Beating Imposter Syndrome enables Inclusive and Diverse Leadership & Talent Pipeline
We know that inclusive diverse teams deliver better results. Yet it remains a challenge to create and maintain a diverse leadership talent pool, in particular to enable minorities such as women to get to the most senior roles in many areas of business. To achieve this, we need to recruit women and enable their success in role. Many members of minority groups suffer from Imposter Syndrome. This limits their chance to be the best they can be, enjoy success when they do achieve it, to thrive in roles and thus to contribute to the development of truly inclusive senior leadership culture.
We provide:
- one-to-one coaching for people taking on new challenges, to enable them to beat Imposter feelings and succeed
- interactive seminars for groups / teams, which help to unlock understanding, behaviours and support of each other, to beat Imposter Syndrome. Including - what is Imposter Syndrome & why it happens, how the behaviours ‘reward’ and limit us, practical steps to beat the feelings, increase confidence, & so enjoy & increase your success.
of us experience imposter feelings.
*More about Imposter Syndrome
People experience Imposter Syndrome when they dismiss their accomplishments and the recognition of others, and fear their success will disappear when others find out the awful secret that they are in fact imposters! We can refer to this as ‘Fear of being found out’.
70% of successful people experience imposter feelings at some point in their life.*
“People experiencing Imposter Syndrome often unconsciously overcompensate with crippling perfectionism, over-preparation, maintaining a low profile, withholding their talents & opinions, or never finishing important projects. When they do succeed they think, ‘Phew, I fooled ‘em again’.” Valerie Young, The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, 2011
Confidence is the most significant differentiator of high performing individuals and teams. Life is not a test but a constant wonderful opportunity to learn. Seeing that you really can do the things you thought you could not, in turn generates confidence. As we build self confidence, we are a positive role model for others and enable the individuals and teams who work with us.
Imposter Syndrome is real. The great news is every one of us can identify and get over it, increase our confidence, and enjoy increasing our success as never before.
We can even learn to identify and manage the behaviours of some others who live at the other end of the confidence spectrum – those who have Irrational Self-Confidence Syndrome (!), a term coined by the Rocky Mountain news reporter Erica Heath, to describe the unjustifiably confident.
Valerie Young is an internationally known workshop leader, speaker and writer in the area of Imposter Syndrome. Her book ‘The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women’ is enlightened, insightful and actionable. I am delighted to have discovered Valerie, and to learn from her ever evolving thought leadership in this area. https://impostorsyndrome.com
* study conducted by psychologist Gail Matthews, 1984