. And I hear it from women who have been told it by managers and mentors in the workplace.

The problem with messaging like this - especially in prominent publications or from people in authority - is that it pushes the blame for the gender pay gap back onto women. And they're already feeling enough guilt and shame, if they're struggling with Imposter Syndrome.


What The Data Tells Us About The Gender Confidence Gap

The 2019 Imposter Syndrome Research Study showed that Imposter Syndrome - the secret fear of being found out as 'not good enough', despite evidence that you are - runs at similar rates for men and women, but they handle it very differently.

The gender confidence gap: how do Imposter Syndrome rates vary between men and women?

52% of female respondents and 49% of male respondents said they had struggled with it 'daily' or 'regularly' in the past year - at a level that impacted their work performance, their confidence, the actions they took, and their emotional and mental health.

Yet almost all of them were experts at hiding it.

The huge difference the research found, though, was in the actions men and women took, if they had Imposter Syndrome.

In the 100+ depth interviews that went with the 2,000-person quantitative study, it was found that there were clear differences between the sexes; differences which disproportionately disadvantaged women in terms of their current role and future promotion opportunities. For example:

The Gender Confidence Gap: Men Vs Women

How men vs women respond differently when Imposter Syndrome strikes - white paper - please note that these are generalisations and there will always be exceptions

Male Respondents

  • Push on through the fear, making them five time more likely than women to turn to drugs or alcohol due to anxiety
  • Take credit for their achievements - talking about 'I'
  • Apply for a promotion if they tick most of the boxes
  • Launch a campaign to support their promotion hopes, getting a rush from the competition
  • Promotion validates their sense of worth, meaning Imposter Syndrome decreases

Female Respondents

  • Pay more attention to their emotions and can be more affected by them and to allow them to affect their decisions
  • Share the credit for achievements with their team - talking about 'we'
  • Wait until they feel ready or tick all the boxes, before going for a promotion
  • Would rather leave an employer they love to get a promotion than risk the 'shame' of public failure
  • Promotion shines a spotlight on them, increasing the severity of Imposter Syndrome

Actions Taken By Women, Caused By The Gender Confidence Gap And Imposter Syndrome:

How Imposter Syndrome and the gender confidence gap affects women
What the data tells us about the Gender Confidence Gap - and how it's getting in the way of equal pay and gender equality in the workplace.Click To Tweet

In addition, the Forbes article - and thousands like it - is suggesting that by addressing the surface-level symptoms (the clothes women wear, whether they've met the required grooming standards, whether they're cracking enough jokes in the right way in a meeting to win round the guys) that miraculously their secret 3am self-talk will shift from beating them up to being a cheerleader.

It's nonsense.

You can't clear the root cause of an issue by playing around with the behavioural effects. And this kind of advice leads to women feeling like even more of a failure, when it doesn't work for them. The article is full of the kind of advice I regularly hear from well-meaning coaches and experts, and it's why the research study showed that 'classic coaching' doesn't fix Imposter Syndrome and can even make it worse. 

It's why the vast majority of people in the research study believed that Imposter Syndrome is 'incurable' - because making changes at the 'effects' level, rather than at a 'causal' level, doesn't fix the problem.

The triggers for Imposter Syndrome run at a deeply subconscious level and we often don't realise it has reared its ugly head until our heart is already racing, our mouth has gone dry, and we can feel the adrenalin and cortisol streaming through our bloodstream.

This stress response happens without conscious thought and puts us into the 'fight-flight-freeze' mode, which diverts blood flow from the frontal cortex of the brain (responsible for answering questions brilliantly in meetings or coming up with great ideas) to the primal part, which only cares about keeping us alive until the sabre-toothed tiger has left.

That's why Imposter Syndrome can make your mind go blank in that very meeting where you're supposed to be sharing your brilliant ideas.

Imposter Syndrome also affects a person's performance and productivity - see the Four Ps Of Imposter Syndrome - perfectionism, procrastination, project paralysis, and people-pleasing.

Lockdown has made this situation worse, with research showing that women have been taking on the bulk of the extra childcare and home schooling, whilst juggling this with their normal workload.


Women are reporting that their stress levels have increased and they are worried that they will be judged as under-performing over lockdown, missing out on future promotion opportunities or even losing their job, as a result. It has hit their confidence, hard.


