TSLH #014: 3 Tips To Defeat The Impostor Syndrome

08 Apr TSLH #014: 3 Tips To Defeat The Impostor Syndrome

Read time: 4 minutes

Last week, I was coaching a senior manager and she told me: “I feel like a fraud having to steal your time to talk about my problems, because you are a busy CFO and you for sure have other things to do than take some time for me.”

I was surprised by her statement and after coaching her on what she really felt, it dawned on me that what she was really experiencing was a typical manifestation of impostor syndrome.

The impostor syndrome is an internal psychological experience of feeling like a weird person in some areas of your life or career, even though you have achieved many successes in these areas. It often manifests itself as constant self-doubt about abilities or about being worthy of something or someone.

When the impostor syndrome hits you, you may attribute your successes to external factors or luck rather than your own skills, and this despite strong evidence of your expertise and competence for the job.

Hints that you may be prone to impostor syndrome are procrastination and over-preparation. When you complete tasks using these approaches, you tend to dismiss positive feedback about achieving the task and focus instead on the “fraud” you are because of the stress and self-doubt generated by completing the task.

Take a pause here and think about situations where you procrastinated or you tried to over-achieve and make something perfect. Reflect on these questions:

• What was the situation like? What made me procrastinate or try to be perfect?
• How did I feel about the whole situation? What emotions did I experience?
• What were my strengths or skills that I clearly had and that I exhibited on that situation, although I did not recognize them as such then?

You see, most leaders, at a point or another in their career, will experience the impostor syndrome. In the worst cases, this condition can lead to depression and high anxiety. It is therefore key for you as a leader to recognize when you may fall prey to the impostor syndrome and be ready to counter-attack.

Here are 3 tips I give you for practice and use to defeat the impostor syndrome:

Stay self-aware. This is something I repeat week after week in this newsletter. Being self-aware is likely the most critical skill you can have as a leader. You must work on yourself, understand your values and strengths and be fully aware of how you use them in your leadership role to stop thinking you are a fraud. Useful questions to ask yourself regularly to defeat the impostor syndrome are:

• How did I get where I am? What specifically did I achieve that had people believe in me and putting me in the leadership position I occupy today?
• What goals and accomplishments did I achieve in order for me to become the leader I am now?
• What processes did I follow to achieve the successes that led me to my leadership role? How did I use them? Where am I still using them to continue being a successful leader?

Stop being a perfectionist. A frequent consequence of the impostor syndrome is that people will tend to go the extra mile in everything they do to make it pristine and avoid any possibility that someone could criticize their work or reveal them as a fraud for the job they do.

In other words, people are aiming for perfection to prove to everyone they’re not a fraud. The result of this is often anxiety, stress, loss of energy, and in the worst circumstances, this can lead to burn-outs.

When you are self-aware, you will realize that you are trying to reach for 100% perfection and at times you will be able to become reasonable and get the work done without it being perfect. And this will be fine, because the work will already be good enough.

If you have a hard time spotting these times, I recommend you make a note of using the pareto rule in everything you do. The Pareto rule, also known as the 80-20 rule essentially says that spending 20% of your time on a task will get you to 80% completion. So the question becomes “do you really want to invest 80% of your time to get that task/activity only marginally better?”

Here are 3 activities where using the Pareto rule will ensure you fight the urge of reaching 100% perfection and help you fight the impostor syndrome:

1. When making decisions, focus on the first 20% of the time you allocate to talking about an issue to collect 80% of the fact. And then get into action with what you have. Any decision you make at this point will not materially change if you spend the rest of your time on collecting the missing 20% facts.
2. When leading your team, let them do as much of the talk as possible. Ask questions, let people come up with 80% of the ideas, just contribute when they’re stuck. A great question you can ask your team is “What alternatives do you see to address this issue?” Trusting people and empowering them to find solutions will relieve you of the mental stress of having to come up with all the ideas. It will help you fight the impostor syndrome and the feeling that “if I don’t bring ideas, they will see I am a fraud as a leader.”
3. When working on any activity (preparing a presentation, etc.), focus 80% of your time on the 20% things that matter to the audience and that add value to what it is you do. Discard all the rest.

And here are 2 more pieces of advice to consider to stop being a perfectionist and fight the impostor syndrome:

• Stop comparing yourself to others, including your role models. You might be aiming too high thinking you want to be like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs. By all means, if you want to compare yourself to others, compare yourself with people with similar abilities. And even better, don’t compare yourself to anyone.
• Accept your failures and that you will fail again. Accept the shame that you may feel and that is associated with these failures. Accept the fact that you can’t be brilliant every time or at everything. This is OK! Nobody is asking that from you!

Fight procrastination. Like I said above, one negative consequence of being hit by the impostor syndrome is that you may start to procrastinate. You will think “How can I do that the best way so people don’t see I am a fraud?” or “What should I do to prove my worth?” or “How should I decide about this when I am not qualified?”

Getting out of procrastination is key in order for you to focus on your leadership and not be engulfed in the impostor syndrome. Here are 5 tips for you to stop procrastinating when you see yourself do it:

1. Take time to relax and breathe, possibly exercise some, take a break, isolate yourself.
2. Write down the things you will be grateful for when you reach your desired outcome for the activity you need to undertake.
3. Remind yourself that your fear and resulting procrastination is your entry point to wisdom: What is your fear telling you? What are you learning from it? How do you counter the impostor syndrome from what you have learned? These are all good questions to ask yourself.
4. Acknowledge your courage and resolution to go forward and get things done.
5. Ask for help, talk to someone. Remember, being a leader can really feel like being alone at the helm, but this is also not completely true: Your team can help, other people can help. See point #2 again, nobody asks you to be perfect, especially so in your leadership role. When you need help, ask for it!

So, practice these 3 things, one at a time, until you get them automatically. Then you will be in a much better position to defeat the impostor syndrome.

I wish you a great read. I’ll see you next Saturday!

TL; DR (Too Long, Did not Read)

3 tips to defeat the impostor syndrome

1. Stay self-aware.
2. Stop being a perfectionist.
3. Fight procrastination.

Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1️⃣ Work 1-1 with me to step up as the authentic leader you aspire to be.

2️⃣ Hire me to help you build a high-performing team.

3️⃣ Start with my affordable digital courses on Mastering Difficult Conversations for Leaders and Goal Setting