Imposter Syndrome: How To Conquer It And Lead Boldly Through Your Strengths

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Becca Banyard: Do you ever doubt yourself and whether you deserve to be in a position of leadership? Perhaps you wonder if the person who hired you is somehow mistaken and you're not as qualified as they perceived you to be, making your whole career a lie. 

Imposter syndrome is a very common experience. In fact, data suggests that imposter syndrome affects one in three Americans. So how can we move beyond it, embrace our strengths and lead confidently? 

Welcome to the People Managing People podcast. We are on a mission to build a better world of work and to help you create happy, healthy, and productive workplaces. I'm your host, Becca Banyard. 

My guest today is executive and leadership coach, Jen Hope. And we're gonna be diving into the topic of imposter syndrome, what it is, how to overcome self-doubt, and how to use data to identify your strengths and competencies as a leader. So stay tuned!

Welcome to the show, Jen. It's so great to have you here today. We're gonna be discussing a topic that many people face when moving into a management or leadership position, or just really any new position at all, and that is imposter syndrome. 

But before we dive into it, I'd love to just know a little bit more about yourself and what you do.

Jen Hope: Yeah. So folks hire me particularly in startup organizations and tech organizations to come in and get intentional about leadership. My background was in 18 years of marketing for high growth startups, and I saw folks like me who were growing in leadership and experiencing stumbles and bumps along the way.

And so having a servant heart and excitement around the tech and startup space, I built a practice and I've been doing this for 10 years and get to help folks grow and like y'all get to create better workplaces. 

Becca Banyard: Amazing. I love that. So let's start off with the basics. What is imposter syndrome and what do you believe leads to people experiencing it?

Jen Hope: Yeah, so imposter syndrome, this work comes out of a research study from the 1970s where it was called imposter syndrome. And it also imposter phenomenon, which I think is interesting. It's essentially a syndrome that refers to the internal experience of believing that you are not as competent as others believe you to be, right?

So, you know, broke down human to human language. It's a discrepancy between what is objectively accurate about your talents and strengths and the way that they show up and what, your internal systems are telling you about how competent you are. 

Becca Banyard: What causes a person to experience imposter syndrome?

Jen Hope: So I have a bit of a hot take on this that we all experience, not imposter syndrome, but something called self-doubt. And self-doubt being, well, at its simplest form - thoughts and their thoughts that are questioning our capabilities when we are doing something that our brain registers as an area that we are not confident yet.

So if you can imagine the area of your brain building confidence, it starts with the confidence or the trust that you can leap and then doing a thing, completing it with some degree of competence. And then that leading loss all the way back around to confidence, right? And our brain collecting dam, I'm a bit of a data geek. 

And so, when our brain has the data that suggests that we are competent in an area, we can start to feel confident in that area. And imposter syndrome is a bit of the opposite, right? It's a sense that even when we're achieving, or even as we achieve that which we thought we would not be able to do, we don't register it and put it in the database under the right category of success.

It says, oh, that was luck. Or, I will be found out eventually. I can't do this. I didn't deserve it. I don't deserve the accolades. So it's that discrepancy again between what is objectively true about our accomplishment and our skills and our brain zone process of continuing to doubt or to dismiss.

Becca Banyard: So for somebody who's experiencing it, it might feel or look like self-doubt. But for someone who's looking perhaps at their team, what might it look like to somebody looking from the outside in? 

Jen Hope: Yeah. So what we can see is that, well, there's a couple pieces of this. Oftentimes this was originally, in the original research was focused around the idea of high achieving women, right?

And more specifically high achieving white women. And I think that has built this way at which we look at who experiences imposter syndrome, right? So to start with, this is across all communities. This is across all genders. It really is pervasive, right? There's self-doubt and imposter syndrome, and the question is why, right?

I think we, if we look at context, what is the context of people experiencing imposter syndrome? So we've talked about it in a limited way, right? With limited context. And so if I zoom out, I think, where are people experiencing this? Who are the folks who are experiencing this? And what are we teaching them about their feelings of not belonging?

And whose responsibility is it that's what they're experiencing, right? So if we look at underrepresented communities and we're hearing from those folks on our team or in our organization that's who experiencing the imposter syndrome, we have to look at why. What's happening there, right? So we've talked about in imposter syndrome as a responsibility of the individual to work through as like a, as a mindfulness practice, which it's like a both end, right?

