Here is what to do when you feel like a fraud

Over the last two issues, we've covered what the imposter phenomenon is and how it shows up in people's lives. If you've been reading along, you'll know it's a cognitive pattern, not a character flaw, and that it affects a significant proportion of high-achieving people at some point in their careers.

This week is all about what you can do about it.

As usual, I want to base this on properly grounded evidence, rather than popular theories. But it is important to note that the research base on interventions for the imposter phenomenon is less developed than the research on the phenomenon itself.

The evidence is promising but the studies are varied in design and quality, and most are cautious about overstating their conclusions (Siddiqui et al., 2024; Bravata et al., 2019).

So what follows is the best-supported practical guidance available, not a guarantee. Nevertheless, there is one piece of research worth paying particular attention to.

In 2020, Zanchetta and colleagues published what remains the only randomised controlled trial on interventions for the imposter phenomenon. Randomised controlled trials, by the way, are the gold standard for this kind of research and hard to do. One hundred and three young employees were assigned to individual coaching, a group training programme, or no intervention.

The researchers found that the group that had received coaching showed significantly greater reductions in imposter scores at the end of the trial. What is more, when the effect of this coaching was tested again five weeks later, it hadn't faded. It had grown (Zanchetta et al., 2020).

The research also found that the main factor driving the reduction of imposter feelings in the coaching group was a reduction in the fear of negative evaluation.

This is significant because the imposter phenomenon is, at heart a fear of being found out. If we suffer from the phenomenon, we live in constant fear of being exposed as unintelligent or incompetent.

Therefore, if we can reduce our fear of being negatively judged by others, the imposter feelings will no longer be reinforced.

If we can let go of our mask of perfection and admit to our weaknesses, we can learn from our mistakes.

In turn, this will facilitate the shift along the spectrum from a fixed mindset to more of a growth oriented one.

The following approaches can help with this process.

The most well-established approach to reducing imposter feelings is cognitive-behavioural. In simple terms this means: identify the distorted thoughts that drive the imposter feelings, examine the evidence for those thoughts, and replace them with a more accurate appraisal (Siddiqui et al., 2024).

The cognitive-behavioural approach asks you to apply the same scrutiny to your thinking that you'd apply to anyone else's. When you catch a self-critical interpretation forming after something goes wrong, work through these four questions:

1.   What is the evidence for this interpretation? Is there evidence I'm not accounting for that points the other way?

2.   What are the alternative explanations for what happened?

3.   Am I treating a specific event as proof of something general and permanent about me?

4.   Is thinking about it this way helpful to me?

For example, after missing out on a job you applied for, you might find yourself thinking:

“I didn’t get the promotion because, they obviously realise now that I am weak and useless and that I’d be incapable of leading a bigger team.”

If you work thorough the four questions, it might go something like this:

1.   What is the evidence for this interpretation?

The feedback was that I had performed strongly in interview and demonstrated the right competencies for the role, but that they offered the job to somebody external with more direct experience. So, I suppose that doesn’t really suggest I’m useless and couldn’t do the job. 

2.   What are the alternative explanations? 

I suppose what they said sounds plausible and if the other person has more direct experience, there is not much I could have done about that.

3.   Am I treating a specific event as proof of something general and permanent about me?

If I think about it honestly, they’re saying that I just didn’t have enough experience right now, compared to the other candidate, not that I will never be ready for a role like this. 

4.   Is thinking that I am weak and useless helping me?

I guess if I think that way, I won’t feel motivated to build more experience and try for the next opening. Plus, it just makes me feel bad, so it is definitely not helping.

That last question is important because the pessimistic attribution doesn't produce more careful behaviour or better performance. It just produces avoidance and rumination.

The reverse applies equally. When something goes well, resist the instinct to dismiss it. Ask yourself how you contributed to the success.

You don’t need to shout about your achievements if you are worried about seeming arrogant. You just need to recognise them for yourself and take in the feelings of accomplishment and confidence that will flow from those achievements when you allow yourself to recognise them.

