223: Imposter Syndrome: The Invisible Barrier to Workplace Success

Aoife O’Brien [00:00:07]:

The subject of today’s podcast episode is something very close to my heart. It’s something I’ve been speaking about for about 6 years, but I haven’t spoken about it on the podcast in quite some time. So I figured it was time for an update. It also remains one of the things that is most requested when it comes to speaking, training, workshops, anything like that. It’s something that people approach me about all the time, and that topic is imposter syndrome. You’re listening to the Happier at Work podcast. Award winning, I might add. I’m your host, Aoife O’Brien.

Aoife O’Brien [00:00:43]:

And as I mentioned, today’s topic is all about imposter syndrome. I’m going to talk about why we should actually care. I’m going to talk about what organisations can actually do about us. I’m gonna talk about why leaders should start taking it a little bit more seriously as well. And I’m going to dive into some research that I’ve done previously, but I’ve revisited that research to come up with 5 different imposter identities. So I’m going to go into those in a little bit more detail. I’ll also share in this a link to an assessment that you can take to uncover what your imposter identity is as well. So I’ll put a link to those in the show notes.

Aoife O’Brien [00:01:33]:

So I suppose, first of all, by way of introduction within my business, I look at the 3 c framework. So I look at career, culture and capabilities. And within the career pillar, within the hacker at work business, one of the core aspects of that is confidence. So I talk about know, show and grow. So know is about knowing yourself, understanding yourself. Showing is about demonstrating to other people what it is that you’re capable of and building your personal brand in that way. And then grow is all about the growth. And within the growth element, confidence plays such a huge role.

Aoife O’Brien [00:02:14]:

It cannot be underestimated, but I’ve seen so many people diminish themselves, doubt their abilities, all of these different things. You know, they might say to themselves, I’m not good enough or I don’t belong here or what am I doing here? All of these things that we tell ourselves that indicate that we have imposter syndrome. And you might be thinking at this stage, oh, well, you know, I know that I don’t belong here or I know that I’m not good enough or I know that I don’t have all the answers. That is oftentimes your imposter speaking. So definitely go ahead and take the assessment. As I mentioned, I will put the link to that in the show notes and the impact that this can have. And I talk about this all the time when I’m delivering workshops, when I’m speaking on this topic of imposter syndrome. So for individuals that can cause an awful lot of stress, we can try and hide our feelings of imposter syndrome.

Aoife O’Brien [00:03:09]:

We can try and mask them in some way by overworking, by not speaking up. There are loads of different ways that we have learned to cope with imposter syndrome. It has a direct impact on our ability to perform at work as well. So especially if you’re the kind of person who tends to overwork or who tends to procrastinate, And these very specific behaviors will become apparent within the assessment if you take the assessment from an organizational perspective then. So from a leader’s perspective, like, why should leaders care about this? And, again, this is something that I’ve started talking a lot more about in the last couple of years is not just the impact on individuals, but the broader impact on organizations. So if individuals are feeling stressed out, if they’re overworking, which is resulting in burnout, that can have an impact on productivity within the team. If someone is out of action for a month, for a couple of months due to burnout, it can have an impact on productivity in other ways as well. So if people are focusing on the wrong things, if they’re putting their energy into covering up imposter syndrome rather than dealing with any any of the the the prioritized work that needs to get done, if they’re staying longer hours in order to cover

Aoife O’Brien [00:04:28]:

up their imposter feelings, that can have an impact on their ability

Aoife O’Brien [00:04:28]:

to perform as well. Imposter feelings, that can have an

Aoife O’Brien [00:04:33]:

impact on their ability

Aoife O’Brien [00:04:33]:

to perform as well. In very extreme cases, the, you know, people can resign, so they would rather go somewhere else rather than feeling this sense of imposter syndrome within the organisation that they’re in on the assumption that they won’t feel this way when they go to another organisation. So it’s really clever in that way, convincing you that it’s better to resign than to stay in the situation that you’re in. Another impact of this is not speaking up. So when individuals don’t speak up, it makes it much harder for organizations to innovate. So if they’re not challenging the status quo, it makes it much harder for organizations to innovate as well. They’re not sharing their ideas as freely. And when you take the assessment, there are 2 different types of assessment.

Aoife O’Brien [00:05:23]:

So there is the one for individuals, but there is an imposter impact assessment as well for organisations and leaders. So I’ll put a link to both of those in the show notes, but I’m focusing primarily on the individual one in this scenario. And I’ll go into the 5 different imposter identities that I have identified. So the first one is the overachiever, and I know I can certainly relate to this. This is something for this overachieving identity. Nothing is ever good enough. So once you achieve something, it’s always straight on to the next thing. You don’t take time to celebrate what has been achieved.