There's like coaching the individual and then there's this system. What systems are they a part of? What's the culture of the organization that they're in? And at what point do we need to pause and reflect and say there's something happening inside this organization or inside this team, working under this leader that's creating an environment that is causing folks to raise a hand and say, this is what I'm experiencing, and here's what it feels like.

Here's the lack of safety that I experience, or the sense that I don't belong. 

Becca Banyard: Wow, that's so interesting. So why do you think that women or underrepresented groups tend to experience imposter syndrome perhaps more than some other folks? 

Jen Hope: Yeah, so this is, it's, I'm certainly not like the resource on this.

There are folks who are, have a much more appropriate skillset and expertise to be the person to talk about this. So I will say in a very limited way. We have a history of describing leadership as what we've seen from white male leaders, right? That's what we call this, which should be a neutral term called professionalism.

That's what we call leadership. They're biased, and we need to talk about them in that way, right? So when we're asking folks to be what we call professional, or what we call, leaders, it's bi, it's, historically biased. And so looking at, like women for example, right? Like we have data that suggests these days and that women are more effective, right?

Like leaders, we've got data that proves that, like the relational way that women lead is a more effective style, right? Like traditionally, right? We're gonna call people who are meeting, gender norms of women. And yet when we talk about leadership, we're talking about something that is still, has this history of bias in it and has this history of being this white male style.

And, we have the historical, what we call those leaders, right? Gates and, Zuckerberg and basis and that's what we call leadership, right? And even if you look, do, research these days on leadership, what you find in the top 10 books is like, it's just written by 10 white guys.

And, it's mind boggling for me still. And obviously the research that, that I wanna do in the learning that I wanna continue to do on this topic is much broader than that. That's a long answer. 

Becca Banyard: No, it's great. So I wanted to just go back to something that you mentioned previously about responsibility and how there's individual responsibility to work through imposter syndrome, but then there's also corporate responsibility and creating safe environments. 

So I'd love to dig into that a little bit more just about what is an employer's responsibility to help their employees through self-doubt and imposter syndrome, and what are some ways that they can do this? 

Jen Hope: Yeah, I would point folks, there's an HBR article that came out in 2021, written by two women who I think I know one was at least out of Seattle, called the "End Imposter Syndrome in Your Workplace" - Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey. 

And we'll include hopefully the link here. And you know, that's a place to start. I know there was a book coming in 2022 that I haven't gotten my hands on yet, written by them as well. But there are steps, right? There's a quote in that article about, what we think we should do in that scenario. There's a responsibility building talent programs, bringing in coaches. 

And the quote suggests Kecia Thomas, "It's easier to set a professional development program, put money into training, or even pay for a coach or mentor to think about the values, ideologies, and subsequent practices, and miss the severe underrepresentation in organizations to create imposter syndrome as a mainstay." so this is maybe what we do and we don't do the real reflection required that's necessary. 

Becca Banyard: Okay. Yeah. Wow. What would that reflection, that necessary reflection, what could that look like? 

Jen Hope: I can tell you what I've seen. I've seen folks bringing in experts. I've seen folks bringing in data. I've seen folks bringing in and truly investing in long-term ways and making commitments that they follow through on in measured ways that actually focus on bias, that actually focus on understanding how that shows up in our organizations. 

And what is the real lived experience of the people who are in that environment and believing it. When someone tells you their experience, our responsibility is to listen. And I think that's not the most actionable, I realize, that's not that. 

But hopefully it is. Hopefully it is. I hope listening is one of the steps that we take away from this conversation. And again, like again and again, this is not my expertise. This is what I've seen in organizations who I think are making the commitment.

Take steps they've seen them take. 

Becca Banyard: Thanks for sharing that. And I'm curious from an individual perspective, what the individual can do, not only to overcome imposter syndrome, but perhaps even help guard themselves against it. 

Jen Hope: Yeah, so there are numerous things. I think one of the first places I start with folks who land in coaching is to understand what we mean when we say imposter syndrome.

And start looking at our own context. For some folks I heard, a great quote recently about imposter syndrome when you've just started a role. So call it, you're in a role, you're drinking from the fire hose, trying to get caught up, wanting to have the answers, adding tons of value, right?

Like all of those pieces, and that makes sense for a given period of time. We can be not, and again I'm sensitive about using imposter syndrome and saying like maybe having imposter thoughts, at times or experiencing this kind very normal, healthy thing that we experience called self-doubt. And that's okay to a point, right?

