How managers can overcome imposter syndrome at work

Clare: And what we found from the research studies is there is a causal connection between imposter syndrome and burnout. And it's based on what we call the 4Ps of imposter syndrome model, because they're four of the most common coping strategies.
Jimmy: Hello, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Ways of Working podcast, your weekly dose of practical tips for leaders who are trying to gain that high-performance edge without burning themselves or their teams out. Now, before you put down your phone or click away from this window, make sure you hit follow or subscribe on your preferred platform of choice to make sure you don't miss any future episodes of the Ways of Working podcast with our incredible experts and guests.
Hello, and welcome back to this week's episode, and, honestly, I am very, very thrilled to tell you about this week's guest, which is the wonderful Clare Josa. Now, Clare is considered one of, if not the UK leading authority on the topic of imposter syndrome. She's been in the field for nearly 20 years, and she's written a variety of books on the topic of imposter syndrome and other mental health and mental related topics, which I'm sure we'll get into as we go through. She Her latest book, Ditching Imposter Syndrome, we'll be talking about in just a little bit. She's also a prolific keynote speaker, coach, facilitator, guru, researcher, and a whole lot more. So, Clare, welcome to the show. How are you?
Clare: Jimmy, it's so lovely to be here. I'm great, how are you?
Jimmy: I'm doing so good. I'm genuinely thrilled that we get to have this conversation for a variety of reasons. But what I'd like to get into initially is the topic of imposter syndrome is a fascinating one, but most of us don't start our lives wanting to be an imposter syndrome consultant, researcher, and writer. And I noticed from looking at your back catalogue that you are actually trained and spent quite a period of time in engineering, and then you've gone on a whole journey. So perhaps you could just share with our listeners, how does one end up where you are?
Clare: Of course. So, my original training, I've got a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering and German, and I spent 10 years in the automotive industry specialising in Six Sigma and actually diesel engine manufacture and quality. And I loved that work. I absolutely loved that work, but there came a point where I kept being promoted and I kept getting great appraisals, and I was on the leadership fast-track and everything else that they do. And at 3:00 every single morning, I was lying awake going, "What if today's the day they find me out? What if today's the day they realise I've been pulling the wool over their eyes? I don't know what I'm doing." Now, I've got a first-class Master's, so I even told myself, "I've pulled the wool over the eyes of 15 different examiners." Yeah, in two different countries, cuz my degree was part in England and part in Germany. I was so crippled by imposter syndrome, but I didn't know what it was. So, I jumped ship. Yeah, there was Me Too and all sorts of other stuff running on, but I jumped ship and decided to go travelling for a year because I was close to burnout. I was doing all that classic imposter syndrome coping strategies stuff. I was doing 16-hour days. I was in a high-adrenaline environment. If I stopped the production line, even back then, 20 years ago, it was $2,000 a minute, and that rested on me. So, you can imagine how imposter syndrome made that decision so much easier, yeah? So, I went travelling in South America, studied Spanish, took a sabbatical officially, but I kinda knew I wasn't going to go back. And then, I became head of market research at Dyson. Back in my engineering days, I'd been doing kind of guerrilla market research, so I ended up doing it formally, and never once felt imposter syndrome, which really confused me because technically on paper, I was not qualified and I didn't have the experience. After that, there came a point where I'd been studying psychology, things like I'd become an NLP trainer, I was doing lots of other inner work, and I realised I couldn't make a big enough difference with bits of brightly-coloured plastic sucking up dirt off a floor, though it's a very important service. So, back in 2003, I actually set up my own leadership development business, and we've been running it for 20 years now. And the very first client I saw was managing director level, absolutely brilliant at what she was doing, crucifying herself every morning at 3:00 a.m. And then the next one, and then the next one, and the next one. And I realised very quickly that despite having the most incredible tool kit, I couldn't help them with anything more than sticky plasters, yeah? It was more coping strategies, and some of the coping strategies they had were incredibly creative. Like, you know, one of them at at CEO level would actually imagine that they were wearing a cap of ice in a board meeting to stop their face going red, yeah? It's the kind of thing that we do. And then I realised that what had actually happened while I'd been away travelling is I'd cleared imposter syndrome. I'd cleared it from the culture, because I'd left the culture. I'd cleared it from the environment, because I'd left the environment, and I'd cleared it from inside, in my habits. And I spent about the next five or six years decoding what I'd done to clear it completely, and looking through that Six Sigma lens of where's the fluff, where are the distractions in this process, how do I create something that will work for anyone, in any situation, because it's the essence of what worked, without the fluff and without the kind of like the detours. And the rest, as they say, is history. It's what I've spent the last 15 years teaching, still experimenting, still researching, still refining. I now certify other people to do the work I do. And that is really exciting, because the kind of questions that you get when other people are learning to be like mini-me's actually helps you become even better and to learn. And so together, we're co-creating something better than I could ever have achieved on my own.