The Three Hidden Triggers Of The Gender Pay Gap

The research study showed that there are three hidden factors in the gender pay gap and lack of gender equality in leadership roles, but that these aren't being addressed by the majority of companies:


Three Hidden Triggers Of The Gender Pay Gap

1. The Alpha-Male Culture In The C-Suite

There comes a point in too many companies where heart-based, feminine-style leadership is no longer valued, and women are required to change how they lead to fit in with the competitive, alpha-male C-Suite culture. What made these women great managers and leaders is no longer valued. Women feel they don't belong in that culture.

2. Lack Of Flexible Working

Too many women are being forced to choose between their career and their family. Asking for flexible working - even ad hoc for a school play - is often seen as a sign of a lack of commitment and causes them to be judged as not ambitious enough to gain senior level promotions. And many women's childcare commitments mean they simply cannot take on the additional working hours and travel that more senior roles demand.

3. Imposter Syndrome

Imposter Syndrome disproportionately disadvantages women, because men and women handle it differently. This is what creates what we perceive as the gender confidence gap. It causes women to subconsciously sabotage career opportunities and prevents them from reaching their full potential.

To Close The Gender Confidence Gap - And The Gender Equality Gap - We Need To Create A Genuine Level Playing Field

Instead of 'blaming' women for the gender confidence gap - and implicitly the gender equality gap - we need to focus our energy on creating a genuinely level playing field. I wrote recently about why we don't need equality, but instead with need equity, to achieve this.

This means looking at a company's culture, traditions, rules and attitudes, to see whether any of them are unintentionally disadvantaging women.

And there's no shame or blame in this. A recent UN study found that 90% of men - and a shocking 90% of women - hold unconscious gender bias against women.

Then we need to have leadership development programmes in place that proactively support people to clear out Imposter Syndrome - to close the gender confidence gap - so that everyone has the same opportunity to thrive.

And we need HR teams and managers to have training in how to spot and how to support people who are struggling with Imposter Syndrome. It's something that people work hard to hide, but there are behavioural 'tells' that can give you hints that action is needed.

Clare Josa

Too many companies and industries still have ingrained gender bias in their culture, where women are expected to behave in a certain way, in order to reach the most senior roles. And this means those companies are missing out on the best minds in their business, as these women leave to work somewhere that they can really be themselves.


Or we have the tragedy of those women 'shutting down' and conforming, no longer being all of who they really are, in order to feel that they fit in and have the same opportunities as their male colleagues.


How Can We Support Women To Close The Gender Confidence Gap?

The author of the Forbes article that rattled my cage today says: "I wish there were definitive steps to build self-confidence and self-esteem, but I don’t think they exist." That's from the CEO of a Leadership Development firm.

I've got news for him - they absolutely do!

Ditching Imposter Syndrome

In fact, I published a book about exactly how to do this - Ditching Imposter Syndrome - and it already has readers in over thirty countries. It's step by step how-to that has been helping both women and men to finally set themselves free from Imposter Syndrome.

And the book was based on over fifteen years of helping high-achievers to do exactly that - to clear away the self-imposed glass-ceilings that they didn't even realise were there, so they could lead with confidence, clarity and passion.

As leaders, each of us has a responsibility to look both at how we can clear our own inner blocks, and also help others to do so.

I'm curious: what action could you take in the next 24 hours to make progress on closing the gender confidence gap, to create a genuinely level playing field in your company, so that everyone has the same opportunity to thrive and shine?

Want to talk about solutions? Book a call with me:

Book A Call With Clare Josa


Essential Resources To Close The Gender Confidence Gap:


Is This Forgotten Factor The Missing Link In The BAME Equality Debate?

Soul Led Leaders

BAME Equality has rightly been a core focus for businesses as we head out of lockdown. It has been wonderful to see so many business leaders talking about the actions they will be taking. But research shows there is one forgotten factor that is missing from the debate - and without addressing it, it could slow down or derail the progress we need to make.

Back in 2019, a landmark research study showed there were three core drivers in the gender pay gap and lack of gender equity for women in leadership roles in the UK. Two of the factors were related to company culture, but the third wasn't.

And, although it wasn't specifically designed to cover ethnicity, the depth interviews and quantitative survey comments from the research study, as well as subsequent interviews, showed that this third factor plays a huge role for BAME equality, and other minorities (e.g. socio-economic) as well.

Companies are - rightly - now putting in huge effort to raise awareness of unconscious bias (Sway - Unravelling Unconscious Bias - by Dr Pragya Agarwal is a great resource). They are looking at how their structures and culture need to change to create a genuinely level playing field. And things will change.

But unless we tackle the third factor - hidden and forgotten - will much change?

What Did The Research Show Is The Forgotten Factor In Both Gender And BAME Equality?

Imposter Syndrome.

