What if there’s no such thing as the Imposter Syndrome?
Morning everybody, Dr. Robyn McKay here and welcome to this episode of Mindset Rx. I'm your host, and you are in the right place, if you are an emotionally intelligent leader who is ready to set the tone for a positive, productive, and purposeful week, life, career, however you wanna think about it. We're all about being on purpose here, and today's episode is inspired by a piece that I saw recently, it was actually published back in February of this year in the Harvard Business Review. The title of it is, Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome.
When I saw that the other day, I thought, oh boy, here we go. This is a good one, this is a good one for us because in addition, of course, to really focusing on positivity and productivity and purposeful-ness in our lives and in our careers, what I'm always... I've always been invested in, is diversity, inclusion, and belonging. And this is definitely a piece that fits right into that as well, so whether you're here live with me, I'd love to hear from you if you're watching the recording from the LinkedIn live broadcast or you're listening to the podcast on your favorite podcast app, I'm happy to have you here with me. So say hello. And let's go ahead and dive in.
As we always do, I always like to start with just a mindfulness practice just to get us present, I think that we spend so much time... So much time. Go, go, go. We hit the ground running first thing in the morning. It's always good to just tune in and tap in and bring yourself into the present moment. So let's go ahead and breathe in and breathe out, notice your feet, notice your hands, and then even see if you can notice the felt sensation of your clothing, the fabric of your clothing on your skin. Just see if you can just notice that.
And then I'm being aware of my hips on my chair so I can feel the chair pressing up on my hips and my hips pressing down. And I'm even aware of the overhead fan I have going in my office, how there's a cool little cool breeze. That's wafting around me. Maybe you can notice that too, and take one more big deep breath in and let it go. And then let's go ahead and get started today. I'm gonna have a sip of water before we get into this, this hypothesis I have... What if there's no such thing as the Imposter Syndrome?
I wanna start with a story. The first time I ever heard of Imposter Syndrome was many years ago. I think I was right around 30, it might have been 29. Somewhere in that area. I had gotten my undergrad, I was working in the pharmaceutical industry as a medical writer and a scientist, and I remember distinctly feeling like I was different from other people. Everyone else around me was older, they were in their 40s and 50s who were doing this work with me, they were highly educated, I had a Bachelor's Degree at the time, and they all had PhDs, and there were some other differences that just made me kind of feel different than the people around me, but I didn't have a name for it certainly, and as I continued my own just personal development journey, what I started to feel inside just very clearly was that I kept on getting promoted and I kept on having all of these accomplishments of following me, even though I didn't have an advanced degree yet, even though I had spent most of my 20s in depression and anxiety.
That's something that's part of my story that I like to share with people. So that kind of understand where I come from. So what I came to realize internally was that I was afraid that somebody was gonna find out, they were gonna find out that I wasn't as smart or as accomplished, or that I had been fooling them, I'd been fooling them, with my... Somehow, I don't even know what my thought process was, but I felt like somebody was gonna find out, that I wasn't as good or as smart or as accomplished as I had led them to believe, even though I was doing nothing to suggest that there would be anything that they could find out about me. In other words, I was very transparent about my career. So there wasn't any overt anything going on other than an internal incongruence with myself, and it turns out as I started studying counseling psychology, and I really started focusing on the psychology of gifted and talented women, I discovered this phenomenon called the Imposter Syndrome, so this was back in about 2001, 2002, something like that. And when I heard that term Imposter Syndrome, it kind of... It was like all the bells went off for me like, oh my gosh, that's what I have, that's what's going on for me.
And as it turns out, the Imposter Syndrome is a, I'm calling it a syndrome with air quotes because it's not diagnostic or anything like that. You won't find it in the DSM or anything, but it is something that occurs pretty regularly in highly accomplished, high-achieving women, and that's where the term was actually developed back in the 1970s, was to explain this phenomenon that they were seeing in women, particularly those who were going into at the time primarily male-dominated fields, and going into leadership in those fields feeling very different, feeling like somebody was gonna find them out for not being as good or as accomplished as they had led other people to believe.
So in 2000, when I discovered this term, it all kind of... There was something inside of me that it just all kind of made sense. I had a lot of success in my early life, I then went into this depression and anxiety in my early 20s, it lasted probably about seven or eight years actually, and that really created the conditions for this sense of not belonging or sense of being... Worried about being found out is not as good as everyone else started to arise.
So I wanna start with that story just to kind of help you understand my position on this from a personal perspective, but also from a professional perspective as a psychologist because this is something that when I work with accomplished men and women actually, there are... As time goes on, we understand that a lot of people have this experience of not feeling like they fit in.