And we can expect some of that when we're in a new role. And then there's a point, and you know this suggested that maybe by six months if we're still experiencing imposter syndrome or that chronic self-doubt, that maybe we need to look at our environment. And what is the environment telling us about why we're having that experience?

So I think that's the first place I start with understand our own context as a responsibility, right? Cuz it's possible that this is a not a you situation, right? This is an environmental impact. And so I start there and then I as an in, for the individual, I think about, again, marketer, geek data brain. I go to what does the data suggest, right?

So I work with tools very often based in research that give us information, data about a person's strengths. About a person's, true competencies, their creative competencies in leadership. And then we can go to the data, right? We can go to the data and explore using, I use a, a really great tool that provides a lot of qualitative and quantitative data about our leadership effectiveness that says here's what the data suggests.

So if I'm sitting with someone in front of me who, despite all of this subjective information that would suggest this person is doing well, succeeding in their career, meeting objectives, their brain is still in this position of doubt. We can go, again, hopefully to more data that they can build into that database that says, these are my successes.

These are my strengths. Here are the areas based on a 360. So these are folks around me suggesting oftentimes in an overwhelming way how competent I am. 

Becca Banyard: Wow, that sounds like such an amazing tool. I'm always just blown away by the world we live in and the way that we can gather data and the different types of data that we can gather.

I'm curious what tool that is that you're using? 

Jen Hope: Yeah, it's called The Leadership Circle Profile. This is their 360. It's based on some of the most recent leadership data that we have. And one that I have found to be, oh gosh, it's almost like the lights get turned on for an individual in their development.

We kind of, before we had a flashlight and we would stumble into areas where oh yeah, I can pick up some small pieces of, my strengths and understand what I'm good at and hold that close in a confident way. And this tool feels like it turns like all the lights on.

It's almost oh, there it is. And really having a sense of there are 18 competencies, 8 creative competencies in leadership, and here is where I am quantitatively set in front of me based on a database of 200,000 global leaders. This is how effective I am, right? And what that really means and how it can change a person's, the way they hold that grounded confidence is pretty remarkable. Transformational, actually.

Becca Banyard: Do you have any stories of people that you've witnessed go through, like using this tool and coming out the other side more confident? 

Jen Hope: A hundred percent. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so I worked with a client who was working for what I would call a pretty difficult leader. And, but also, I think through their own experience, arrived in their role with a bit of doubt.

Maybe imposter syndrome. I, again I'm sensitive about using that term, but definitely self-doubt, some questions. And this person led quite often from a stance of being fairly protective. They were, they could be pretty distant, very critical of self, and had a lot of the internal conversation about their own skills, right? 

They had a sense that maybe that they were talented but didn't have the information, didn't have something sitting in front of them received, praise and positive reviews from folks internally, but really experienced, day to day. I think their experience was one of doubt.

And using this tool, I mean that one of their quotes about the process was, I always had a sense that folks valued my work, but I had it in front of me, like in, in black and white. I had numbers to suggest that folks, saw me in such a way and I could go back and say, These are the specific areas.

I am collaborative. I am visionary. I am a selfless leader. I am, comfortable with taking risk. I fostered team play. I am a systems thinker and not only do I think this, but here is the data that suggests the 15 people who work closest with me also think the same. And that really shifted things for this person and it also gave them something to work on because folks noticed that they sometimes worked from a distance, right?

Folks noticed that in stressful moments that they could be, difficult on, critical to themselves, right? Like in their kind of their own Vegas critic. And it gave us a path to say, wow. If I wanna even up myself from here, I'm already in the, call it like 85th to 90th percentile of the world's leaders.

But if I wanna go higher, I can be more authentic and I can show up at the table and have a seat there and own the value that I'm bringing to that conversation. And that was really transformative for them. And they did as such and it was a beautiful opening to see that happen. 

Becca Banyard: I love that. I love hearing success stories of people overcoming.

I'm curious if there are any habits that folks can implement in their life to kind of guard themselves against self-doubt and to also help strengthen their mental health? Because I think imposter syndrome, self-doubt, can really have a toll on our mental health. So I'm curious if there's anything you recommend folks implement into their daily life or their weekly practice?

