A lack of role models of similar backgrounds can cause difficulty for leaders to visualise success.
Also, low levels of interpersonal relational support can leave the leader feeling isolated and less competent.
Finally, leaders need to know that they are seen by other colleagues and superiors as good leaders.
A lack of that legitimate affirmation can head to feelings of being a fake unworthy manager.
Naserian studied finance during her university years. She loved the discipline and treasured the inescapable logic underpinning investment and corporate finance. Immediately after her undergraduate studies, she devoted herself full-time to earn her master of business administration and Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Only three short months after concluding her graduate degree, Naserian landed a job as an investment analyst at a leading Nairobi-based investment bank. In only a matter of weeks into the job, her boss quit and the senior leadership team at the bank unexpectedly thrust her into the post of department manager.
She felt woefully unprepared for leading a team, motivating them, holding them accountable, and making financial investment decisions that would impact the whole company. Naserian deemed herself fake because she knew theoretical finance but did not hold much practical experience in finance and no practical or theoretical knowledge about how to manage staff. She carefully tiptoed her way through meetings cautiously trying not to expose herself as a phoney leader.
FINANCIAL DECISIONS
Inasmuch, she progressively got more and more fearful to the point that she stopped making high-risk-reward financial decisions for the firm and instead advocated merely pedestrian safe low return investment choices as she started looking to escape the firm for other non-leadership jobs in the industry.
Many managers can relate to Naserian’s feelings. Her sentiments pertaining to her supervisory role prove common and quite prevalent for leaders. Essentially, organisational behaviourists term what she feels as leader impostorism that involves the deep belief and fear that one’s job role and responsibilities exceed their true abilities and instead requires them to portray a phoney sense of elevated representation about their competence.
The phenomenon occurs when leaders fail to internalise their own career success.
While professional feelings of pretender and masquerader have been explored in the scientific community for over forty years, new research from Ronit Kark, Alyson Meister, and Kim Peters showcase causes and outcomes of the phenomenon within organisations. Managerial positions that involve heightened expectations, prominent visibility, and high levels of responsibility are the ripest for officeholders to feel fake like imposters.
The biggest determinants that can cause impostorism, or what scientists call antecedents, boil down to three different types: individual factors, relational factors, and organisational factors.
First, individual factors held by the employee in a leadership role involves their own identity. Do they see themselves as a leader and what is their sense of who they actually are? Maybe they were pushed into the leadership role, like Naserian, and never really sought out managerial responsibilities.
Also, we hear a lot about self-esteem in the workplace, but much less about self-efficacy. Self-efficacy involves the degree to which someone feels that they can accomplish goals and succeed. Someone with low self-efficacy about being a leader is more likely to feel like an imposter when carrying out their duties. Further, a leader with less managerial experience is also more prone to feelings of impostorism.
Second, a deficiency in relational factors can cause leadership impostorism. A lack of role models of similar backgrounds can cause difficulty for leaders to visualise success. Also, low levels of interpersonal relational support can leave the leader feeling isolated and less competent. Finally, leaders need to know that they are seen by other colleagues and superiors as good leaders. A lack of that legitimate affirmation can head to feelings of being a fake unworthy manager.
Third, ineffective organisational factors can also lead to heightened feelings of impostorism. If the entity is not inclusive and welcoming, then a leader is more likely to feel less part of the team and really a fake member. Also, other employees with similar demographics such as age, race, ethnicity, background, gender, etc, makes a leader feel more legitimate.
Why does combating impostorism matter? Impostorism triggers detrimental feelings of fear and shame.
Leaders feeling like imposters experience more stress and unease in their jobs. They get burned out and demotivated easier and seek to exit their roles and organisations at significantly higher rates. They in turn harm their organisation by decreasing their innovative output, increasing their risk-averse decisions, and cause lower performance.
Human resources teams must know the early warning triggers that can point to leader feelings of impostorism. First-time leaders should not be thrown to the sharks and abandoned to sink or swim.
New leaders must be provided with a leadership mentor, relational support with regular check-ins and knowledge sharing, and praise for tasks well done and goals achieved.