Jimmy: Such a fascinating story. And I've got so many questions, but I'm going to try and contain myself and just walk through them one-by-one. The first piece that I thought was absolutely fascinating, and there will probably be a lot of leaders who are listening to this episode who just said, "Yeah, that's me. Yeah, that's me. Yeah, that's me." And as a person who has personally struggled with imposter syndrome, I also resonate strongly with what you've shared. And it's interesting to me, and almost fascinating, that it seems to be not a syndrome for people who are frauds, it's very successful people who feel like frauds. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Clare: Absolutely. So, the way I define imposter syndrome is as being the secret fear of being found out as not good enough or a fraud, despite plenty of external world evidence that, actually, you are doing really well. We lose that internal referencing system and we we end up on the praise-criticism roller coaster. Yeah? Where we only feel as good as the last bit of feedback that we got. The other way I define it is the secret fear of others judging us the way we're judging ourselves. Yeah? Because we are. We're not evaluating our performance, we're making it about who we are as a person. It's that sense of identity. "Who am I to do this? What if they realise I am not good enough?" That's the mindset stuff that's going. So, this is really running deep below the surface, and what I've found through the research studies over the years is there is a gap that opens up. When you get, you know, you can cope with imposter syndrome. People survive and they they succeed despite it, but the major reason people will come to work with one of with me or one of my master coaches is they've just been promoted to a level where that coping strategy set isn't enough anymore. It's like there's a gap between who they see themselves as being and who they think they need to be, and we build the bridge of coping strategies to get over that ravine, and then you get promoted, or you get a stretch objective, or something happens to cause you more stress, and that gap opens up, and the bridge falls into the ravine, or you suddenly have to put so much more energy into putting more planks on that bridge. And that is the point where people usually come and say, "Do you know what? Enough." My favourite Italian word, I'm part-Italian, is "Basta." So, pasta with a B. "Enough." Yeah, my kids know it so well. "Enough." Basta. You have what I call a "basta moment", where you think, "Do you know what? I could spend the next 20 years coping with this, holding back, not going for promotions, leaving to set up as a consultant, which is a classic response at those senior levels, I could do all of these things, or I could say today, enough is enough, and I'm going to take action to find out how to clear this because I am fed up of just handling it, because it's affecting my enjoyment, my health, my relationships, my success, my teams, and, ultimately, the KPIs and the business bottom line."
Jimmy: I think that's so so wise. And what you've described there is essentially two solutions to the problem: stay where I am and and cope with what I have, or make a choice to to deal with this. I think there's possibly a third way, which is, "I'm going to do all that extra effort. I'm going to go even harder. I'm going to burn myself out", which is obviously where your and my fields of expertise overlap. It's those people who just give everything they have and keep giving more, and that that step to the senior leadership role or to the executive table is just maybe a step too far without the support and infrastructure and mentoring and coaching support that is going to support them, and and and they end up burning out. But it is fascinating, isn't it, that that it's these people who, they've flown through their careers, they've been highly successful, they've been the almost the people the person that other people look up to because they're so driven and so motivated and so capable. And yet, on the inside, they're really struggling, they're really crumbling. And the only coping mechanism they have is to deliver and overdeliver and be the most amazing person.
Clare: Absolutely. To build on what you just said there, you're absolutely spot on, and what we found from the research studies is there is a causal connection between imposter syndrome and burnout. And it's based on what we call the 4Ps of imposter syndrome model, because they're four of the most common coping strategies: so perfectionism, procrastination, project paralysis, and people-pleasing. And all of these, it's really easy to imagine how they lead to overworking, how they lead to having to push yourself, so getting out of flow and being in fight and forcing, so you're stuck in that fight, flight, freeze response. That empties the adrenals, we're stuck in cortisol and adrenaline, chronic stress every day, and then you're on the fast-track to burnout.
Jimmy: Yeah, so, so, so true. So, I guess the question that comes up next in my mind is, how does this start? Where does it kick off in our life? And I know from the neuroscience research that we do in burnout, a lot of the behavioral patterns uh that we that can predispose us to burnout later in life are formed in childhood. What's been your research?