Jen Hope: Yeah. I mean this is one of those areas where like so many aspects of our life, we can build mindfulness into the day-to-day. So starting from that thought that suggests, Hey, I am, somehow my brain is disconnected from what is fact, right? Or I had what we would call like in the world of like CBT, right?

Again, not a therapist, not a psychologist, but in the world of like cognitive behavioral therapy, a hot thought, right? This thought that is fueled by emotion and being able to separate ourselves from, Hey, that's a thought. I don't need to get on the train with that thought and ride it to I suck town, right?

Like we don't, we have an option if we practice mindfulness, right? If we slow down, if we can find the space between, here's the thought, now I'm gonna react to it and get on board with all the data that I have loose, very loosely suggested data here that I have that suggests I really do suck.

What if we started to pause and say, wow, that's a thought. That is, that's an either anxious, negative, just a habit, right? This is a habit of thinking. And that's not to say, I wanna be really mindful here and say, I'm not talking about, clinical depression. I'm not talking about, generalized anxiety.

I'm talking about, you know, the thoughts that can sometimes ride alongside our career, right? There are scenarios where we need a therapist, we need medication. I think there is a time and a moment for all of those things, and I'm raising my hand because I'm committed to those things, right? And so there is the moment for that, right?

This is those thoughts that can show up, and I think they come over periods of time. I'm not talking about, the unresolved places that we may need to spend time with someone who's so much more qualified than I am. Right? So I wanna, I wanna say that too, because maybe the habit that we need is therapy.

Maybe the habit that we need is medication. And what I think is slippery about imposter syndrome is that we can look it up on the internet and say, oh, that's me. And maybe not get the help we actually need. This is one of the reasons I don't often talk about this topic on podcasts because it, like so many things can be filled.

Like same way that we, that we can read a book that says it's gonna solve our depression like I just called BS, right? That is such a slippery way. So is there a habit? There are habits that we can all do that create more mindfulness in our lives that start out for us as the thing that becomes a waterfall, right?

That oh, if I invest here, if I get the sleep that I really need, or start my day with eight ounces of water, or make my bed in the morning, those are all potentially the habit that leads to our waterfall. And we can still need therapy support and the medication required that sets us like at a baseline to do what is required in a career.

So that's a little bit of my soapbox about that, that there are certainly habits and that does not in any way take away from what maybe the action that is also needed. 

Becca Banyard: Yeah, amazing. I just wanna circle back cuz something that you said reminded me of it. It's just that piece of belonging cuz you talked about women and other underrepresented groups in leadership tending to suffer from or have experiences of imposter syndrome more so than others. 

And I'm just curious, what do you think companies, or maybe even just society in terms of societal norms, like what can we do to help progress, to help bring more belonging and more acceptance of leaders that look different than what traditional leadership has looked like historically? 

Jen Hope: Look at our own bias. I think that's so oversimplified but really that's really at an individual level, that's what we do. And even at an organizational level, we look at our own bias to say, why do these folks feel that way?

And what are we doing that is, how are we responsible for that? And I think that's, no, that's a really over, super short, simplified answer, but I think that's where it starts. 

Becca Banyard: No, that's good. 

Jen Hope: What do you think, Becca? I'm curious like is, what do you think of that answer, like? 

Becca Banyard: Of looking at bias? 

Jen Hope: Yeah, like looking at ourselves?

Becca Banyard: Yeah. I think self-awareness is so important. So I think like I, I completely agree with you. I think when we look inwards, we're able to identify things that perhaps we didn't realize were there. And I think sometimes people don't like to look at themselves because it's uncomfortable. And once they see that something's there, then they are faced with the responsibility of choosing what to do with it.

So you can either stay as you are and live in that, or you're forced to change. And everybody gets a choice. So I think we don't always like to look inwards, but the more we can look inwards, the more we can have acceptance of other people and empathy for others. And we can get curious about what other people experience and what the world looks like for other people.

So I think that self-reflection, self-awareness, and then acting on it is very important. Because once we know what's there, we have to do something about it. So I think the action is the next step, and I think that's very important. 

Jen Hope: As you were saying that, my heart was hurting a little bit because I think I can intellectualize self-awareness so much because it's a part of the work that I do.

Every single day I talk about self-awareness. It's literally built into every part of my day in, even personally, that's a, it's a big part of what I do. But when you think about the moments that you grow, and I've had one recently, and so it was like a really, it's one of those where you can just still feel it like it was literally this week and so you can still feel how hard that is.