Defined as the fear of being 'found out' as not good enough or not belonging in the role you're in, Imposter Syndrome causes people to self-sabotage. They 'play small' - even in the light of evidence that they are more than competent. So a team member might seem outwardly confidant, but they wouldn't want you hearing their secret 3am self-talk.

And one of the things the research showed is that if you promote someone into a role where they don't feel they 'belong', Imposter Syndrome magnifies, potentially leading to performance and even mental health issues.

Is this forgotten factor the missing link in the BAME equality debate?Click To Tweet

The research showed that 52% of female respondents and 49% of male respondents had struggled with Imposter Syndrome 'regularly' or 'daily' in the past year - at a level that affected their ability to perform their role and their confidence. With BAME respondents, those figures were even higher.

So we can create an external level playing field, work to remove our unconscious biases, and highlight BAME role models, but:

To truly have the impact that is needed, that level playing field needs to come from within, as well as the external culture.

Quotas can make things worse.

If someone is struggling with Imposter Syndrome, because they feel they 'only' got the promotion because the company needed to 'make up numbers'. The research study showed that if someone feels they are in a minority group (be it gender, ethnicity or socio-economic background), promotion can increase the incidence and severity of Imposter Syndrome by 25%. Whereas if they were promoted and felt the promotion was a 'good fit' for the 'kind of person they are', rates decreased by a third.

I have long argued that we need to focus on equity, not equality, to close the gender pay gap - the same goes for BAME equality.

Just as with gender equality, with BAME equality we need to support people with changes to the external culture, but we also need to be helping them to clear the subconscious blocks we put in our own way.

The 2019 Imposter Syndrome Research Study showed it causes people to:

  • Choose not to volunteer for opportunities to shine or be visible
  • Not speak up with their best ideas and be less innovative
  • Not take public credit for their achievements
  • Put their success down to luck
  • Be much less likely to apply for promotion opportunities or ask for pay rises

All of these are subconscious behaviours that can sabotage even the best-intentioned equality programme.

So if we really mean it about BAME equality, we need to have training and mentoring in place to allow people to clear out any subconscious, self-imposed glass ceilings, while we work our socks off on creating the external level playing field.

BAME equality means we need to support and create not just an external, cultural level playing field, but also an internal one.Click To Tweet

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Why Do So Few Companies Have Support In Place For Imposter Syndrome?

Because, unlike something like 'confidence' or 'Microsoft Office' skills, it's harder to spot Imposter Syndrome. Those who struggle with it will tell you how hard they work to hide it. They often feel like they are the only person who has it and this can trigger shame, which no one wants to go public about it.

Also, few managers have had training on how to spot the warning signs or how to support someone with Imposter Syndrome, other than telling them they're doing great and to get on with it - which unintentionally makes things worse.

The other reason why so few companies proactively support their staff to clear Imposter Syndrome is because many people have fallen for the internet myth that it is 'incurable' - something you have to 'put up with' or 'push on through'. Yet that isn't the case. There's a ​whole section on this and other keep-you-stuck myths in Ditching Imposter Syndrome.

With the right strategies and support, people can create breakthroughs in clearing Imposter Syndrome, so they can lead with courage, confidence and passion, in as little as 90 days.


Is This The Missing Link In Your BAME Equality Strategy?

If your company isn't proactively addressing Imposter Syndrome, it risks slowing down your work to create a truly equal opportunity workplace.

Q: what could you do today, to redress that balance?

After all, if people were born with the knowledge of how to set themselves free from something as painful as Imposter Syndrome, surely they'd have done it by now?

​

Ways I Can Help With Imposter Syndrome In Your BAME Equality Work:

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Why Lockdown PLUS Imposter Syndrome Is A Recipe For Stress, Anxiety And Burnout

Soul Led Leaders

In the first week of the UK lockdown, I did some research on how people were handling the massive changes they had been through. The responses that came back, even at that early stage, were heart-breaking:

“I’m just about coping.”

“I’m putting on a brave face.”

“I’m pretending I’m fine, but inside I’m really wobbling.”

Now, nearly four weeks later, the responses to the same questions I asked back then are even stronger. People are telling me that they’re ‘scared’ about how they will juggle work with having their kids ‘at school’ at home. They feel the pressure of deadlines they know they can’t meet. They’re exhausted from endless hours of video calls. They are stressed about not being able to go out. They’re worried about how to fit in queuing for food with juggling everything else.

And they’re all unanimous that this is the right thing to do. But it’s taking a toll on their mental, emotional and physical health, already.

We’re all so busy ‘coping’ that we’re focusing on ‘surviving’ and ‘thriving’ has gone out of the window.