Clare: So, what our research has shown, cuz a lot of people, you you know, you think it's the high-achieving children would be most highly disposed towards this and I've seen a lot of people writing about how, "Oh, if you had overdemanding parents or teachers, it can lead to imposter syndrome." We've actually found, though, the single biggest predictor is trauma. Okay?
Jimmy: Okay. Tell me more about that.
Clare: So, you can have Yeah, you can have a child who sets their standards incredibly high, and they just love that. It's just how they're wired, and it's what gives them a kick and a thrill. It's about the trauma. The trauma response, there's a So, if we're going to go briefly into kind of like neuroscience and biology of imposter syndrome, there is a direct link between something called the vagus nerve, which connects all of the organs in the body, runs up and down the spine, controls heart rate, it's involved in digestion, between that and the thoughts that we're thinking. And the vagus nerve is actually something really important that I work with with our deeper dive clients, because every single one of them that's reached senior levels that then is suddenly running imposter syndrome that goes out of control has some kind of what's called complex PTSD. So, post-traumatic stress disorder, but not caused by a one-off event usually, caused by a series of what I call micro-traumas. And that seems to be the key that then predicts the future imposter syndrome. So, the work we do, yeah, it helps people with the thoughts and the mindset, but then we do the deeper work to clear that complex PTSD memory from the body, because, otherwise, what happens when you've got those micro-traumas, which might be something like a toxic work environment, or a critical parent, or we've all come across teachers who maybe needed to learn some compassion, or it might be you were experienced a bully boss, yeah? I will often work with people who then say, "It was 15 years ago I worked for him or her, and I still wake up at night." When we clear that from the body, it doesn't need to keep you on high alert, because that's what happens, is this the vagus nerve and the whole endocrine system get stuck constantly on the lookout for threats. Imposter syndrome then means we turn up the dial on those threats, and we tell ourselves all sorts of stories about them. And in order to feel safe, we then self-sabotage. But if we're secretly going, "No, actually, I really want to do that keynote, or that radio interview, or publish that paper", we push on through that fear, which dials up the dial again on the cortisol, and the adrenaline, and the stress, and it ends up is a real vicious circle of that trauma response making us scared, then we push on through the fear, which ramps up all of that experience. That then means we're more likely to make mistakes, to burnout, to be living in constant fear. Fight, flight, freeze starts with fight, so one of the common responses is actually to become more aggressive and critical of others. And that's where it can start affecting health and relationships, too.
Jimmy: Wow, I just there's so much value in this conversation because the triggers that lead us there, as you say, it's not about that one moment of significant trauma, it's almost like your resilience is being chipped away, and then because you're in that highly-emotive state, your brain is firing almost like a sort of victim of a crime situation. You're absorbing and hyper-stimulated emotionally and mentally, that then those what might be micro-traumas become more significant in your memory, right?
Clare: Yeah, and you might often not know what they even were. Yeah? You know, I've I've often worked with clients when we're doing that deeper work, really getting to the root causes and clearing those out, rather than just dealing with the symptoms. And I don't go looking for trauma, but suddenly a client will do one of the deeper exercises and go, "It was that. I haven't even thought about that for 10 years." But the body memory of the fear and the need to protect yourself from that series of micro-traumas sticks, and then it misinterprets signs that are completely unrelated, but that trigger the same emotion, and it applies the coping strategy from the micro-trauma onto pitching the board for a financing for a new project, yeah?
Jimmy: Mm. Yeah, we we almost sort of co-opt those emotional sensations into the new situation, and that can cause us some significant difficulty. As you say, when you when you're going to the boardroom presentation, and your tongue suddenly gets fat and your mouth gets dry, and you can't really think clearly, we know that we're struggling with something, right?
Clare: Exactly, and we're not consciously aware. This is run by the autonomic nervous system, the bit that makes your heartbeat and your hair grow. And we don't realise we're self-sabotaging until we're already doing it, because the autonomic nervous system and the primal part of the brain processes information and makes decisions slightly sooner than the prefrontal cortex that would be saying, "Oh, but Clare, come on, it's just the board. Just imagine them with their underpants on their head like you did with your clarinet teacher when you were 10." Yeah? It's too late by that point because we've already held back.
Jimmy: There's probably a whole story in the clarinet teacher with pants on their head, but anyway, we'll move we'll move on.
Clare: Yeah, he was quite quite a scary guy, it was the only way I could play in front of him. That's a different episode.
