Epiphanies for Everybody
Conquering Impostor Syndrome
As many as 82% of people suffer from Impostor Syndrome at one point or another[1]. It is one of the most common and misunderstood phenomena faced by people everywhere. Tech leaders are no exception.
First, what is Impostor Syndrome?
Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, fraud syndrome, perceived fraudulence, or impostor experience) describes high-achieving individuals who, despite their objective successes, fail to internalize their accomplishments and have persistent self-doubt and fear of being exposed as a fraud or impostor.[1]
Whether it's a developer that's mentoring other developers, or a CTO that's responsible for an organisation's tech and tech people, Impostor Syndrome affects us all. Often those that suffer from it do so in silence, fearing that they're the only one, and that it says something about them as a person, or their performance.
What's more, many people are reluctant to talk about it because opening up means being vulnerable, and vulnerability is often mistaken for weakness or incompetence. Rather than sharing their experience, which enables growth in addition to vulnerability, we stay safe, and stagnant.
How do you know if you have Impostor Syndrome
Impostor Syndrome happens when external signs point to competence, or excellence, but our internal feelings don't match. In order for there to be a mismatch, first we have to be good at what we do. If the external indicators agree with our internal indicators, we don't have Impostor Syndrome.
If we consider the 4 stages of competence, above, Impostor Syndrome can only happen at the top 2. At the bottom level, we don't have the skills for competence. That means that if we feel like an Impostor, or we're in a job that we think we don't know how to do, we're right. We can learn the right skills, but we don't have them, yet. Overestimation of competence is far more likely to happen at this level.
At the second level, it's clear to us that we don't know what we're doing. But at least we know what the gap is. We recognise two things: the skills required, and our lack. An honest assessment of our capabilities by an outside party would find that we don't have the skills. Again, we can learn the skills to do well. Feeling like an Impostor at this level is more a result of knowing our skills are lacking, and trying to do the work, anyway.
Between levels 2 and 3 is where Impostor Syndrome tends to turn up. We've gone from incompetent to competent, as well have learned. But the transition is often fuzzy, and we can cross the boundary without knowing it.
As competence progreses through level 3 and into level 4, Impostor Syndrome gets worse. Because we've never felt competent, success rings hollow. Praise seems insincere, and feedback seems inaccurate. But the people outside us are just telling us what they're experiencing. The ongoing doubt is within. Now when our internal feelings don't match external reality, it's because we think we're worse than we are rather than better.
And the fourth level is where it gets bad. We are, by all accounts, very competent by now. We no longer have to consciously think about the things that make us competent. Any internal voice telling us otherwise is in conflict with observable reality.
Common Approaches to Coping
Many of us react to that internal voice by looking external solutions. As a result, many of us learn new skills, find new jobs, or seek promotions, in an attempt to silence it. Unfortunately, Impostor Syndrome doesn't come from outside, so external solutions don't work. In fact, much of the time, they make things worse. If we feel like a fraud at one job, there's virtually no chance that finding a new job will make that feeling go away.
There is no magic skill, or pill, that makes Impostor Syndrome go away.
External vs Internal
So if external changes don't work, what do? and why?
Start with awareness that Impostor Syndrome isn't a reflection of reality. As we've established, you can only have Impostor Syndrome when you're good at what you do. Impostor Syndrome is about us, and the way we see ourselves. When we seek promotion, new skills, or new roles, we're looking for external validation. But Impostor Syndrome comes from within. It's what happens when our internal self-assessment, or self-belief, doesn't match what reality is telling us. No amount of external validation is going to resolve it.
In fact, external validation often makes things worse, because it increases the gap between what we believe about ourselves and what we're being told by others. The more external accolades we get, whether it's a promotion, raise, or award, the stronger Impostor Syndrome gets.
We often aspire to external measures of success. We think we should be a staff engineer, a CTO, or win an award. We think we should learn something, because somebody else knows it, or should pick up a particular leadership habit, because the people we read say they use it. When we look for solutions outside ourselves, we end up going after things without regard for how they fit into what we want, already know, or are good at. Our approach becomes piecemeal, rather than part of a united whole. It's as if, by seeking external validation, we're building ourselves into Frankenstein's Monster.