But that means we’re setting ourselves up for problems after all of this, with the stress, worry and anxiety that people are ‘pushing on through’ right now lining us up for burnout – and worse.

And what happens with the 52% of women and 49% of men who were already struggling with Imposter Syndrome (the fear of being found out as a fraud or not good enough), before all of this started?

 

Here’s how Imposter Syndrome is making the lockdown even more challenging.

People who struggle with Imposter Syndrome are really good at hiding it. They can appear outwardly confident and successful, but their secret 3am self-talk has them drowning in worrying about being ‘found out’ as not belonging in the role they’re in.

This means that many people who struggle with Imposter Syndrome are already living with chronic stress, as those fear-based thoughts trigger the body’s ‘fight-flight-freeze’ response, to help them to stay safe from the imagined threat of someone else realising they don’t know as much as they ‘should’.

When we live with chronic stress, we become ‘wired’ to be more easily triggered by simple things like the tone in someone’s email or the phrasing used in a conference call. This kind of thing can trigger a bout of Imposter Syndrome with a throwaway comment.

With everyone else in the world also now being super-stressed, this is affecting communication. People are becoming less patient and tolerant than they were, before. They are more likely to be triggering each other.

And the coping mechanisms for someone with Imposter Syndrome have disappeared. They can’t just pop to a colleague’s desk any more for a reassuring chat. They’ can’t have lunch with someone who could boost their self-belief. They have lost the routine and daily rhythm that helps us to feel safe.

 

Lockdown Has Created The Conditions For A Perfect Storm For Imposter Syndrome

People cope with Imposter Syndrome (which is totally fixable) by engineering their environment and their job so that they feel safe. One of the biggest triggers for ‘dormant’ Imposter Syndrome to rear its ugly head is major change, such as a promotion or a change of boss.

The massive changes in the past month mean that ‘safety blanket’ has been removed for many people, so they are feeling scared and vulnerable. This is making their Imposter Syndrome symptoms worse.

 

When I ran the 2019 Imposter Syndrome Research Study, the data allowed me to develop what is called the ‘4 Ps’ model. These are four behavioural warning signs that Imposter Syndrome could be running for someone – potentially at a level that needs support.

Here’s a snapshot of the 4Ps model:

Perfectionism

16% of respondents admitted to running perfectionism, but 52% actually showed it as a clear behaviour, in their research study responses.

In lockdown, this is manifesting as setting unrealistically high standards, not just for work, but for childcare, home schooling, and creating healthy immune-system-boosting meals.

People (still predominantly women) are feeling the pressure to be superwomen.

 

Procrastination

‘Busyness’ – staying busy in order to avoid working on a project that is outside of our comfort zone is a problem for 62% of people who struggle with Imposter Syndrome. Now we are at home with a myriad of other things to distract us (live online news, the housework, children, partner, food shopping, general worrying) this is getting worse. And it can lead to people falling further behind on their work and working until late at night, to catch up, once the children are asleep.

 

Project Paralysis

This is the classic ‘avoiding the project until the deadline forces us to push on through our fears’. Without the support of colleagues and leaders in the workplace, I’m seeing more people struggling with this. It’s easier to avoid a project when no one is watching, but this behaviour is a major stress trigger.

 

People-Pleasing

Taking on tasks that don’t really belong to you, helping people outside of your team, or switching priorities to subconsciously please someone after a meeting are all examples of the stress-behaviour that comes from us wanting to be liked and accepted in our tribes. But we no longer get to see our fellow tribe members each day. And this is causing major issues for those who struggle with people-pleasing, as they crank up this behaviour, in order to feel like they belong.

 

Of course, many of us can exhibit these four behaviours without having Imposter Syndrome. But what is key is how Imposter Syndrome makes them worse.

And what my research is showing is that the lockdown is making these behaviours even more acute.

Those who are struggling with the secret fear of feeling like they’re not good enough and that they only got to where they are through ‘luck’ or ‘fluke’ are pushing themselves harder, beating themselves up more, and feeling even less confident than ever before. And they’re doing their utmost to hide it. It will be affecting their performance, their productivity, their working relationships and their mental and emotional health.

 

 

And there’s another problem:

So many people are wearing ‘burnout’ as a badge of honour.

This isn’t new to the pandemic-world – we’ve seen our teams doing it for decades, starting early and arriving late, with presenteeism rewarded over results.

We’ve been training ourselves to burn ourselves out, counting hours-worked as a sign of success, and secretly judging those who get their work done and leave on time.

 

 

What Can You Do As A Leader?