Jimmy: I was going to say. And what I'm hearing as well is you've got this fascinating blend in your practice with the Six Six Sigma, left-brained, engineering focus on the problem, but then actually bringing quite a spiritual and neuroscience, yes, but spiritual, meditative, deep work focus to the solution. And how did you come to the point where you were able to seamlessly blend those two?
Clare: So, it was it was really interesting. A friend of mine from school, who I hadn't seen for years, had been reading The Secret. She decided She, you know, we most people, I think, remember the book The Secret, yeah? And she decided that she wanted to manifest a better life, and so The Secret had the answer, and it was a disaster, because what happened is she suddenly realised that her thoughts were creating her experience of reality, and she had no idea how to control her thoughts, or how to change her thoughts. Because what happens when we do classic mindset work is we think the thought and then go, "Oh, no, I don't want that one." But by that point, we've given it our full attention, it's fired off everything in the body, and we're busy thinking that thought and all of its friends. And she sat there, and I hadn't seen her for years, and she came round and she sat on my sofa and she cried. And I'm like, "Oh, my god, what do I what do I do?" She said, "How do I how do I change my thoughts?" Now, I had NLP up to trainer level, I had so much psychology, all of that, and I knew I'd done it, but what I was telling her wasn't working, and I thought, "There needs to be another way." A total series of coincidences, and I'm sure you're like me and you don't think that kind of thing exists, it's usually synchronicity, meant as I put out this prayer to the universe of, "I need to help her find a solution that works for her because the one that works for me didn't", yeah? The next ad I saw on Facebook was for a meditation teacher training course in rural Snowdonia. So, I thought, "Okay." At that point, I was a single mother. I'd actually just left a domestic abuse marriage. I was in quite a challenging place, lifewise, and I just thought, "I'm just going to do this. I don't know how I'm going to make it work. I'm just going to do it." And that unlocked the key to inner stillness. What I then did was decode it using the Six Sigma, years of practicing it, to look at what are the little things that people can do without needing to turn their legs into a pretzel for three years and live in a cave that get that same result? They get enough of it. You know, we're not looking at, you don't have to be enlightened by Friday, but to know how to press pause on negative self-talk in under 60 seconds is a really, really deep gift. It really rekindled my earlier passion for meditating, for yoga. I also met the guy I'm now married to on that course. So, it was a really good Facebook ad.
Jimmy: Sounds like a really good Facebook ad. Exactly, I was going to say the same thing.
Clare: A great Facebook ad. Um, and it was picking out the bits that were fluff-free, the bits that were, I suppose, demystified ancient wisdom, and my clients call it engineer-approved woo-woo, yeah? The stuff that you do it, and you just suspend that inner voice saying, "What is she making me do?" for a couple of minutes, and you go, "Oh. Right, I felt that. Okay, I'll do that one again."
Jimmy: I I really resonate with your concept of bringing spirituality into the business and commercial domain, and also, I love and we do something very similar, which is that how do you make this almost seem so pragmatic and sensible that even though I'm in overwhelm, even though I'm in a highly-emotive state, even though I might be struggling to think, "What on earth am I going to do in this situation?", the way you present your solution is, "It's just this small thing. Let's just sit for a moment. Let's just consider this for a moment. Let's just slow ourselves down a little bit." And here's something that's quite tangible and logical that you can do, which is based in spirituality and deep research. I think that that makes a lot of difference to leaders, and and certainly the leaders that we encounter who are in the burnout space. They don't have the head space for complex stuff and deep thinking. They just need something that's going to get them off the off the ledge, and then once they're off the ledge, we can start doing the work.
Clare: Exactly, and it's exactly that, Jimmy. I'm I'm an absolutely passionate advocate of a hashtag we love to use on our courses called do one thing. Is rather than give people a load of techniques and a process, those who are, as you describe, on the ledge with burnout, or they're completely overwhelmed with imposter syndrome, do one thing this week, do one thing next week, and until you've done that one thing for a week, don't come back for the next bit, but we are going to nag you lovingly. And that do one thing builds change so much faster than thinking, "I've got to fix this all in one go", because that is going to trigger the trauma response, yeah?
Jimmy: Completely. But as as imposters, of course we want to try and do all the things because we want to overachieve, because we might we're worried we're going to get judged for failing if other people are ahead of us, so, of course, we need to worry about that, too.
Clare: Of course.
