One of the perks of attending industry events is the chance to gauge the sector’s direction of travel.
It is an opportunity to not only meet the movers and shakers but also familiarise oneself with key themes and issues.
In April, I was fortunate to cover the Women in Protection conference in London. The women-focused event, with the theme of empowering change, was a runaway success.
It was a truly inspiring and thought-provoking conference with lots of takeaways for the delegates — and for journalists like me.
It was very appropriate that impostor syndrome was discussed at a women’s conference
The session on impostor syndrome in the workplace had the biggest impact on me. I thought Ali Crossley, a senior manager at Legal & General, did a stellar job in sharing her experience of imposter syndrome and how she still battles with it despite her high-flying career.
“For me it’s that gnawing self-doubt and insecurity that you’re not quite good enough,” Crossley told the delegates.
“This feeling can stem from childhood experiences or societal pressures; or it could be you just work in an organisation that is highly competitive with very smart people making you feel, constantly, you’re not good enough.”
High-achieving self-doubters
I understand this feeling. Like most ambitious people, I’ve sometimes grappled with imposter syndrome. The impact can be energy sapping — debilitating, even.
We have got a large proportion of our workforce struggling with insecurities and fear of failure, said Crossley
I’m pretty sure most of us have faced it at some point in our career journey. To paraphrase the great philosopher, Bertrand Russell, you will have to be a fool or a fanatic not to have experienced self-doubt.
In fact, when Crossley did a snap poll of the mostly women leader delegates and their male allies in the protection sector, an overwhelming majority said they had experienced impostor syndrome.
“A room full of highly achieving, successful women and men and it looks like everyone is managing to juggle multiple things at the same time. It’s difficult to believe a room like this is full of people who feel like impostors or perhaps have felt like impostors at some point in their career,” she said.
A senior manager at Legal & General still battles with imposter syndrome despite her high-flying career
In fact, the phenomenon affects the majority of the adult population. In several polls, between 70% and 80% of respondents said they had experienced imposter syndrome.
Even the greats of this world, such as Albert Einstein, Maya Angelou and John Steinbeck, have shared their angst. The latter, who has been called a giant of American letters and gave us such great works of fiction as The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden, saw himself as a fraud.
“I’m not a writer. I’ve been fooling myself and other people,” Steinbeck wrote in his diary.
Just luck?
It was appropriate that impostor syndrome was discussed at a women’s conference. The term gained traction when psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes noticed that successful women sometimes ascribed their achievements to luck.
Even the greats of this world, such as Albert Einstein, Maya Angelou and John Steinbeck, have shared their angst
In a seminal paper, ‘The imposter phenomenon in high-achieving women’, published in 1978, they wrote: “Despite outstanding professional accomplishments, women who experience the impostor phenomenon persist in believing that they are really not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise.”
Impostor syndrome, as one commentator aptly observed, is a response to a world that doesn’t believe in women.
Crossley highlighted a recent study on successful women, by accountancy firm KPMG, which found that three-quarters of them had experienced impostor syndrome. The figure was even higher among women of colour, she said.
I’ve sometimes grappled with imposter syndrome. The impact can be energy sapping — debilitating, even
“We have got a large proportion of our workforce struggling with insecurities and fear of failure, with very few knowing what to do about them or where to go to get any kind of help, and that kind of impact on mental wellbeing in the workplace.”
Crossley said organisations should do more to address this issue “because impostor syndrome is holding people back”. I couldn’t agree more. When smart people hold themselves back, we are all poorer.
Momodou Musa Touray is senior reporter. Contact him at: momodou.touray@moneymarketing.co.uk
This article featured in the June 2023 edition of MM.
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