It’s important to make sure you’re still getting the one-to-one time with your team members – and to have time where you can just chat, not just about work. It’s not about turning into a therapist. But it is about finding a way to replace those impromptu ‘do you have a minute?‘ chats that naturally happen in a face-to-face working environment, so you can spot if someone needs support.

We also need to cut people slack. Companies need to stop pretending this is ‘business as usual, but from home’.

I’ve supported people in the past few weeks who have been sobbing, because they have no idea how they will deliver on their work deadline, whilst also home-teaching their children, cooking meals for everyone, and putting food on the table. Something needs to give. If you can, take non-essential projects off the table.

And it’s important to offer proactive training and support to your team members, to help them to learn how to become naturally resilient – to be able to healthily bounce back when times are tough, without lining themselves up for future problems.

 

 

I offer a 90-minute online workshop on natural resilience, which attendees have described as ‘life-changing’ and ‘I wish I had had this years ago’. It teaches you how to press ‘pause’ on the self-talk that triggers most of the stress we experience in life, how to gently retrain your inner dialogue to become more supportive, and how to use the ‘resilience antidote’ to feel calmer, more confident, and happier, no matter what is going on around you – without pretending.

If you’d like me to run an in-house (online) round for your company, please book a call here.

And if you want to deep-dive and clear out Imposter Syndrome, as well as becoming naturally resilient and preventing burnout, Stepping Up To Lead is a ground-breaking leadership development programme that creates breakthroughs in under 90 days.

 

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Three Triggers That Can Turn A Leader Into A Bully Boss

Soul Led Leaders

With the UK Government’s announcement that the Home Secretary will be investigated over accusations of bullying, it is bringing an oft-hidden leadership problem out into the open. Millions of people work for bully-bosses. There are three important triggers that can turn an inspirational leader into a bully-boss. And each of them can be reversed, if a company knows how.

To start us off, we need to get clear on two facts:

Happy people don’t bully.
Most bullies don’t set out to be nasty.

But that doesn’t make being a bully-boss ok.

Most people have a story about having worked for a bully-boss. The unreasonable demands, the ridiculously tight deadlines, the constant criticism, the micro-managing, the fear of speaking up with your ideas in case you’re publicly blasted, yet again. That familiar stomach-churn as you get a message asking you to pop into their office. The sense of dread when you hear that they’re going to be in that high-profile client pitch where you’re presenting.

Working for a bully-boss can trash performance, as a person ‘plays it safe’, to avoid criticism. It can destroy someone’s confidence, as the constant low-level criticism makes them doubt themselves. It can lead to stress, anxiety and serious mental health issues. It can lead to absenteeism and even to a star performer leaving a company.

Bully-bosses damage people, productivity, performance and profits.

Yet it’s something we rarely talk about.

Most companies have a leader somewhere in the ranks who is a bully-boss. Many have plenty of them.

But few companies have processes in place to fix the problem, other than performance management.

Here’s the thing:

It’s really rare for a bully-boss to set out to be nasty. And performance management rarely turns the situation around.

Performance management only works if the cause of the bullying behaviour is something a person is consciously aware of and something they have the skills to do something about. The three core triggers are below-the-surface issues, which makes getting a ‘good talking to’ from HR unlikely to fix the problem.

There are three key triggers that can cause someone who is an excellent leader to turn into a bully. And each of them can be solved. In reverse order:

 

3. Workplace Stress

It’s a neurological fact that our brains are hard-wired to detect danger, before they detect reward. It’s how our species has survived for so long. And the same neural pathways that detect danger also detect fear. This fires off biochemical reactions in the body to trigger the ‘fight-flight-freeze’ response, firing off adrenalin and cortisol, while we decide whether or not to run from that sabre-toothed tiger.

When someone is working in an environment that is heavy on the long-term stress, the part of their nervous system that is supposed to regulate our stress hormones (the HPA axis) can no longer do its job, because it gets overloaded. So our system gets stuck in stress. We can end up with hypervigilance, where we are constantly on the look-out for threats.

And we’re on high-alert to protect ourselves.

Someone running that pattern tends to have a very short fuse, due to their stress hormones being out of balance and the hypervigilance meaning they’re looking for threats and danger, everywhere. They will tend to:

  • be emotionally volatile
  • micro-manage team members’ projects (to prevent mistakes, which are perceived as a threat)
  • throw blame, rather than accepting responsibility
  • criticise others, because that echoes the self-talk soundtrack in their head
  • be fire-fighting, rather than having a calm workplan, with ever-changing priorities that their teams can’t keep up with, as they react to the greatest perceived threat, often on an hour-by-hour basis

… all ingredients for the perfect bully-boss.

