Tackling Imposter Syndrome in Your Team

High-Performance Executive Newsletter: Uplevel your success with less stress.

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The three essentials for high performance are neuroregulation (to get and stay calm), clearing negative self-talk and the beliefs that create it (including imposter syndrome), and creating new success habits.

This week, we're looking at imposter syndrome in high-performance teams.

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Tackling Imposter Syndrome in Your Teams

Over 70% of high-achievers experience imposter syndrome, which means that it will always be common in your teams. You may not spot it because people keep it a secret. They keep it a secret because they think it’s a weakness, a character trait or a flaw (it’s none of these).

Imposter syndrome: the secret feeling of being a fraud (when you’re not) and the fear of being found out.

Neither is it a medical dysfunction, a gender issue, or a beginner’s issue; it doesn't go away with time or experience, and it's not a mindset problem.

But it does cause significant problems.

The High Cost of Imposter Syndrome

On a personal level, imposter syndrome symptoms (thoughts, physiological stress and coping behaviours) create huge stress. It looks like self-doubt, overthinking, self-criticism and feeling like your success was just luck. It’s a sense that while you know (logically) that you’re capable and competent internally, you can’t help feeling that you’re not quite good enough.

These thoughts create stress that drives coping behaviours that keep you out of the spotlight (hiding opinions, avoiding opportunities, deflecting praise), which can slow or halt your career. Or the coping behaviours are striving to be ‘better’ (e.g. perfectionism, comparing, chasing unneeded qualifications, over-preparing) and lead to exhaustion, overwhelm, burnout or quitting.

The physiological stress of imposter syndrome triggers your system into fight/flight/freeze states, which makes you emotionally reactive, increases risk-taking, affects decision-making, and reduces IQ by 13 points and creativity by 50%.

All in all, imposter syndrome wreaks havoc with your performance, energy, mood, focus and career.

It’s a big deal!

When your team members suffer from imposter syndrome, they not only underperform for their capabilities but are also overstressed and unhappy. They have a greater chance of suffering burnout or quitting their careers. And it has nothing to do with their talents, skills, personality or mindset!

What’s Really Going On

The root cause of imposter syndrome is a false belief that most people hold. Dr Carl Rogers, a grandfather of personal psychology, identified this belief in the 1950s.

This belief does not come from trauma, poor parenting, lousy school experiences, or personality. In fact, 99.95% of people hold this belief, and most are unaware of it. The belief is like the proverbial fish being unaware of the water around it because it is a constant and feels normal.

This false belief is that your worth as a human is not constant but can vary depending on what you do. That is, you do something good; you are good, or you do something bad; you are bad.

It erroneously conflates your worth with your actions.

Sabotaging Neuro-regulation

This unconscious belief doesn’t sound too terrible! However, it causes the threat-detecting part of your brain to see the situation as a danger. Think of a caveman being judged to be unworthy and kicked out of the tribe; the result would be death. Hence, the belief triggers the nervous system and the cascade of performance-harming thoughts, feelings, and actions mentioned above.

At its heart, imposter syndrome is a normal, healthy reaction to a perceived threat. The only real problem is that the threat is false.

What Can You Do?

The ultimate, permanent solution to imposter syndrome is to change the false belief that drives it. Modern neuroscience shows how we can do this, and that’s exactly what my one-to-one Inner Success programme does.

However, there are also things that you, as a leader, can do to help reduce its impact.

Firstly, building awareness is key. People often feel that their self-doubt, distress and behaviour patterns are a flaw, or their personality. They feel embarrassed or frustrated because they think it’s a weakness. It makes them feel isolated and like they don’t belong, and feeds into the self-doubt.

Educating your team about imposter syndrome, or even just acknowledging that it’s not a weakness, can be helpful.

How you interact with your team can impact too. Be sure to praise or criticise their ideas or actions, not the person. Separate actions and worth/identity as much as you can. In internal competitions, make the distinction that someone being better at something does not make them better than others.

Rigorously weed out negative cultural patterns, such as bullying, that trigger the nervous system. Learn and model neuro-regulation (tools to quickly calm down your nervous system if it’s been triggered).

Normalise positive cultural patterns, for example, that asking for and accepting help is okay. After all, you’re a team with a shared business goal, not sitting a school exam. Watch out for signs of burnout (such as exhaustion and irritability) and make sure ambitious goals are agreed to, not reluctantly conceded to.

Imposter syndrome is a pervasive issue that affects over 70% of high-achievers, impacting performance, well-being, and career progress within teams. As a leader, raising awareness about imposter syndrome, mindful leading, and fostering a supportive, positive culture can help reduce its impact. By promoting open dialogue, separating actions from self-worth, and emphasizing teamwork, you can help your team thrive and perform at their best without the burden of imposter syndrome.

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What I’ve loved this week:

Business Book Awards 2024!

I was thrilled that my latest book, Outsmart Imposter Syndrome, was a Finalist in the 2024 Business Book Awards! Last week was the Awards Ceremony and black-tie dinner. It was inspirational, exciting, uplifting and a lot of fun!

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An action step you can do this week …

This week, simply pay attention to where you and the people around you reinforce the belief that actions = worth. The more you are aware of this, the more easily you can avoid falling into the ‘conditional worth’ thinking.

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I’ll take more of a look at imposter syndrome and high-performance teams in future newsletters.

Do subscribe and share!

Three Spots Left!

In October, I’m starting my big imposter syndrome project! I’m training a group of experienced executive coaches to deliver my best-in-class, one-to-one Inner Success programme, which changes the belief that causes imposter syndrome.

These coaches need confidential practice clients to take through the whole 13-week programme, fully supervised by me.

I have just three places left for clients - you get the full, massive transformation for only £975 + VAT (That’s just 13% of normal rates!!)

If imposter syndrome has been dragging you (or someone you know) down or holding you back, sign up now, it’s a fantastic opportunity!

Click here for details: https://bit.ly/2024IS-Client

Have an excellent, refreshing and recharging weekend!

Tara

P.S. Thank you for reading to the end of the newsletter, I appreciate your interest and attention!