Aoife O’Brien [00:06:02]:

And I think it’s often a case of nothing is ever enough. And you can place these high expectations so you have extremely high standards. You can place these extremely high standards on other people as well, which can cause all sorts of stress within the team if they’re not meeting with expectations. But the expectations that you’ve set are extremely high. So it can it can cause an awful lot. But the the underlying issue with this is feelings of inadequacy. So you don’t want to feel like you’re ever inadequate. So you keep striving for more and more and more.

Aoife O’Brien [00:06:35]:

That’s the overachiever type. The second one then is the comparer. And, you know, as with all of these different identities, the clue is kind of in the name. So this is the kind of person who compares themselves to other people all the time. And mostly from a negative perspective. They’re looking at others and they’re comparing themselves unfavorably. I’m not as good as they are or I don’t have what it takes when I compare to them. You might be looking at successes that other people have had, which serves to inflate your own imposter syndrome where you feel like I could never achieve something like that.

Aoife O’Brien [00:07:14]:

You can cause resentment. It can cause jealousy. But sometimes you can compare yourself in a positive way so you can think that you’re better than other people as well. So this is something again, you know, comparison is a thief of joy. We shouldn’t be comparing ourselves to other people. We should be very much focusing fear. The success fear, it’s kind of like who would fear success? Isn’t success the thing that we’re all looking for? Isn’t that what we’re trying to go for? However, the success fear might sabotage their own success. They might get in their own way consciously or or normally unconsciously that they’re doing these behaviors because they’re afraid of the expectations that come if you move to a higher level.

Aoife O’Brien [00:08:06]:

For example, what are the expectations? Will I need to work longer? Will I need to have to prove myself? I’ll have to maintain that new level of expectation. And what if I’m not able to do that? What if I’m finally exposed for this fraud that I believe myself to be? So that’s the success here. Then we have the procrastinator. So this is someone who oftentimes leaves things till the last minute. They might say to themselves, oh, I work really well under pressure. So if you ever hear someone saying that, that could be an indication that they are a procrastinator, imposter identity. This is someone who leaves things for the last minute. And lo and behold, if you leave things to the last minute, oftentimes they don’t really work out as well as you thought they would.

Aoife O’Brien [00:08:52]:

And when things don’t work out as well as you thought they would, then that reinforces your belief of being an imposter. However, since you didn’t put in the work and if things do magically work out, then maybe you’re thinking it’s all down to luck. I, you know, I don’t have the skills or the talent that’s required. I just got lucky this time, and eventually they’re going to find me out. So the procrastinator is the kind of person who always leaves things till the last minute you put off making decisions, starting projects, completing tasks. That is the procrastinator type. And then the last imposter identity is the people pleaser. And, again, I can relate to a lot of the behaviors and a lot of these different ones, but it’s about identifying, well, what is the one that is most prevalent for me? What is the one that I can take action on straight away? The people pleaser is the kind who puts other people’s needs first.

Aoife O’Brien [00:09:52]:

You’re afraid to rock the boat, and this can this can extend to other aspects of your life as well. So it’s not just about work situations. You could be putting other people’s needs first. You’re not setting clear boundaries. You’re not really in touch with yourself or your own needs. And the underlying fear here is that if you say something to upset someone else or if you try and rock the boat in any way, that you’ll be rejected, that you won’t be accepted, that you won’t belong. So there’s this deep seated fear that if you upset someone else, then it’s gonna cause lasting damage to the relationship that won’t be able to be repaired. So the easy fix for that is to keep other people happy, to please them.

Aoife O’Brien [00:10:38]:

And oftentimes, and I have this from my own experience as well, when we’re pleasing other people, we think we’re pleasing other people, but actually we’re pleasing ourselves. That’s one thing. So we’re we’re we’re pleasing ourselves by pleasing other people. But another thing is oftentimes when we think we’re pleasing other people, they don’t realize that we’re going out of our way to to do this. And again, as I mentioned, I have an experience of this in my personal life where I thought I was going out of my way to meet someone else’s needs when in fact she didn’t see that situation at all, or she thought that she just it just didn’t even register with her that I was going out of my way to to meet her needs or to to kind of meet her more than halfway, let’s say. So those are the 5 different imposter identities. I’ll I’ll repeat them for you again. So there’s the overachiever, the comparer, the success bearer, the procrastinator, and the people pleaser.

Aoife O’Brien [00:11:37]:

And you can take the assessment. I’ll put a link to both the individual and the leader assessment. So the leader is more looking at other people, looking at the impact on your team. I’ll put the link to both of those in the show notes. And on the topic of the 3 c’s, I will be doing a future episode about the 3 c’s, within the thriving talent framework. So the 3 t three c’s of thriving talent are career, culture, and capabilities. I will be talking about that in a future episode, so keep an eye or an ear out for that. And thank you so much for tuning in today.

Aoife O’Brien [00:12:12]:

If you enjoyed today’s podcast episode, feel free to give a rating or review on your favorite pop podcast platform. I always love hearing from listeners, so I really, really appreciate if you’ve already done that. Really appreciate it. And if you haven’t yet, what’s stopping you?