Imposter syndrome holds women back. Here’s how I support my team through it.

This post was originally published on the Topknot Blog and was authored by Daphne Larose.

Most of us strive to do our best at work. We show up to our desks with the intention of doing good work and feeling good in what we’ve produced. We all deserve to feel that sense of accomplishment in our work, to be able to bask in all of the good feels that come with feeling confident in our contributions.
Unfortunately, many of us struggle to experience any of that. Instead, we spend most of our time beating ourselves up for imagined shortcomings. Maybe we’re questioning whether we could have done more or dismissing our contributions by thinking that anyone could have done what we’ve achieved. This pervasive negative headspace can cause not only our work to suffer, but our wellbeing as well.

As a manager, the impact of this negative headspace on work and well-being matter. Confidence sets the tone for how your reports will engage with their work. Lower confidence tends to produce lower quality performance, e.g. spinning their wheels more often, not asking for help, tasks extending long beyond the original deadline, etc. Conversely, higher confidence tends to produce higher quality performance.

Manager as Mentor

Often, in order to get out of such a space, we need help. Managers are wonderfully positioned to provide this assistance to their reports because they have the opportunity to connect as a mentor. When I approach my reports as a mentor, I hold space for them to show up as they are. I demonstrate to them that I value them as a person as opposed to just valuing their output. This in turn builds a bond of trust between us, and only on a foundation of trust can I help them build their confidence.
So, how do we build this foundation? The first, and most crucial, step is to build trust between yourself and your report. This step cannot be skipped — it would be like trying to build a house without laying the foundation first or starting to write code without a hot beverage and your favorite playlist ready to go (can you imagine!). Trust creates space and potential for vulnerability, and it is only through vulnerability that growth can happen.

Vulnerability and Feelings

If you’ll indulge me, let’s pull over for a second to talk about vulnerability: vulnerability implies feelings, and for a lot of people, the word vulnerability elicits all sorts of reactions, from the mild, “ew, feelings,” to the terrified “$@%# feelings?!?!” “Feelings” almost gets treated like a bad word in the working world, as if we’re supposed to leave them in the other room once we sit down at our home desks and crack open our laptops. But if the pandemic has taught us all anything, it’s that, like it or not, life is messy and things blend into all sorts of spaces despite our best efforts to compartmentalize. Feelings are the same — you can’t just turn them off like a light switch when it’s work time (and, for the record, pretending they aren’t there and ignoring them is not the same as turning them off).

As a manager, it’s important that you remind yourself that your reports have feelings. Your role is to help your reports be the best versions of themselves so that they can do their best work. They cannot achieve this effectively if space is not made for their feelings. They also cannot produce their best work if their confidence is suffering.

This may seem obvious — of course everyone has feelings! — but in my experience, it bears repeating. I have found it very difficult to be present with my work in moments when I’m feeling deeply insecure about my ability to execute and, unsurprisingly, that inability to be present would negatively impact the quality of my performance. I have seen this in my mentees as well — in moments when imposter syndrome is getting the best of them, they often spiral, which only makes them feel more discouraged and erodes their confidence.

Addressing Imposter Syndrome Head-on

As their manager, the only way I can know any of that is happening is by getting them to open up to me. I’ve had one-on-ones with reports where, as they started talking about their work, I could hear the frustration and disappointment in their tone. I would ask them prompting questions, not about the output, but questions like, “What feelings came up for you as you were working?” This line of questioning demonstrated compassion — it showed I cared about what they were going through as people while they worked — and it also opened up a line of communication between us for them to share with me what’s on their mind. I have uncovered many of my reports’ hidden imposter syndrome this way.

Having higher confidence in their work also plays a huge role in their ability to talk through their own work and receive new ideas. I have found that when feeling insecure about their work, my reports would stumble through discussing their project or be quick to give up on elaborating further when prompted with questions. In those moments, I would fall back to our established foundation of trust and use that time as an opportunity to ask them to share what was on their minds. I once had a report open up to me about how a particular project reminded her of a previous internship that left her feeling completely discouraged and questioning her desire to become a software engineer. I shared with her my own personal anecdotes about the countless times I considered leaving the field altogether, wondering if I was even any good at this, and how eventually I was able to work through that.

Those moments of sharing reinforced our relationship and helped her feel like she wasn’t alone in her feelings. It boosted her spirits back up to hear that she wasn’t some uniquely incompetent weirdo like she imagined in her head, but that even people further ahead in their careers have dealt with similar thoughts and gotten through them to accomplish great things. With her confidence boosted, when it came time to circle back to discussing her project, she exhibited a newfound lightness in her tone and approached my suggestions with enthusiasm and excitement. Had we skipped that conversation altogether, my suggestions could have unintentionally been received by her as evidence of her own incompetence (e.g. “Shoot, why didn’t I think of that?” or “How come I didn’t see that?”).

These seemingly-small moments have a cumulative effect, both in increasing a report’s confidence in themselves and building the foundation of trust between us. We all have insecurities and we all need some help sometimes getting past them to reach our best selves. And it’s about more than just one report’s feelings. Imposter syndrome is disproportionately felt by women, especially women of color. As managers, it’s our responsibility to create a supportive space to name those insecurities and move past them in order to thrive.