In addition, stress affects performance through the way it diverts blood flow in the brain to the primal part, away from the pre-frontal cortex that does our brilliant thinking. So a stressed leader is more likely to make mistakes and to find it hard to concentrate, which accentuates the bully-boss behaviours, above.

There is plenty you can do to cut personal stress (our self-talk is one of the biggest triggers). And any good employer should be making external toxic stress in the workplace a thing of the past.

 

2. The Alpha-Male Leadership Culture

The 2019 Imposter Syndrome Research Study showed there is an alpha-male leadership culture in many organisations at the highest levels of leadership. Below those levels, more collaborative leadership is valued. But at those most senior levels, it turns into a competitive, political, watch-your-back environment.

For someone who isn’t used to this, or for whom it is not a natural fit, it can trigger aggressive, fear-based behaviours to compensate, which can be experienced by those who work for them as bullying.

 

1. Imposter Syndrome

I’ve been mentoring high-achievers for nearly twenty years and one of the most consistent challenges they face – even if they are outwardly successful – is Imposter Syndrome: “Who am I to be doing this?” “What if they find out I’m not good enough?”

Promotion to a level beyond which they feel ‘safe’ can trigger them to feel exposed and unsupported, especially if their new role no longer has the mentoring support of a line manager, but now reports into the CEO. This can cause previously dormant Imposter Syndrome to fire off.

The research study showed that there are four major symptoms of Imposter Syndrome, all of which can tip a formerly excellent leader into being a bully-boss:

Source: Clare Josa – Ditching Imposter Syndrome

Perfectionsm:

Only 16% of research respondents admitted to this, but 52% of them showed clear perfectionist behaviours. Perfectionism falls under the ‘fight’ aspect of the fight-flight-freeze response, as you ‘slay’ the project and ‘go to war’ to ‘crush’ your goals.

Perfectionism causes people to set unrealistically high standards in their work which, if they attain them, they write off as fluke or luck. It can also cause a manager to micro-manage their team, passing on those unrealistically high standards, because the manager feels they will be judged by their team’s mistakes.

This quickly creates a culture where people are scared to innovate and take risks, where they are terrified of making mistakes, and where they know they will be blamed, if things go wrong.

 

Procrastination:

62% of respondents reported having a problem with procrastination in the past year, as a result of Imposter Syndrome. And procrastination comes under the ‘flight’ aspect of the fight-flight-freeze response – as you run from the project.

In the workplace, this manifests as ‘busyness’ – someone who is juggling all the balls, but never making progress. It is borne from the fear of being ‘found out’ as not good enough, which makes them fill their time with actions that are related to the project, but not those that will actually deliver results.

If a leader is running this symptom of Imposter Syndrome, then they will be very stressed, too busy to support team members, blaming others for lack of progress, and emotionally volatile, letting people down on promises.

 

Paralysis:

54% of research respondents described Imposter-Syndrome-driven behaviours that fall under ‘project paralysis’. This is the classic ‘freeze’ response from the fight-flight-freeze stress cycle. It’s the ‘rabbit in headlights’, ignoring a project until the deadline means that’s no longer an option, then using the adrenalin rush this causes to push on through at the last minute.

A leader running this pattern won’t be able to support team members on the project they are secretly scared of, and will then set unrealistic deadlines for completion, massively shifting priorities at the eleventh hour, expecting others to pull the potential all-nighter that the project now needs.

 

People-Pleasing:

65% of the research respondents exhibited behaviours that fall under people-pleasing, as a result of Imposter Syndrome. And this falls under the relatively new category in the fight-flight-freeze response of ‘fawning’ – wanting to please people, in order to be liked and accepted in the tribe.

In a corporate environment, this can lead to a person taking on projects they don’t need to do, in order to appear helpful. If a leader is running this pattern, it can quickly cause their team to become over-loaded. Then, as the team struggles to complete their workload, the leader becomes critical and volatile, because they need to deliver on those promises, or they will be rejected by the tribe.

It can also cause a leader to change priorities or even deliverables, without warning, if they see an opportunity to please someone by delivering ahead of schedule.

 

It’s obvious from these three factors why performance management – the traditional route – is unlikely to work. In fact, it can make things worse by increasing someone’s stress levels, making them even more afraid of being ‘found out’, and triggering the hypervigilance that increases their anxiety, making them even more emotionally volatile.

 

All criticism is borne of someone else’s pain.

