(5/7) Impostor Series: Your Workplace Fuels Self-Doubt
According to Dr. Valerie Young's book The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, there are seven “good reasons” to feel like an impostor. I invite you to see how many of these resonate with you.
Messages from Childhood
You are a Student or Learner
You Work Alone
You Work in a Creative Field
5) Your Environment Feeds Self-Doubt
The world of business is known for being a cutthroat, dog-eat-dog profession. Certain professions are known for having grueling processes even to start your career (think law & med school), while other workplace cultures, intentionally or not, foster infighting, gossip, and burnout.
Impostor Syndrome is a phenomenon in the work environment. That being said, I know many people who suffer from extremely low confidence levels because their home lives also sow the seeds of self-doubt in a similar fashion.
The biggest problem with your environment feeding your self-doubt is that it feels personal and specific. You look around, and the person known for attacking you can be so kind and wonderful to others, leaving you to wonder, “Maybe there is something wrong with me?”
Characteristics of environments that sow self-doubt include:
Pitfall between what is said and what is done. When the work environment encourages you to “take risks” or “move fast and break things” and then puts you on high-blast if a mistake is made. This discrepancy creates a false appearance of safety and feeds Impostor Syndrome.
Professional gaslighting. This looks like someone constantly attacking your work, gossiping about you, dismissing actual concerns while over-accentuating minor mistakes, and keeping you off-balance so you question your own reality.
Punishment for learning & innovating. Asking questions, seeking help, or inviting a new way of thinking comes back to bite you with derision or punitive measures.
Frequent microaggressions. Microaggressions and/or blatant transgressions, especially in a company with little to no accountability, can consistently undermine one's confidence.
It's hard to know the truth when your surroundings reflect fun-house images of yourself, distorting reality. Here are a few ways to separate fact from fiction:
What to Do:
Don't believe your abuser. The worst critic in the room is not the first person to believe, even if it is your boss (or your spouse). Turn to a trusted colleague. This someone provides a clear mirror for you to see yourself in. They see all sides of you, not just problematic things.
Understand the unwritten rules. If you are encouraged to innovate and take risks, meetings should be filled with lots of brainstorming and encouraging possibilities while grounding ideas in reality. If, instead, each meeting is filled with conversations about risk management and throwing people under the bus when mistakes are made, believe what they do, not what they say.
Who can you talk to? Look around your office and figure out who the safest people are to ask questions and discuss the knotholes of work. Some people will seem nice but then gossip behind your back. You will know these people because they will gossip with you about others. Those are not your people. Look for the ones who rarely get involved in office drama.
Managing Microaggressions. Take a breath and decide whether you want to address this directly (or not). If you do, focus on the behavior, not the person. “When you said _____, I felt _____. In the future, I request that you _______.” Document the behavior and see if there is a pattern. If you are a manager witnessing microaggressions, call the aggressor in and talk about it.
Impostor Syndrome lies, saying, “You are the problem. There's something wrong with you. You don't belong here.” If you hear this message, pause and look at your environment. Your workplace culture, or maybe just a few people within it, may be activating that message.