Jimmy: Hey there, Jimmy here. I just wanted to drop in on this episode and say an enormous thank you for all of the amazing reviews and testimonials and feedback we're getting about the Ways of Working podcast. Top 10% globally, and absolutely thrilled to be there bringing as much value as we can from the Ways of Working community to you, our listeners. I wanted to drop a quick note of one of the beautiful reviews that was left by Jenny M49. Thank you so much, Jenny, for that kind review. Jenny says, "For those people who want to gain a practical performance edge, full of practical tips in every episode, tune in here." Jenny, we really appreciate your feedback, thank you so much, and hope that you, our listeners, will follow and subscribe using your favourite podcast platform of choice and bring every episode to share value, knowledge, and expertise from our incredible guests. Take care, speak soon.
So so clearly you've done a lot of research in this space, and I know that you have written a variety of books uh about imposter syndrome and other topics, but I'm particularly interested in in the last couple of pieces of research you've you've done: 2022's research and the new research that's coming out. Tell us all about that. Tell us what's in it, and tell us, what are your findings?
Clare: So, my Master's degree was a research Master's, as head of market research at Dyson, I know a lot about research, and it's put me in an incredible position to actually be able to design research studies that give us the not just the what, but the why, the how, and the so what, yeah? That's my real passion on this. I've been researching and running a continuous research study actually now for seven years into imposter syndrome, plus its links with burnout and something we call toxic resilience, which you touched on earlier, Jimmy, that bounce-back, gritted-teeth determination. What we found in the 2022 study was what you what we have already touched on today, that causal link between burnout and imposter syndrome: increase one, you increase the other; bring one down, you bring the other down. What we're finding in the study that we're publishing in September, we're looking there in much more detail shockingly, four years on from the first white paper we published, that imposter syndrome is still one of three hidden drivers of the gender pay gap. The impact of it on businesses from the point of view of lost innovation, lost creativity, you know, a shocking stat that 89% of employees do not feel fully confident speaking up with their ideas in a meeting. And the edgier the idea, the more they are more likely they are to zip and not say anything. And that going virtual and hybrid has made that worse, because it's so much easier to hide on a screen of 20 people than in a room where everybody saw you breathe in and get ready to speak. So, we're really looking at how does this impact us in the hybrid and virtual world now. And, frankly, it's not okay that it's still one of three hidden drivers of the gender pay gap, and that organisations are still, in the main, heads in the sand over this, hoping it will go away.
Jimmy: Wow, I genuinely cannot wait to read that. And I heard you say gender pay gap, and obviously that is something that is a hot topic at the moment. What I didn't hear you say, but I think is also very important, is lost commercial opportunity from great, talented people, right?
Clare: Yeah. Absolutely. It's one of the biggest reasons why you will lose your rising stars. The people who quit unexpectedly, and they never sit there in the exit interview and say, "It was imposter syndrome." There's always a genuine reason. Like me with my engineering career, I didn't sit there and go, "Yeah, it's imposter syndrome, I'm terrified you'll find me out." I said, "I really want to go and learn Spanish."
Jimmy: Yeah, yeah. So, we all feel good about the the lack of conflict in that exit conversation as well.
Clare: Exactly. And, you know, we're we're not seeing the real reasons why people are leaving. Our stats at the moment are showing that approximately 18% of employees are thinking of leaving the job every single week due to imposter syndrome. With burnout, it's one in 10 every single day.
Jimmy: Wow. So, this is a significant commercial impact.
Clare: Yeah, if we're looking at staff retention, and we all know that for somebody in a kind of like a managerial and senior level, it costs up to a year's salary to recruit, to cover that gap, to train and get people up to speed, that is a significant impact. But one of the effects that people are not talking about at all is group think, because you get organisations spending a fortune and months or years going in the wrong direction, because the person in the room that was thinking, "That's not going to work", kept their mouth shut because they were scared they would be judged. So, yes, we lose creativity and innovation, but we also continue down the road making mistakes because that one person who could have gone, "Oh", and then half the rest of the room would have gone, "Yeah, I was thinking that, too", that's lost. Yeah?
Jimmy: Hm, no, I I completely hear you. And you know, as you were talking, I was thinking oh, there's some work from Amy Edmondson around psychological safety in there, there's some some stuff around Brené Brown's vulnerability leadership, there's some stuff around Simon Sinek getting in alongside your leaders and leaders eating last. I think there's there's lots of supporting research from well-recognised people like yourself that is saying, "Hey, we need to do something about this." Yes. So, what should we be doing? So, we've got you know, most of our listeners are senior leaders who are driving business units or or bigger. What should they be doing, first of all, maybe if they're struggling with imposter syndrome, and then, secondly, if they are conscious, or perhaps aware, that there are some imposters in their team?