Well, the authors of this Harvard Business Review article had suggested, rightfully so, that perhaps we ought to start blaming the people who are experiencing Imposter Syndrome, it's not their fault. Maybe it's not my fault that I felt like I was different from everybody else. And they also suggested that we have to stop telling people that that's what they have, if they feel different, if they feel out of place in their teams, in their jobs, in their positions, maybe we ought to stop telling them that they have the Imposter Syndrome because maybe they don't, maybe they don't.
Back in the '70s, when this term Imposter Syndrome was coined, diversity, inclusion and belonging was something that nobody was ever really even thinking about, there was a wave of feminism coming through and that was kind of the focus of it, of white women, but the diversity, inclusion and belonging, movement and intention was just in its infancy. So there wasn't a lot of conversations on just how systems and structures that are set up in these organizations set the tone and create the conditions for people who are not of the majority culture to feel out of place.
And just to be clear, what the authors in the article talk about with regard to majority culture is heteronormative, white, and masculine. So if you're not straight, if you are not a masculine male, if you're not white, the chances are you're going to feel like you don't fit in. That's not your fault. That's the conditions that you're walking into, that's the system and the structures. So the cool thing, the cool thing about, if there is a cool thing about understanding that it's a systems in structures, it is, it really takes the pressure off of us as people who are not of majority... Now listen, I get it, I'm white and I'm heteronormative, I'm straight, but I am female, and I know that I'm closer to the center of power and privilege than a lot of people... So I understand that, and yet I'm not at the center of power and privilege, and when I talk about that, when we talk about a heteronormative culture, the other... The vernacular of that is the bro culture. Sports are on the menu in terms of what people are gonna be talking about at the in-beat on Slack or in between meetings or whatever, and it can just create the conditions for... If you're not that kind of person who's going to engage in those kinds of conversations, the likelihood is that you're gonna feel out of place.
So I hope this is making sense. I wanted to... This isn't a solution focus... I'm always solution-focused, but this isn't a solution-focused necessarily, conversation today, but I wanna get us to a place where we can start to recognize that if somebody's feeling like they don't belong, there are external circumstances, there are structures and systems in place to create the very conditions that would enable them, if you will, to feel that way.
So it's one thing to know that there's a problem, that the systems and structures that have been created over the generations in organizations, have created the conditions for people who aren't straight, white, and male to feel out of place. And we see this over and over again. I would like to think in 2021, we're not still having this conversation, but we are, so I will continue to have the conversation and educate, but I wanna talk about the things that we can do, especially because I noticed who RSVP'd for this LinkedIn live today for this event today, and there are white males who are here with us today, and I wanna thank you for being there, I thank everyone for being here. But I think that there's something important that people at the center of power and privilege can do to start dismantling the systems and the structures that have been in place to keep other people... People who don't look like you, who are LGBTQ+, who are not white, who have brown skin or black skin, who are women, who are foreigners who have come into, for example, into Western culture from somewhere else to work, who have great brains in their heads and great ideas and great ways of thinking about things, but who may never have the opportunity to show up in a way that you show up because of the differences that they experience, because of their distance from the center of privilege.
So if you're somebody who does sit close to the center of power and privilege, you have an opportunity here and a responsibility, I believe. So the opportunity and responsibility is this, is to start recognizing when I'm gonna call it bro culture starts cropping up in conversation. Listen, I love baseball, the World Series is starting tonight, but there's only so much baseball I could talk about with stats, and spin, and velocity, and spin rate, and all the things, and the dead arm that Scherzer had or whatever, I can talk about those for a little bit. But what we're approaching now in 2021, in this time of the great resignation, when people who are really looking at, why am I doing this work? Why am I here? They're at an existential crossroads, and there may be, and there already is actually a great loss of talent.
So if you're wanting to preserve talent, you're gonna wanna start doing something different in your everyday life, you're gonna wanna start noticing when bro culture comes up. I wanna give you an example of that? And I'm aware, I'm gonna go a little bit over our 15 minutes alloted. But this is an important topic.
So this has been a little while ago, it was when I was at ASU, Arizona State University working as a psychologist. I was running my Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Program, and I had been invited to the Girl Scout Council in the Phoenix area because they were revamping their women in STEM badge. So all of the curriculum that goes around along with getting the STEM badge. I was thrilled to be invited. I was a STEM girl myself, I got my first microscope when I was 10 and majored in Biology and worked in pharma for a long time before getting my PhD in Psychology, so I was very... I was a perfect person to be on this advisory board. So I went to the Girl Scout Council, I look around the room, it's a great... The optics were great, like the people in charge of this had done a wonderful job of inviting people that reflected the community that they served, there was a mix of men and women, there were...