Native American saying

A leader who has turned into a bully is struggling inside and projecting their pain outwards. That doesn’t make it ok, but it explains why we need to use proactive compassion, rather than criticism and the threat of being fired, if we want to turn this around.

 

We need to give that leader the support they need, to remove any toxic stress, and to help them to let go of the behaviours that are causing people to experience them as being a bully.

As with anything, prevention is better than cure, but it’s never too late to turn things around. And that’s why leadership development programmes need to give people the tools they need to clear out the triggers for potential bullying behaviour, before they are put in the situation where it might arise as a stress response.

We also need to urgently address the alpha-male culture at senior levels, and to ensure that no one has to work in a toxic stress environment. That’s simply not acceptable.

As for the Imposter Syndrome triggers, there’s plenty that can be done to spot and to support someone who is struggling with this, with in-house awareness training for HR teams and line managers, with group or 1:1 coaching, with specifically tailored leadership development programmes, and with talks to bring this hidden topic out into the open.

 

If you recognise any of the symptoms that can trigger a leader to become a bully-boss, within your organisation, and want to do something about it, here’s where to book a call with me, so we can chat about solutions.

What We Need Instead Of Gender Equality To Close The Gender Pay Gap

Soul Led Leaders

There was a meme going round social media a couple of months ago with a cartoon of a father taking his two young children to a football match. One child was much shorter than the other and they were standing behind a barrier, which neither child could see over.

The father gave his children each the same sized box to stand on. The taller child could now see the match, but the shorter child couldn’t. This was equality.

In the second image, the shorter child had a taller box and both children could now enjoy watching the game. This was ‘equity’ – giving each child what they needed to be able to have the same opportunities.

I was discussing this at an event I spoke at last week, with regards to the gender pay gap and lack of gender parity in leadership roles.

Gender equality isn’t enough.

We need equity – but that doesn’t mean ‘positive discrimination’. It means proactively removing the barriers that disadvantage women in the workplace when it comes to senior roles.

One of the key findings of the 2019 Imposter Syndrome Research Study (you can read the white paper here) was that Imposter Syndrome is one of three core drivers in the gender pay gap. The other two were the ‘alpha-male’ culture at the most senior levels of many businesses and the career-destroying impact of requesting flexible working or not wanting to do the extended hours and travel that come with senior roles, so you can spend time with your family, too.

Although the research showed that men and women struggle with Imposter Syndrome at similar rates (52% of female respondents and 49% of male respondents said they experience it ‘daily’ or ‘regularly’), the data showed that men and women handle it very differently.

Men tended to ‘push on through’, despite Imposter Syndrome, which has its own long-term consequences in terms of stress, anxiety and depression, but which also meant that it didn’t hold men back as much from asking for pay rises, ‘owning’ their achievements, or going for promotions.

Whereas for women, the secret 3am self-talk that you’re ‘not good enough’ or might be ‘found out as a fraud’ was enough to keep them playing smaller than male colleagues, being less likely to take full credit for their achievements, not speaking up with their best ideas, not taking opportunities to shine – despite evidence that they were great at their job.

Imposter Syndrome can lead to women being less likely to be considered for leadership roles.

How Imposter Syndrome affects women

Another key finding of the research was that the level of Imposter Syndrome for men tends to go down significantly when they are promoted, with the job title acting as external validation. Whereas, for women, it tends to increase.

If a woman running Imposter Syndrome is promoted into a role that subconsciously feels outside of her ‘safe zone’, she can feel like a spotlight is shining on her, increasing the fear of being ‘found out’, no matter how much evidence there was that she is doing a great job.

 

Effect of promotion on Imposter Syndrome - men vs women

So when we look at the positive initiatives that many companies are putting in place to support women into more senior roles, we won’t close the gender pay gap unless we first deal with Imposter Syndrome.

Gender equality isn’t enough. We need gender equity, to level that playing field, genuinely giving women the same opportunities as their male colleagues.

One of the biggest challenges with Imposter Syndrome is that those who struggle with it the most tend to work hard to hide it.

That’s why it’s so important for managers and HR teams to be aware of the warning signs that Imposter Syndrome might be running under the surface. And the 2019 Imposter Syndrome Research Study now gives us the data to create a framework to spot it – including telling the difference between Imposter Syndrome and confidence / self-doubt – as well as practical action plans for solutions.

With potentially half of a workforce struggling with Imposter Syndrome ‘daily’ or ‘regularly’ in any given year – and its effects on performance, productivity, team dynamics and profit, being able to turn it around can create breakthroughs in business performance, innovation and retention of your best employees.