Clare: Absolutely. So, one of the things that we do, if if somebody if someone listening to this, if you think, "Oh, my goodness, this is me, like this is just Clare is reciting my inner self-talk. How did I not know she was there at 3:00 this morning?" I've got a scorecard for you that you can use. We've used our research study and the science to create a quiz-style assessment so you can get your imposter syndrome score, and it tells you which of the three hidden drivers of imposter syndrome needs to be your priority, and it gives you a personalised action plan so you can start the process of taking action. Yeah, there's an old mentor of mine used to talk about painting the square. You know, if you want to decorate a room, get the tester pot, you know, whack that square on the wall. You've started. You've got a little bit of momentum going, you've overcome the inertia. What you do next depends on what your score was and how committed you are to taking action, but it's finding out the data. You know, is this a big issue for me or am I just thinking it is cuz I was just listening to Clare on that episode with Jimmy? But chances are, if you're recognising yourself in this, that's a bit of you at some level saying, "Please take action." So, that scorecard would be the first step I would suggest. If we're looking at it from an organisational point of view, there's a step zero, which is removing the taboo. While people feel that they're going to be judged, criticised, overlooked for promotions, or even fired, because that's the kind of existential stuff that happens with imposter syndrome, they're not going to ask for help, yeah? We need to create an environment where it's as acceptable to ask for support with imposter syndrome or burnout as it is for help with Microsoft Excel, yeah? We didn't deliberately get ourselves into this space, and if we knew how to fix the problem on our own, if that were knowledge we were born with, then why would we feel this way for so many years? It can last decades, yeah? So, it's that step zero: removing the taboo, having those conversations, creating a language that's a common language that means that people can then sit there and say to somebody in a meeting, "Can you just kind of like have a deep breath with me and give me some micro-courage so I can speak up with this idea?", yeah? It's about starting with that culture. Then, if I'm working with an organisation on this, we actually start with a diagnostic. So, we'll actually look at both So, I've got three core pillars that drive this: the culture, the environment, and the personal habits. And we will look at all three, measure the size of the problem. The research we do doesn't take more than about three or four weeks in total, and it's designed to actually give people a feeling of hope at the end, rather than, "Oh, that's another survey, they're not going to listen to." Um, and it's definitely not about then creating a badge of honour for poor performance, which is something a lot of leaders worry about, but when we understand what's driving this from a cultural point of view, what's driving it environmentally, that's kind of like how the culture gets embedded into day-to-day actions and work and life, and what are the personal habits that people need support with, when you address those three, you can actually turn this around in in weeks, not years, yeah? But it takes an organisation being ready to look in the mirror and say, "We're actually going to commit to supporting our teams to thrive." And the way I love to do it is, I don't know how you work, Jimmy, but I like to make myself redundant. So, if I'm going to go in and help a team, I want them not to need me by the time we finish, yeah? So, my big passion is actually training people in-house to be your own in-house coaches and experts to support people with this, so you've got sustainable, scalable solutions. We can still help with kind of like the training course side, but it means that you don't need me. You're not having to pay for expensive external coaches every time somebody wants some support, but you're also not doing what I'm seeing in a lot of organisations, which, bless their hearts, is about expecting mental health first aiders to suddenly step up and act as untrained counsellors to support people with everything from anxiety through to imposter syndrome, burnout, and beyond.
Jimmy: I'm so happy that you said that idea of making yourself redundant, and essentially building a self-supporting ecosystem inside a business to deal with this. One of the things that came up for me while you were just talking then, and I want to build on what you said, was that from the research I've read, and you can probably correct me on the statistic, somewhere between 86 and 89% of people struggle with imposter syndrome at some point in their careers. And, generally, what we'll see is a more significant percentage of people at the senior end of the organisation who are wrangling with this, because that's what's driving their performance anxiety to get them to this point. And then you talked about the people who are in a state of imposter syndrome being in fight, flight, or freeze, and fight being the most common response, where they become, they come out fighting, they come out aggressive. And so, chances are, and again, I want I want to get your reflections on this, but chances are in my mind that if you're struggling with imposter syndrome, chances are you're maybe cultivating imposter syndrome amongst your team, because your aggressive responses are creating those micro-traumas for people around you, and they're maybe not feeling safe to speak up, because you're such a high performer, you're always infallible, you work harder than anybody else, and they're like, "How do I compete with this person? Oh, my god, I'm not good enough." So, it almost creates a self-propagating ecosystem of imposter syndrome through the organisation. Does that resonate for you?