It was diverse on a lot of different levels, all races, different perspectives from education and training and so on, so it was a really good mix of people. At the end of the Girl Scout leaders presentation, she had done a nice slide pack on, here's our plan, this is what we're thinking about, she opened up the floor to conversation to ask questions, and in fact, that's what she ended her presentation with. Are there any questions? So I sat in the room with... Let's say there were 30 other people in the room, half men have women, we're just gonna do a gender split at this moment.
And I knew this, but I had never really observed it playing out in real time. I know that when men hear the phrase... Are there any questions? They take that as generally, not all men do, but generally speaking, they'll take that just as an opportunity to say what they think, to share their thoughts, to extend the conversation. When women hear that same question, what do women do, generally speaking, unless we're aware of it, if we don't have any questions, we don't say anything, because we don't have any questions. I didn't have any questions. She was very clear about what she was doing, she was very clear on what their vision was and how they were going to carry this new STEM badge out. I didn't have any questions. So I watched as an accountant as three or four white, powerful men started to speak about what direction the Girl Scout Council should take their women in STEM badge. And I thought, holy smokes, this is so interesting. And at the same time, I was acutely aware that I was a part of this, I was a part of watching, I'm not...
And listen, I'm not blaming the guys for having... For just doing what they do, they just do what they do, and if they're unconscious or if they're unaware of the impact of their actions, they need to be aware of it. And I found myself in a really interesting position of being the one to notice and to recognize what was happening in the room.
So after the third or fourth guy spoke, I had to have an inner conversation with myself, an inner dialogue about how are you gonna handle this McKay because this is not okay. As I watched women, women of color, fade, lean back, be quiet, and the leader started losing the room. After the third or fourth guy spoke, I spoke up, and this is the approach I took, and it's one that I want to recommend that if you are ever in a similar position and you start noticing who's dominating the conversation regardless of who you are, but especially if you are close to the center of power and privilege, this is a really important responsibility for you to notice, and so I just simply said, what I was aware of. I said, I'm aware that the first four people who have spoken today have been men, and I'm also aware that we have a very diverse group of people here, a lot of whom are women, and I'm also aware that this badge is for girls, and so what I would love to do is open up the conversation and hear from some other voices, because I know that there are a lot of people in this room who have really good ideas, and I would like to hear from some of them.
Well, that was... It was one of those moments where I just knew that that was... And I'm not telling you this to get any accolades or anything like that, it just is... I just wanna give you that example of, how I made a decision to change the conversation. Because I couldn't allow the conversation to be steam-rolled or squashed by people who inadvertently or unconsciously, I'll say, were just doing what they were doing. So we changed the conversation and opened it up to a lot of different people and being able to have opinions and share their opinions with the Girl Scout leader and with the collective in order to advance the conversation around what we're gonna do with this girl scout badge.
So at the end, I'll just flash forward to that, at the end, several people came up to me and thanked me for saying something, not that... That's definitely not why I did that. And they said, I can tell you're a feminist, they said... And I just thought that whether or not I'm a feminist is a little bit beside the point, it's just as advocating for other voices and other people and saying yes and opening doors for people who often either don't have a voice or don't feel comfortable using their voices.
And I think that that's actually what contributes to the Imposter Syndrome more than anything, is creating the conditions inadvertently or unconsciously, sometimes consciously, but a lot of times I believe... I really do believe it's unconscious for people do not feel comfortable speaking up or not to even be invited to speak up.
So I'm hoping that this is striking a chord. I would love to hear from you all about what your experience is with the Imposter Syndrome, I know that I just went into a whole diversity, inclusion, belonging conversation as I shared the Girl Scout story with you. The point is, in doing so, that even in that overtly diverse setting, there are still the systems and structures in place that would then shut down voices and innovative thinking that needed to be opened up.
And it's the systems and structures, unconscious biases, and the way that people just show up in a room and the most privileged people in the room speak and the least privileged remain quiet. This is what's gotta change in our industries, this is what's gonna change in our organizations, and I truly believe that it starts with leadership. I don't think the individual contributor who's new to the team has a responsibility or an obligation to comment in the way that I commented, but I think that the people who do have the power and privilege to do so have a responsibility to say something. To say when they notice somebody is constantly interrupting a woman who's speaking, to notice that. To notice when a woman presents an idea which gets ignored until the man sitting next to her brings it forward again and everybody embraces it. I think that the people at the center of power and privilege have a responsibility to notice those things and to correct them. Because unless and until the people at the center of power and privilege do so, it's not going to be an impossible task, but certainly having allies in those positions is a vital, vital component to making these long-term transformations that women, women of color, LGBTQ+ people are not just asking for, but at this point, commanding into existence.
