Meet Mr Imperious Imposter
Meet Mr Imperious Imposter
The employee assessment of that employee who loves to talk about his struggles to finally feel like he is a top performer
Corporate America offers some fascinating wildlife that you seldom see in the world of entrepreneurship and results-oriented work. In the Meet Mr Series, we meet some of these corporate creatures and their challenges for talent management. One wasteful (yet revealing) creature in corporate America is Mr Imperious Imposter. Mr Imperious Imposter loves to talk about his struggle with imposter's syndrome - how he spent so much time feeling like he had no skill, but finally realized he was a top performer. Solving problems for clients doesn't excite Mr Imperious Imposter, but inner self realizations and pop psychology inflame his eyes with passion.
But first, a fictional story. Because I'm creating a fictional stories as examples in this series, I'll call Mr Imperious Imposter in my story Martin. As a reminder, our fictional company is ABCZ Corporation.
Story
"I'm not sure we understand the client's needs yet," David said placing down his headset on the table in the meeting room. "I think we have too many participants from the company on our call and they each wanted their needs addressed, but we've already defined the scope of this project to solve for energy waste management."
"I drifted off a bit," Sarah said, "But maybe it was because the call seemed to jump all over the place." The client's project involved addressing the waste generated through significant heat from attempting to cool large centers with machines. This heat - termed energy by the client - was rising because each center was adding more machines every year and expanding. But every call the client held with the team would end up with several problems arising, such as the expansion of their centers, the efficiency of their machines and other related concerns. In one thirty minute meeting with the client, the client would jump on six or seven different topics adding to the challenge of what problem needed to be solved first.
"I sense that they really have a scale problem," David started, "As Jackie mentioned in the call, every time they expand their centers, there's a geometric increase of energy waste being produced." David paused for a bit while reading notes on his screen, "Here it is in my notes: Jackie said that for each increase of one thousand square feet, their energy waste increases by a multiple of one point eight for the entire center, not just the addition. That seems higher than it should be if my notes are right." David paused for a bit while looking at his screen more intensely, then sat back in his chair. "But that's the thing Sarah - I feel like they throw so many different challenges at us in the meeting, so my notes are constantly switching from possible challenges and I'm wondering if we really have the right priorities."
"I don't think they've given us direction as what they want us to solve first," Sarah nodded. "But it's also possible that my notes aren't that good either and that I missed some context in one of our meetings."
David nodded and looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds. "This has been a challenging project to lead. I'm not one for being direct generally, but I do think that on our next call we need to push for the priority. We should make it clear that we can't solve every challenge at once, so we need to have a priority set that we focus on first before we iterate." He paused for a bit, "But I also have to take even better notes than I normally do plus remember to pace conversations so that I don't miss any detail - these projects require intense focus - and my confusion is really saying that I have to lead this project better in scope."
"It sounds to me like you both have imposter's syndrome," Martin started. "I've felt that way on projects before - I was like, 'am I really going to be able to do this' and even though I know I'm good, I still had doubts. It took years for me to realize that I'm good."
David looked at Martin with confusion. "Actually, I'm talking about whether we understand the specific priority our client is trying to solve first. My point is that it doesn't seem clear to me when I reflect over our calls with the client, but I also realize that we tend to feel like we're drinking from a firehose of knowledge, so I need to lead these sessions better so that we ensure that all our priorities align."
"No, what you're talking about is imposter's syndrome," Martin disagreed. He stood up and walked to the coffee machine to add more coffee to his cup. "It's hard for a top performer to admit that he has it, but we all have it," Martin continued. He placed his right hand on his forehead, "I can't think of the book I read a while back - oh what was it called. Hmm... anyway, the author talks about how she struggled with imposter's syndrome for over ten years but was too ashamed to admit that she had it. She finally realized that she had imposter's syndrome and admitted it to herself." Martin paused for a bit while taking a sip of his coffee. "She broke down and cried for a week because she had resisted so long. That's often how we feel according to psychologists when we release tension that we've been holding in for so long. It was freeing. And the best part is that she stopped doing her job and became a life coach - she now touches millions of lives by helping people admit they all feel like imposters when they're not." He sipped more coffee, "Think about it: people have been beating themselves up and trying to improve for years when in reality, they're all top performers. Like the author said, so many people have read her book and quit their jobs because they realized that they were already amazing."
"Yeah, let's get back to discussing the different priorities of our client and how we want to approach the next session with them," David said shaking his head.
"No," Martin interrupted, "this is important to talk about. At the end of the day, if we feel like imposters when we do work, then we won't feel good about ourselves and our life. Feeling good about ourselves is important to our clients because they want us to feel happy."
"So you're saying that there's a syndrome where people feel like they're not good at their job when they really are?" Sarah asked.
"Yes! Imposter's Syndrome. I bet you've struggled with it too."
"I mean I sometimes don't feel like I'm that good at what I do," Sarah replied. "But I've always thought that I feel that way because it's my mind telling me that I should improve and become better." She pointed to her screen, "Like my notes aren't that great right now, but then when I think about it, maybe I wasn't as focused as I should have been in that call."