Clare: There is a lot of truth in that, Jimmy. And one of the things we find is that there are actually trigger points for imposter syndrome, where that old bridge of coping strategies stops working. So, one of them can be promotion to a senior level, but one of them is actually your first job. It's anything that creates a shift in identity. Another huge trigger point is returning from maternity or paternity, extended paternity leave, because, suddenly, you're sitting there, you've had the most amazing identity shift, and you come back having been out of the team for a year or six months, and suddenly imposter syndrome is there for you. Another another factor for women, for example, is actually the menopause, is the fog brain and everything else can be a huge trigger, so you will be losing a lot of your senior women due to imposter syndrome triggered by the menopause, which is crazy. And then what happens if What we found is the the fight response is most common again amongst men in leadership roles. The people-pleasing response, yeah, that on those 4Ps of imposter syndrome, is more common amongst women up to leadership level. So, you've got this whole range of responses. If you've got, for example, a woman in your team or a man in your team that's running people-pleasing as a stress response for imposter syndrome, but you're running perfectionism, which is the fight response, they are going to be working desperately hard to try and please you, and they're going to be unable to meet those standards. And you won't create new imposter syndrome, but what you can do is trigger previously dormant imposter syndrome, where that bridge of coping strategies was working, the stress can open up that imposter syndrome gap, meaning that people then can no longer cope with imposter syndrome, and you will very quickly see performance issues. Yeah, I've seen it with with client teams, for example, where somebody was performing really well, and then, suddenly, they're making 20 mistakes in one report, and they are careless errors, and that's actually a blood flow thing in the brain. You physically can't concentrate anymore when you're stuck in that trauma response, in the fight, flight, freeze. And we're not normally aware that we're projecting that inner pain, because we're so stuck in that inner dialogue of what-iffing, what-iffing, catastrophising, that we don't notice how people have changed towards us until it's gone on for quite a while. And getting a little bit woo about it, we've all walked into a room and you can tell when somebody's just had a row with the person that's in there, and they're all sitting there, sweetness and light, saying, "No, no, no, we're fine." And you're like, "I can literally feel the cactus spikes in the wall", yeah? That's the problem, is even if we think we're hiding that fear and pain we're feeling inside, like dogs can smell fear, so can humans. The people around you will sense it, even if you think you're being sweetness and light, because all of this happens at a very primal, unconscious level. It's that primal part of the brain processing the information. So, you might be saying the right words in the right tone of voice, but if your energy is, "And if you get this wrong, you're fired, because then I'll be fired", then that's what they're actually going to hear, not the sweet, nice words that you learned on the soft skills training course, yeah?
Jimmy: So, I'm just smiling and nodding. I've got so much experience with both personally doing this and then seeing it as a consultant, so it makes me It makes me smile. Thank you so much, Clare, for putting me on the spot, goodness me. Um, so obviously we could we could talk for hours on this, and I'm confident that other people will want to reach out to you and and have a chat. Before we uh finish up talking about your book, I would love to just ask, how how can people reach out to you and get in contact? What's the best way for them to connect and talk further?
Clare: So, I'm there on LinkedIn, and most of the time, there's only one of me. Occasionally, you get the odd person that decides they want to try and hack my account. But if you come and find me on LinkedIn, and do that connect thing, not just follow, so we can actually message each other, let me know any questions that way. That's the easiest way, because my inbox, probably like everybody listening, is not always an easy place to get my attention, but LinkedIn, if I'm there, it means I'm there and I'm present. So, that's how you can easily get my attention. And then, I've actually got the scorecard, that's that quiz assessment thing, and the latest white paper that anybody listening to this can go and access as my gift, and that's at soulptuitiveleadership.com/wow, so WOW.
Jimmy: Wow. I'm in the world of WOW, so that's very exciting. Um and we will pop all of those links in the show notes. Thank you, Clare, for sharing them. We'll pop them in so anybody who wants to go grab them, just scroll down and you can grab them somewhere below this episode. Finally, Clare, the the book, Ditching Imposter Syndrome, um, it seems, from what I've read, it seems to be a really practical, hands-on walk-through imposter syndrome and how to deal with it. Could you could you unpack it a little bit for us? What are sort of the key chapters, key elements that might be of interest to our listeners?
