Have you ever had the feeling that you didn’t deserve a promotion at work? Such chronic self-doubt is rarely voiced, yet it affects most of us and is almost always unfounded. Could coaching help us ‘own’ our success?
By SUZANNE DOYLE-MORRIS
Have you ever been promoted and then felt totally out of your depth working with your new colleagues or clients? At any moment they’re going to discover that you really don’t know what you’re doing.
I remember that feeling as a new coach, particularly in phone sessions. During my earliest calls I covered my desk with a painstakingly constructed list of ‘powerful questions’ and copious reading – hoping that it would shield me from what I now know to be ‘imposter syndrome’.
It’s not a feeling limited to coaches either but a real emotion experienced by most of our clients at some time in their lives, if not on an ongoing basis. It’s our role as coaches to identify those feelings in our clients and help them take ownership of their achievements.
Make it work
Discuss with the client the other times when they felt like an imposter. Simply knowing that this can be a normal and temporary feeling at the start of a new challenge often helps put things in perspective.
Does the client need to be ‘right’ all the time in order not to feel like an imposter?
When does the client feel most confident? Some people feel exposed when giving formal presentations but they are often more relaxed in an interactive session involving questions.
Fatal flaws
Ignoring the evidence. Ask the client about any feedback they have received from colleagues. Have they ever been criticised for not knowing what they were doing? Often the main criticism comes from within the client – and has little grounding in the perceptions of others.
Forgetting to ask the bigger questions. How is this sense that the client is about to be found out – their lack of confidence – affecting them? And what impact is it having on their team?
What is ‘imposter syndrome’?
The term first came into use in the 1970s when two psychologists from the US noted that many of their high-achieving female clients couldn’t take credit for their own achievements. Instead they would credit any successes to luck, serendipity, good contacts, timing, perseverance – even the ability to fake confidence.
For example, even when I got verbal confirmation that I had been accepted by the University of Cambridge to do my PhD, I waited until the official letter arrived before telling anyone – in case there had been a mistake.
My own clients will often say they admit they may have achieved the degree, got the job, worked their way up the career ladder, yet still they fear that at any moment they will be ‘found out’ for not really knowing what they are doing.
Often the cycle undermines confidence and increases the cyclical pattern of self-doubt. The client feels she is not good enough, that she could only do better if she knew more, worked harder, had more hours in the day. But perfection is always just out of reach. In fact, knowing how common imposter syndrome can be, is often the first step is reassuring the client that they are not alone.
For example, at a workshop I ran on risk-taking and vercoming indecision, one of the delegates, a woman with a PhD in a scientific field, admitted quietly to the larger group that she often felt like a fraud. I asked the group who else among them had felt that way at times and every single hand was raised – much to the woman’s relief. She cried out: “I thought I was the only one!”
Make it work
What did the client think when other colleagues did not know an answer or had been new to a job? Often clients don’t judge others as harshly as they judge themselves.
What has the client been hired to do? Are they are expected to know everything and to be doing all things perfectly?
Has the client received any criticism? If so, look for the nugget of development, but also work on how the client can push back and ask for support if they need it.
Fatal flaws
Not understanding how frustrating it is for the client when you tell them, “it’ll be fine” or “it’s no big deal”, when they are facing a major challenge. It IS a big deal to them, and appreciating it as such is the first step to building rapport in the coaching contract.
Not addressing how they can speed up their learning curve. Is there a relevant course or literature? Even great icons in history faced self-doubt.
Breaking the cycle
Clients who experience imposter syndrome may shy away from challenges and shrug off achievements by saying, “Those people are not like me” or “I was lucky”. This can keep clients from owning their successes or pinpointing the role they had in bringing about a good result. I see this all the time, for example, when a successful professional addresses an audience. Invariably someone will ask the speaker how she reached her position. She will reply, “I got lucky”.
There are two problems with this. First, the woman cannot own her accomplishments if she feels she was just in the “right place at the right time”. Second, and disappointingly for the audience, it gives no guidance to younger professionals looking to emulate her success.
You are lucky or you are not. If there is nothing you can do to tilt the odds in your favour, why try? Yes, this type of modesty has a great deal to do with societal expectations of gender and culture. But I would love to see a speaker respond with, “I worked really hard, sought the smartest opportunities and helped as many people as I could along the way. If I can do it you can too.”
Anything less perpetuates the cycle of chronic self-doubt that affects both the ‘imposters’ and the next generation who are watching.
Volume 5, Issue 2