I had a great therapist once talk about like the early days of, like self-development. She calls it your journey in the early days of your journey being like the cleaning out of a wound. You know, and that there's particularly like something like road rash, right?

Where like the cleaning of that wound it just, it, both of our faces are like, like almost tearing up right now because it is that painful. When you're cleaning out that wound and doing that early reflection, I've been doing this kind of work for 20. I've been doing my own, therapy work for more than 20 years, and I've been doing this work for a decade.

And even when you started saying like, how painful it was like, oh, straight into my heart of yeah, that wound, it hurts so bad. And yet it's so critically important for making the world better. I know that's like a big old job. That's a big old way to say it, but for changing our society, that's so critical.

And yes, it is so, so, so, so damn painful. 

Becca Banyard: No. So painful, but so worth it and so important. 

Jen Hope: Yeah. Yeah. It's so brave. It's so brave. It takes so much courage. And as a coach, like what an honor that is to be alongside that courage. Makes me emotional so regularly to see, cuz it's because it is, it's beautiful.

It really is. It's brave and it's deeply meaningful. 

Becca Banyard: Yeah. And I think it requires humility too. You have to be willing to say that you're wrong or that you have areas that you can grow in and not everybody has the ability to do that, or I think everybody has the ability to do that. They don't necessarily have the humility or the willingness to do that. 

Jen Hope: I always add "yet" to that. They haven't found the humility to do it yet. Cuz it's helpful. 

Becca Banyard: Yeah. I love that. 

Jen Hope: Yeah. Just cuz they haven't done it yet, like we don't know. We don't know. And I love to hold that space to say we don't know, but we, but we can hold out hope that it happens.

Becca Banyard: It's so good. We're almost at time for today. I just have a couple more questions. 

Just as we wrap up the topic of imposter syndrome, do you have any, like one last piece of advice that you can leave listeners with if they're dealing with imposter syndrome or if they are perhaps leading a team and maybe their team members are struggling with it? 

Jen Hope: Yeah, I got a great piece of advice that I'd love to share and I think about it so regularly. This is more than 15 years ago. So I had someone when I was taking a leadership role share with me because I was experiencing some of this self-doubt. And I went to this person and said, Hey, what are your thoughts on am I the right person to do this?

And they said, this organization clearly thinks that you are the right person to do this. And they maybe could hire someone who would do it differently, but they hired you because of the way that you are gonna do it. Like they couldn't bring another Jen into this situation. They could bring another marketer, they could bring another leader, but they brought Jen into this situation and that really shaped things for me, right?

Because there are always going to be other folks who can do what we do, but they're not going to do it the way that we do it. And I think that's really important, right? And I think it's really important that we remember that our context, our experience, like the global experience of who we are, makes us uniquely qualified for a role and that we bring all of that to an organization.

So yeah, that's my advice. 

Becca Banyard: That's so good. Such a great perspective shift. I love it. 

So I just have two questions that I haven't shared with you, so feel free to say pass or take a moment to think. But these are some questions that I ask all my guests. And the first is, what do you think is the number one thing that keeps employees happy in the workplace?

Jen Hope: Well, I mean, we know that people value people, right? So the people that, that they work with, right? Being a person inside of an organization. I would say also, it would depend on the individual's preference here, but caring about that individual and challenging them in a way that works for their style, right?

So I think that being cared for and being uniquely challenged till you can see your value that you bring to the organization, simply said, hopefully. 

Becca Banyard: So good. And then the last one, what's one thing that you personally need to be a successful leader? 

Jen Hope: Movement, right? I have to move every day. I have to move. I have to get out. I have to walk. I have to think. I have to have that time to be outdoors. It's my non-negotiable. If I don't move, no, it doesn't get done. It doesn't get done well, for sure. 

Becca Banyard: Well, Jen, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been such a great conversation. I've really enjoyed spending this last 30 minutes with you. For listeners who want to connect with you or keep in touch with all that you're doing, how can they do that?

Jen Hope: Yeah, they can find me at my website HeyJenHope.com/people.

Becca Banyard: Awesome. All right folks, thanks so much for tuning in. If you like this episode, please leave us a review and subscribe to get notified every time we release a new episode. And if you wanna stay in touch with all things HR and leadership, head over to peoplemanagingpeople.com/subscribe to join our newsletter community.

And until next time, bye for now.