When you adopt this position in relation to the successes in your life, you can then build self-efficacy, which is confidence and belief in your capacity to do specific things in specific situations (Bandura, 1977). A meta-analysis by Stajkovic and Luthans (1998) confirmed a strong positive relationship between self-efficacy and performance. The imposter phenomenon undermines the development of self-efficacy by preventing successful experiences from doing the confidence-building work that it should do.

But if you do something well and then explicitly attribute it to your own efforts and capabilities, your self-efficacy in relation to that activity will increase. This is called a mastery experience. The attribution is as important as the event. If you handle a difficult conversation with a team member well, but immediately conclude that it went well because they were in a good mood, you have wasted the mastery experience.

Thus, it is critical to learn to be intentional in reflecting on your experiences honestly and with self-compassion, giving yourself the credit that is due.

In fact, a growing body of research points to self-compassion as a meaningful intervention for imposter feelings. A randomised study of a four-week self-compassion programme found significant reductions in both imposter phenomenon scores and maladaptive perfectionism in the group that went through the programme compared with a control group (cited in Bravata et al., 2019).

This makes sense. One of the primary sustaining factors for imposter feelings is harsh self-criticism after mistakes. Self-compassion doesn't mean lowering your standards or becoming indifferent to performance. It means responding to difficulty with the same basic kindness and reasonableness you'd extend to someone else you respected who was going through the same thing.

Kristin Neff (2003), whose work underpins most of the self-compassion literature, identifies three elements of self-compassion:

You’ll notice that this is again about bringing some balance and reason to the way that we think about ourselves and the things that we do. But this is especially important, because if we can take a kinder approach to ourselves, we are more likely to be able to examine our thinking rationally and give ourselves credit for the successes we have in life.

The Zanchetta et al. (2020) trial was unambiguous: individual coaching was proven to produce meaningful and lasting reductions in imposter feelings. If you have access to coaching, the evidence for using to help overcome imposter phenomenon is strong.

Coaching works because it creates a structured space for reflection, attribution work, and honest appraisal. It helps you shine a light on the way you think and enables you to more realistically appreciate the strengths, capabilities and achievements that you’ll habitually dismiss. Coaching is not an overnight fix and it does not mean they you will never feel doubtful about yourself again. But what it helps you do is reset your thinking so that you can keep any self-doubts in proportion and not allow them to hold you back.

Coaching can also help reduce the isolation that keeps imposter feelings alive, and isolation is the subject of next week's final piece in this series.

References

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215.

Bravata, D. M., Watts, S. A., Keefer, A. L., Madhusudhan, D. K., Taylor, K. T., Clark, D. M., Nelson, R. S., Cokley, K. O., & Hagg, H. K. (2019). Prevalence, predictors, and treatment of impostor syndrome: a systematic review. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 35(4), 1252–1275.

Clance, P. R., & Imes, S. A. (1978). The imposter phenomenon in high achieving women: dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 15(3), 241–247.

Neff, K. D. (2003). Self-compassion: an alternative conceptualization of a healthy attitude toward oneself. Self and Identity, 2(2), 85–101.

Siddiqui, Z. K., Church, H. R., Jayasuriya, R., Boddice, T., & Tomlinson, J. (2024). Educational interventions for imposter phenomenon in healthcare: a scoping review. BMC Medical Education, 24, 43.

Stajkovic, A. D., & Luthans, F. (1998). Self-efficacy and work-related performance: a meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 124(2), 240–261.

Zanchetta, M., Junker, S., Wolf, A-M., & Traut-Mattausch, E. (2020). "Overcoming the fear that haunts your success": the effectiveness of interventions for reducing the impostor phenomenon. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 405.

All of my posts for new leaders are here.

As we’ve seen, coaching is one of the recognised interventions that can help with the imposter phenomenon.

If you’d like to explore whether I can help you with any imposter feelings hit reply and we can arrange an introductory chat. There are more details and booking links here.