And you can create those breakthroughs in just a few months, once you have the processes and training in place.

The first key is to open up the discussion about Imposter Syndrome – to remove the taboo.

And this needs to happen amongst men, as well as women. The research study proves that Imposter Syndrome is not just a ‘girl thing’, but that allowing it to appear as such makes it even more likely that Imposter Syndrome will hold women back.

Then, for the equity, you might consider running specific leadership development programmes for women that include clearing Imposter Syndrome as one of the key outcomes.

For less senior staff, the sooner they can ditch Imposter Syndrome, the less of an impact it will have on their career, their future teams, and the business. They can create breakthroughs in as little as 90 days.

I’m curious: are you seeing any of the warning signs of Imposter Syndrome in your organisation?

Would you like to chat about how Imposter Syndrome might be affecting your teams?

You can book a call with me here and I’d be happy to guide you through the kinds of questions you can ask, to find out how big an issue this might be for you, as well as some of the most effective solutions.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Clare

Author of Ditching Imposter Syndrome

Host of the Soul Led Leaders Podcast

But We Don’t Have Imposter Syndrome In Our Business!

Soul Led Leaders

That’s the most common response I hear from budget-holders in big businesses: that despite the results of the 2019 Imposter Syndrome Research Study, it’s not a an issue in their firm.

And, of course, that might be true. But it’s unlikely. Especially if they haven’t done anything to actively spot and address Imposter Syndrome and its damaging effects on people, productivity, performance and profit.

These also tend to be the firms who think that closing the gender pay gap is the role of the remunerations team, and who judge women who ask for flexible working as not committed enough to their careers and not worthy of senior leadership roles.

And they tend to be the companies who recruit ‘mini-me’ alpha-males to replace retiring C-suite executives, not yet valuing the enormous contributions that female staff bring to the business. Unless they start behaving like alpha-males, too.

The Research Study found that these were the three core drivers in the gender pay gap and lack of gender parity in leadership roles: the alpha-male culture in the C-Suite, lack of flexible working, and Imposter Syndrome.

And these firms may never change. They may never close the gender pay gap. They may never achieve gender parity in senior leadership roles. Not even if a new government legislates to make reporting your plans to close those gaps compulsory.

Imposter Syndrome rates in companies

They are in denial about the real causes of the challenges they face.

But there are other companies out there who are prepared to open their eyes, even if that feels scary, to talk about the F-word (feelings), and to acknowledge that mental and emotional wellbeing are core to an employee’s performance, rather than just something to be delegated to the HR intern to run some ‘lunch and learn’ sessions.

These are the companies who can see that Imposter Syndrome can turn a thriving team toxic in just a few months. They are the firms who are passionate about empowering staff to show up as all of who they really are, rather than a shut-down, play-it-safe automaton. They are the businesses who will attract the best leaders and grow their in-house rising stars, with a reputation of being the firm in the industry to work for.

The 2019 Imposter Syndrome Research Study showed that is the last taboo in the personal development field at work. Those struggling with it would rather leave a role they love, hoping to find one that doesn’t trigger their fear of being ‘found out’ as not good enough, than ask for help and support.

It also showed that hardly any firms have processes in place to spot Imposter Syndrome, let alone training and mentoring support, to help someone to clear it out, once and for all. So their staff – up to 89% of them – are ‘pushing on through’, lying awake at 3am, worrying that someone might realise they’re a fraud, trying to hide the performance-trashing stress and anxiety that brings with it.

It’s not because these firms are ‘evil employers’. It’s because there are so many myths out there about Imposter Syndrome being incurable – or inevitable – or a ‘badge of honour’ to justify poor performance – that businesses don’t know where to start, to deal with it.

The Research Study White Paper gives you the initial facts you need, to start making bold decisions on this. And if you are serious about making Imposter Syndrome a thing of the past, so your organisation can grow and thrive amidst the current market challenges, DM me to set up a call.

If you’re struggling with Imposter Syndrome yourself, DM me to set up a call about options to work together. My landmark 1:1 mentoring programme can support you to create life-changing breakthroughs in under 90 days. So you could be on your way to being free from Imposter Syndrome – forever – in as little as ninety days.

And I’m curious: why do you think that Imposter Syndrome is a taboo subject in most businesses? And what could you do to spark a wave of change in your company?

Clare Josa is considered the UK’s leading authority on Imposter Syndrome, having specialised supporting senior leaders to ditch it, for over 15 years, having led the 2019 Imposter Syndrome Research Study, and her new book, Ditching Imposter Syndrome, was published in September this year and already has readers in 22 countries.

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