And I think that, I know that we will all be better off because of it, I know that. And it's not about taking a one-down position, but it's actually by acknowledging you're at the center of power and privilege and making shifts based on that, because you can opening saying yes and opening doors for people who you clearly know have... Are further from the center of power and privilege than you are, super important, and that way to just bring it back into the Imposter Syndrome, Yes, of course, we all have inner work to do, of course we do, of course.
In fact, that's the drum I've been beating for a while about the great resignation, if you're gonna... Or the big quit, I've seen it called recently, if you're going to be stepping away from your position as part of the great resignation, you better be doing your inner work. To make sure that you've got your highest level presence to make sure that any anxiety, any depression, any angry hostility is managed, any stress response is managed, to make sure your nervous system is managed, to make sure that you are conducting yourself in a way that's really an alignment with your soul, with who you are here to become and how you're meant to contribute.
So certainly, there's a responsibility of the individual, I'm not taking that away at all. In fact, if you look back at the story I told when I was in my early 30s, depressed, anxious, and feeling like an imposter, I had a lot of inner work to do, a lot, had to manage the depression and anxiety, I had to find my path, my purpose, my mission, and once I did, I stopped feeling like I didn't belong, and really began to understand how much I actually did belong, and how much my contributions mattered, and then I was able to carry it forward into the next generation, and now I'm able to be here with you have this important conversation, around eliminating, blaming the person for feeling like an imposter and looking at the systems, the structures, the process, the conversations that you're having on teams, and being just curious about it.
And speaking out loud what you notice about the conversation. I've noticed for the last 10 minutes, we've been talking about a baseball game, that 90% of the room has checked out scrolling on their phones, because they don't even like baseball, maybe they like cricket. Maybe they like something entirely different. So this is an invitation for the people at the center of power and privilege, and you know who you are to do something different, you have an opportunity here, and we all do, but in particular, you have an opportunity to do something different, and that is to pay attention on purpose to the process of what's going on in the meetings? And yes, you can do that even in the virtual world.
Yes, you can do that even when you're on a phone call, you can pay attention who's speaking, who's not speaking, you can tune in to every person in that room who's dominating the conversation, who has something to add who hasn't spoken of yet, who just got interrupted, noticing those things, noticing the process of a meeting as as important as getting to the outcome that you desire. In fact, the process will dictate the outcome, and that's why I'm here because this is not something that leaders are taught, leaders are not taught how to manage process, they're not taught to manage the energetics or the emotions of the experience, they're not taught to manage personalities, they're taught to manage projects, to move the needle to get to the deadline, to achieve the overriding goal. They're not taught how to manage people necessarily. But that's why I'm here, and if this is something that you wanna bring into your organization, I want you to reach out to me, and we can have a conversation, and create something for you, specifically on what's going on in your organization, what do you notice? It may be coaching you on how to read the room, on how to manage the energy of the room, on how to notice and speak life into all of the people in the room, not just the ones who are overtly dominating the conversations, not just the ones who are gregarious...
Not just the who are overly confident and under-ly competent, but instead bring out the best in those people who don't look like majority culture. Private message me, let me know you... Or email me and let me know that you wanna have a conversation about how we can bring this to your organization.
That is all I have for today, and I wanna just scroll through here. I've got a couple of comments on my LinkedIn live that I wanna just take a look at. And somebody, Our user writes in and they say, "Thank you for having this conversation. I suffer panic attacks, which I'm learning, improving to manage." The managing your nervous system is the number one thing to do, especially when you're in a leadership position, especially when you're in a leadership position. Any time you've got any kind of anxiety, depression, frustration, sensitivity to stress, any of those kind of experiences that are lodged in the nervous system, that's something that has to be addressed in order for you to be able to do your best work, regardless of if you're an individual contributor or if you're a leader.
Alright, that's all I have for you today, thank you so much for participating in this conversation. And I know that this is one that we're going to continue having for a while, as we continue the conversation about the great resignation that they quit, diversity, inclusion, and belonging, and making sure that not only the people who are meant to have a seat at the table have a seat at the table, but those... You use your seats at the table for good. Alright, until next time, Dr. Robyn McKay here.