Feeling capable comes from within. When we do things because we choose to, we achieve harmony. New habits and behaviour are adopted because they fit who we are. Everything feels coherent. It's like we're becoming our best selves.
The resolution to Impostor Syndrome must come from within.
Conquering Impostor Syndrome
At its core, dealing with Impostor Syndrome is simple. That's not the same as saying it's easy, by any means. There are 3 steps:
Baseline Competence
Internal Focus
Share the Journey
Let's explore each one.
Baseline Competence
As we talked about above, Impostor Syndrome only happens when we are competent by external measures, but our internal measures suggest we're not.
So, In order for us to properly tackle Impostor Syndrome, first we have to know whether we're competent. If we aren't, then skills are a perfectly good way to make progress. If we are competent, more skills won't improve our self-assessment.
The is one of the only times where an external view is helpful. Sometimes, in order to know whether we're doing the work well, we need somebody else to tell us. Once they've told us we're competent, continuing to seek approval from outsiders becomes a form of validation, rather than being helpful.
(By the way, if you aren't sure sure about your competence, and you haven't had any luck getting the feedback you need to help you grow, my book on Effective Feedback may be helpful)
Internal Focus
Shifting from an external to an internal focus comes next. Rather than do things because we think we should, it's time to do things because they matter to us. The first step to doing what matters to us is figuring it out. Lots of us don't have a clear idea of what's driving us, and that makes it hard to know what to do, or try. Whether it's sharing knowledge, helping others, forming connections, or power, we all have things that drive us.
Taking the time to understand ourselves is one of the most impactful ways to deal with Impostor Syndrome. It's possible to align our habits, behaviours, and practices, which leaves less room for self-doubt. Taking the time to consciously think about what things fit into who we are, and want to be, and which don't, enables us to keep or discard things that help or hinder us. Keep what fits, discard the rest.
Once we know what drive us, we can consider new things from the perspective of how we can adopt them while staying true to ourselves (sometimes we find that we can't, and that's OK). Often the same habit or skill can be seen or applied in different ways, some of which are great fits, and some of which are not.
Share the Journey
We all have blind spots; things we can't see, no matter how much we try. Working with somebody external, whether it's a therapist, coach, or mentor, can provide an outside perspective that can help us better understand ourselves. When looking for somebody to share the journey with, it's important that:
They have no power over us,
We're comfortable confiding in them,
We believe they have our best interests at heart.
In order for them to help, they need to understand our internal drivers and values. We want them to understand us, because they're going to ask us about things when our behaviour doesn't match our values. They're going to help us see ourselves as we are, and to do that, they need to see us as we are.
I worked with somebody who had been a tech executive for about a year. During that time, they regularly worried that they didn't have the skills to do the job, despite what their CEO, peers, and DRs said. They looked at what other CTOs were doing and saw them immersed in the code, or getting their hands dirty. But they didn't. They spent their time building bridges between teams, and among the executive, ensuring that communication flowed easily and everybody was connected to who they needed to be.
By all accounts, they were very good at their role. But they couldn't stop comparing themselves to others, or worrying that their team didn't respect them because they hadn't done a particular role, or had a particular skillset.
During the course of our work together, they came to see that the skills they had were the ones the role desperately needed. The skills they missed were things that others could provide. But their skillset was critical and missing in the company. As their focus shifted from externalised expectations to an internal view of what mattered and what they were great at, their concerns faded and they were able to focus on doing great work, without wondering whether they really belonged there.
Working with someone outside ourselves, whose goal is to help us see ourselves, helps us connect external reality and our internal viewpoint in ways that we struggle with on our own. It helps shift our focus from external expectations to internal desires. It can take a while, but when that shift finally happens, Impostor Syndrome fades away.
Conquering Impostor Syndrome takes time. It's not easy, but it is possible. Because it's an internal phenomenon, no amount of external validation will make it go away. Instead, competence, inward focus, and a confidant (whose purpose is to help use see ourselves), are key.
p.s. If you liked this, and want an ebook version that you can keep, you can find it here: https://noahcantor.com/impostor-syndrome
Footnotes