"No, no not at all," Martin said. "See, that's the thing about Imposter's Syndrome. It makes us think we're not good at our skill when we're really top performers." He continued to sip his coffee. "Do you know much energy we waste on feeling like we're not good enough? Think about all the stress we go through when we think that we have to improve - this is not good for our health." He paused again while sipping on his coffee, "Take for instance your notes. You don't even need to take notes. The fact that the client is able to talk to you is actually enough as is. Most of people's problems involve them not feeling heard. You heard the client. You should feel satisfied with that because you are good enough."
"Where did you learn about this syndrome?"
"Oh that's a great question Sarah," Martin replied. "My friend Aaron is a psychologist at ABCZ University and he introduced me to the concept. He teaches psychology there. He struggled with Imposter's Syndrome for years because he's never worked at a job. He's a lifelong academic. He felt like he only knew information but could never act on that information - if you know what I mean. But then one day it hit him: he doesn't need to do anything to be good. He's good." Martin sipped more of his coffee. "He felt the power of knowing that he's good. Anyway, he and I are thinking of starting a podcast on psychology together because when a person is in the right psychological state they can do what they love."
"I think we're done here," David said getting up from his chair. "I'll email the director myself about scheduling the next session and setting priorities."
What the Research Shows
Talent management will recall that Imposter's Syndrome became quite the buzzword a while back. The popularity of the term continues in business. As we read the above fictional story, it becomes obvious to all of us that Martin is in fact an imposter. He doesn't care about the client at all, nor does he want to feel like he has to improve. The reason we all stress about not being good enough is because we all can improve.
When I studied Millennials in college, one observation that I made about them is their high self-esteem. Millennials were educated in a system that believed if people think highly of themselves these people would go on and succeed. We now know this education philosophy was based on poor research. But even though we know the high self-esteem education failed, Millennials have lived and passed on the costs of this mythological education. Millennials are over four times more likely to say they struggle with imposter's syndrome than other generations. This is unsurprising because imposter's syndrome is actually a humble brag - it's pretending to have a struggle with being a top performer when in fact, the person is not a top performer. This is why Millennials love imposter's syndrome - they know that reality is not confirming their high self-esteem, so they internally feel like imposters because they are imposters. Rather than taking the internal feedback and improving, they've jumped on this syndrome that in a sense says, "The reason that you struggle with reality not confirming how awesome you are is because you're awesome."
I understand this may seem confusing because it's the opposite of how a person should think: if reality doesn't confirm that we're good, we improve. That's a normal way of thinking. However, people educated under high self-esteem think opposite. They think if reality doesn't confirm that they're good and they feel bad, then this actually means that they don't appreciate how good they are and neither does reality. This should seem confusing when you first read it: reality shows a group of people are bad and this proves to them that they're good? This is what self-esteem education has done, even if it's the opposite of what is true.
I'll never forget when I finally connected these dots on a date with an iGenZ girl who had 2 older Millennial sisters. She told me that her oldest sister constantly told everyone that "Men are so intimidated by me" which explained why no man asked her out. However, my date knew that men had no interest in her older sister. But this wasn't feedback her older sister wanted to hear so she spun the lack of dates as men being scared. In reality, no one wanted her and she didn't want to improve. She created an explanation that elevated herself and meant it was everyone else's problem. This is very similar to imposter's syndrome and if you read the story with Martin again, you'll see the same underlying pattern.
As we know in talent management, this thinking encumbers growth. If we are awesome even though reality isn't confirming this, then what's the incentive to improve? None and we don't need to improve because we're awesome. Thus, imposter's syndrome is a way of working on an explanation for why our reality isn't confirming that we're awesome. In truth, reality is telling us that we are not awesome and we need to improve.
Costs
One cost for talent management with Mr Imperious Imposter is that he'd rather have inner self realization discussions than get work done. His psychobabble isn't a way to procrastinate on work - he's communicating what he values and he doesn't value getting results for your clients. In our fictional story, we can see the difference between David and Martin when it comes to the client - David is concerned that the team won't perform well because there may be too many departments mixing requirements. Martin is unconcerned about the client and whether ABCZ Corporation serves the customer well and instead uses it as an opportunity to discuss inner psychology.
Another cost to Mr Imperious Imposter is that he lacks skill and the desire to improve his skill. This is why he struggles with Imposter's Syndrome: he's an imposter. A person who's actually skilled isn't thinking about inner self realizations, they're thinking about how to use their skill to get the result the client needs. The top sales person isn't thinking about whether he'll make the sale - he's listening carefully to the client and feeling his way through the client’s needs. That's what makes him excel at sales - he isn't thinking about himself at all! This is why clients love top sales people - they live and experience their client’s world. The same applies to other professionals - the best engineers live in the problem they're solving. That's their focus. None of these top employees is sitting around wondering if they're an imposter or humble-bragging about how they struggled with imposter's syndrome.
Unfortunately for Mr Imperious Imposter, he's pretty easy to spot because he can't stop talking about himself and his humble-brags.
The Meet Mr Series
For more in the Meet Mr Series of posts, check out Executive Decisions’ regular Series page. Some highlighted posts from this series:
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