Can you guess what these people they have in common?

*A Chief Information Officer who just immigrated to the United States

*A female partner who was recently named managing director at a prestigious law firm

*An African American first year medical student

All are highly intelligent. All are objectively successful in their chosen career paths. And yet, each one struggles with “Imposter Syndrome”.

Imposter Syndrome is the fear of being found out as a fraud, that an individual isn’t as competent as others think they are. According to the International Journal of Behavioral Sciences, most of us (70 %) experience this feeling at some point in our lives. But when this feeling becomes a chronic condition, it causes us to take fewer risks, prepare excessively, and even become paralyzed – unable to complete important tasks. Imposter Syndrome creates a self-fulfilling loop of never feeling good enough.

If feeling like a fraud is challenging your own sense of self-worth, here are three strategies that you can use right way:

1)    Brain Dump of Accomplishments

Make a list of all your accomplishments. Write everything down – it all counts. You don’t have to be perfect at it, get an “A”, or win a prize. If you accomplished it, even if you had some help or the competition wasn’t that strong, it goes on the list. Every accomplishment that comes to mind, big or small – goes on that list.

Some folks struggle with this exercise, particularly if they are focused on their shortcomings, so we suggest they get a friend who knows them well to help them complete it. This exercise can shift your mindset from focusing on the idea that you do not measure up, to focusing on all things you have accomplished. Shifting our attention to our hard earned successes is one way to turn down the volume of feeling like a fraud.

2)   Choose a GROWTH mindset

When we are stuck in imposter mode, we are operating with a Fixed mindset. This means that we think in black and white terms. “ I’m either good at it or not.” Or “I am either the smartest or I’m not smart”. A Growth mindset allows us to see possibility. “I can learn anything I put my mind too.” In imposter mode, we have an intense desire to to appear smart, so our fixed mindset causes us to avoid challenges and give up when presented with an obstacle  With a growth mindset, we seek out challenges, view obstacles at temporary setbacks, and see learning as a human process we all go through. The good news is that we can intentionally and consciously choose a growth mindset. The trick is to first notice that we are stuck in a fixed mindset, so we can move to our growth mindset. Notice when you are thinking in absolutes, i.e. “I will never be able to sing well” and switch to “I can’t sing well YET”. The word “Yet” directly connects us to our Growth mindset.

3)    You Belong Here

Hidden beneath our imposter syndrome is the idea that we don’t belong. And if we are a member of a minority group, for example, a woman in a male dominated field such as law or an African American in a primarily white medical school, this feeling of “not belonging” is exacerbated. We look around, and we do not see people who look like us. Researchers Watson and Cohn studied feelings of “belonging” with 92 African Americans in their first year of college. They split the students into two groups. The experimental group read an essay on belonging, then wrote their own essay describing their journey of belonging, including why they felt that they belonged at their college now. The control group read information on extracurricular activities. Over their four years in college, students in the belonging group had dramatically increased their GPA compared to the students in the control.  When we feel like we belong, we perform better. So try this yourself: write your own essay of belonging. Trace your journey, your ups and downs and conclude with why you feel you belong now. Let all the evidence that you belong here sink in.

Imposter Syndrome prevents us from performing at our highest potential. Give these strategies a try because you deserve to feel good about what you have accomplished and look forward to tackling new challenges.

Resources

Clance, P.R., & Imes, S.A. (1978). The Impostor Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Interventions. Psychotherapy: Theory Research and Practice, 15, 241247

Jaruwan Sakulku, J., and Alexander, J. (2011). The Impostor Phenomenon. International Journal of Behavioral Science, 6(1), 73-92.

G. M. Walton, G. L. Cohen, A brief social-belonging intervention improves academic and health outcomes of minority students. Science 331, 1447–1451 (2011).

The post Feeling like an Imposter? Three tips that can help immediately appeared first on DKS Consulting Group.

We get calls from managers about this all the time.

A high performer in the company is behaving badly, and you have tried every technique in your management tool kit (and then some) to reign him in. Nothing seems to work.  Typically, this guy is critical to the success of the company, and you don’t want to fire him. But, his out of line, tasteless, and sometimes rude behavior ends up poisoning every meeting he attends and causes other employees to complain.

Although we are pulled in to work with this guy and change his behavior, we have found that an important part of our work includes empowering the managers with strategies that make a difference in working with difficult employees.

Here are 3 strategies:

1)  Figure out what you can control – You can not control your employees’ behavior.  Telling someone to stop behaving in a certain way, having long conversations explaining why he needs to stop the behavior, and threatening him to stop, does not work to change behavior.

All of us have a tendency to do this. We try to explain, cajole, beg, coerce and threaten to get someone stop what they are doing.  But the reality is – you cannot control someone else’s behavior.

Here is the good news.

You DO have control over your OWN behavior.

When your employee makes a rude comment about what you are wearing such as “your skirt looks too tight around your butt”, you have the control to immediately stop the conversation and tell the employee that that is an inappropriate comment. You also can tell him that you will not accept any comments about clothing or body parts.  When your employee insults people in a meeting, you have the power to end the meeting or ask the employee to leave. When you see him in the hall acting rude to others, you have the power to send him home until he can act civilly. Your own behavior is in your control. We help managers anticipate and think through scenarios, identify what they can control, and plan in advance how they will respond. This is a powerful management strategy.

2) Set Clear, Specific Boundaries – You have the authority to clearly, specifically and consistently define what behavior is okay and what is not in the workplace. You also have the authority to establish consequences when behavior is inappropriate.

In fact, an effective manager will communicate what behavior is acceptable and what is expected of the employee in a clear and specific way. She must then consistently reinforce what is expected, and follow through with consequences when behavior is inappropriate.  For example, you can establish a norm that in your meetings, no one will interrupt someone who is speaking. Each person will wait her turn to speak so everyone will get an opportunity to be heard.  If someone interrupts, you can stop the meeting, ask the person to stop interrupting, and make sure to let the other person finish. If the interrupting continues, you can ask the person to leave the meeting. This needs to be clear and consistent to change the behavior.

3) Reward New Behavior – It is essential to notice even the smallest change in behavior and reward it. Sometimes you need to dig deep to find an improvement, but when you do, make sure you tell the employee that he is doing a good job doing, and try to be as specific as you can. For example, “I really appreciate the way you responded to Amy’s idea in the meeting. That was very respectful and encouraging.” This kind of positive reinforcement goes a long way to promote long lasting behavioral change.

Managers often feel helpless when faced with difficult employee behavior. This is really hard, but we want you to know that you have more power in you think.

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