Clare: Of course. So, it is very much not a book for you if you're kind of happy sticking with imposter syndrome and using it as excuse to beat yourself up, because, unfortunately, it actually works, according to the readers. And we've got readers in about 50 countries now, so thousands of people, which is just that blows my mind. The first part of the book is actually about unpacking all the myths. It's helping people get ready to change. And it's if you're into reading, it's there as a print book, a Kindle book, but if you're into listening and, you know, doing this while you're doing other stuff, we've got the audiobook version as as well now. So, it's unpacking those secret myths like um imposter syndrome's incurable, or I need it to succeed, or it's a sign of high potential, because if we believe all of those things, then there's a bit of our unconscious mind that's going to say, "Yeah, and if I get rid of it, there's going to be an apocalypse", yeah? So, get people ready to change, and then we have the five core stages. That's from my Natural Resilience Method. Stage one is about pressing pause, learning how to reset the trauma and stress response in micro-bits, so, you know, 5, 10, 20 times a day. Within a week, instead of coming home with your stress levels up here, and then needing to turn to things to numb it, you'll find they're down here. It makes an incredible difference. Step two is about taming your inner critic, rewiring your brain to change the neural pathways to turn that inner dialogue into a the beginnings of a genuine cheerleader, and to reprogram the filters in your brain to spot what you're doing well, not just what you're doing badly. The third stage in the work is rewiring the body, because if the body is secretly addicted to the adrenaline and the stress, which it probably is by that point, you can do what you like with your mindset, but the body's going to be like a dandelion and find a way to come up through the cracks and create some more drama and self-judgement to get another cortisol and adrenaline hit. So, being able to reprogram the body to feel safe, yeah? But in very practical, non-fluffy ways. Stage four is then about reclaiming your personal power. That's doing the deeper work. What was driving imposter syndrome? And it's not about navel-gazing and deep therapy, you can actually do surprisingly deep work without having to get into content, because we're working not just with the thinking mind, but with the body, and those limiting beliefs, those hidden excuses and fears, it's practical ways to reduce those and clear those out. And that helps us also to then reset any toxic boundaries and clear those habits that maybe had been keeping us stuck in imposter syndrome, overwhelm, and burnout. And then, step five, I get really excited about. So, step five is then consciously creating your future. It's about becoming the leader you were born to be, rather than the one with the masks and the armour that's holding back to feel safe. So, it's that deeper work again. And when you decide who, which version of you you want to be, and what you want to do in the future, what impact you really want to have, and you do it having cleared all that stuff out, the vision you then have at that point is so different, and so much more expanded and exciting than the one that you would have started with, that that becomes really potent work. And then, this Natural Resilience Method process is actually designed to be super safe, and you do it multiple times. So, the first time, you'll do the surface stuff, and then the next time you're like, "Oh, let me at it. I'm throwing in some limiting beliefs." And the next time it'll be, "Right, okay, let's get to those hidden fears." So, you always do it at the level that you feel safe doing, because, frankly, you've got a home life, you've got a business you're helping to run, you've got teams that rely on you. You don't have time to go off and have a little existential crisis to clear stuff out in one go. So, it's about creating those habits gently and easily, and almost everything I teach can be done in less time than it takes to boil the kettle for a cup of tea or coffee.
Jimmy: Which is a very English reference point, and I love that that that you've brought that in. Clare, thank you so so so much for joining us on the Ways of Working podcast, the WOW podcast. Uh it was a genuine joy to to walk through not only some of the causes and underlying symptoms of imposter syndrome, but also to get some really practical coping strategies, and we'll also pop the link to your amazing book in the show notes, so those people who are interested in listening, reading, or absorbing are able to access it. Thank you so much again. Um we will keep in touch with everybody who's a listener, but if you have a question for Clare or myself about this episode, please do reach out, and either connect with Clare on LinkedIn or send us an email and we'll pass it on to her. Clare, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.
Clare: Jimmy, thank you. It's been a joy hanging out with you, and thank you to everybody who's taken the time to listen to us waffling on. I really hope it's been interesting, useful, and go and paint that square, go and take that first action today.
Jimmy: Super cool, thank you.
That's it for this week's episode of the Ways of Working podcast. If you enjoyed the conversation here, why not head over to jimmy-burroughes.com/book and grab chapter one of our amazing upcoming book, Beat Burnout, Ignite Performance. It's the leaders' playbook for building a high-performance culture. So, if you're looking for practical tips and to understand why people in your team or yourself are burning out and what to do about it so you can all keep working and perform better, this is the place for you. Go to jimmy-burroughes.com/book and grab that first chapter. We'll also keep you posted when the full book is released very soon. Also, if you enjoyed this episode of the Ways of Working podcast, don't forget to follow or subscribe on your preferred podcast platform of choice, and we'll make sure that you get all of the upcoming episodes as they come out every single week. Take care, speak soon.