Debunking Imposter Syndrome as a Women's Issue
Episode 491 | Author: Emilie Aries
Recent research reveals interesting findings about people who experience self-doubt at work.
Imposter syndrome—or impostorism, as I prefer to call it—is a common topic of conversation in professional circles, and with good reason. So many people resonate with feeling like frauds who sweet-talked their way into their position and could be found out, socially ostracized, and fired at any moment.
For as long as it’s been a hot topic, impostorism has also been dubbed a women’s issue. When I give talks and workshops about this topic, I always stress this isn’t the case. Recently, some pretty robust research provided some new, rather surprising numbers supporting that. In this episode, I explore the real facts behind this widespread feeling of not belonging.
Why was impostorism ever a “women’s issue”?
Women have been at the center of this conversation from the start for one simple reason: the initial research was done exclusively on undergraduate women.
It makes sense that feelings linked with a lack of belonging and ostracism would show up most often in marginalized groups who are most likely to actively encounter these experiences in a variety of settings—groups that include women. However, research that followed that initial women-focused study confirmed that 70% of people of all demographics encounter imposterism at some point in their careers.
The latest research from Korn Ferry
In their Workforce 2024 Report, the consulting firm Korn Ferry asked 10,000 professionals worldwide about imposter syndrome. Even if we acknowledge that this is a human issue, not a women’s issue, the findings are surprising: 49% of men report experiencing imposter syndrome compared to 44% of women.
This startling revelation comes with data supporting previous findings about impostorism: 71% of American CEOs checked the “yes” box. Furthermore, the report finds that people in the U.S. and India are much more likely to have this experience than those in the UK, Brazil, and Australia.
In addition to raising some questions about how deeply certain countries link career success with self-worth, all this seems to support impostorism being linked not to gender but to periods of growth both early in our careers and later, as we move into higher-pressure, more visible positions. When we expand our working identities and how we see ourselves, we tend to get hit with a hardy dose of the “not good enoughs.”
It’s also a good reminder that experiencing impostorism isn’t a personal failing or a sign to overhaul your confidence. Rather, it probably indicates you’re doing something courageous.
Reading between the research lines
Finally, there’s a different takeaway from this research other than that men are more likely to experience impostorism than women.
Here’s one more statistic: men run 90% of Fortune 500 companies. Given that nine out of ten people in senior leadership roles are men, it’s more likely that impostorism is a senior leadership issue that is about the pressure you're under at work and not your gender. Just some food for thought.
What’s your experience with impostorism or imposter syndrome? Do these recent findings shock you or support what you already suspected? Drop by the Courage Community on Facebook or join us in our group on LinkedIn to share your thoughts.
Related Links From Today’s Episode:
The original research on imposter syndrome
Korn Ferry’s Workforce 2024 study
Fortune, The Share of Fortune 500 Businesses Run By Women Can’t Seem to Budge Beyond 10%
Harvard Business Review, Women Rising: The Unseen Barriers
Episode 425, The Gender Confidence Gap Myth
LEVEL UP: a Leadership Accelerator for Women on the Rise
Learn to kick impostorism and other leadership pitfalls
to the curb as you LEVEL UP:
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EMILIE: Hey, and welcome to the Bossed Up podcast, episode 491. I'm your host, Emilie Aries, the Founder and CEO of Bossed Up and today I want to talk about imposter syndrome as it's more commonly known, or imposterism, as I like to call it.
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And debunk one myth once and for all, imposter syndrome is not a women's issue. We have long been taught to think of imposter syndrome as something that afflicts women and marginalized folks in particular. And the fact of the matter is imposterism. This feeling of like, being a fraud who's going to be caught at any moment. This feeling like you don't belong, this feeling like you just talked your way into this position, prominence or leadership. Or this feeling like you're just a total fraud, a fake, someone who doesn't belong, who's not qualified to be there and is going to be found out at any moment. That phenomenon affects almost everyone.
So how did this association with women come to be? Well, Clance and Imes, the scholars who first studied imposterism among undergraduate women, studied it and coined the term only after studying this phenomenon among a population of undergraduate women. So that's where it originally got its connotation. They happened to just study undergraduate women thinking, presuming that this was afflicting women in particular. And that's where the connotation started and has stuck over time.
But upon further research, they found this to be prevalent among all kinds of people. In fact, 70% of people report experiencing imposter phenomenon or imposterism at some point in the course of their careers. And while it may be especially prominent among people with marginalized identities, whether that be among identities like race, class, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, you name it, like, being othered in the workplace can certainly predispose you to feeling like an imposter, simply because feelings of not belonging are kind of part of imposter syndrome, that makes sense, but at the same time, it's not like men or white men don't experience these things. And so I want to debunk this as a women's issue and broaden this to a really normal experience of someone who's stretching outside of their comfort zone.
A recent study of 10,000 professionals from across the globe by consulting firm Korn Ferry found that 49% of men reported experiencing imposter syndrome, as opposed to 44% of women surveyed. That's the first study that found more men reporting imposter syndrome than women, which is a really interesting finding, right? Like perhaps this is a men's issue after all. Like the fact that this afflicts more men than women is worth talking about. They found that professionals in the US and India struggled with imposter syndrome, more so than those in the UK, Brazil and Australia, which, which just begs some questions around, like, how much our professional identities influence our sense of self, our self worth, our self confidence.
And what I found most interesting is that across the globe they found that the higher someone rises in work, the more senior their job title is, the more likely they are to identify as having imposter syndrome. With the highest reporting of 71% of American CEOs identifying as having imposter syndrome, which for me totally checks out, because experiencing imposter syndrome is associated most often with periods of growth in your life. So when you are pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, when you are expanding your identity, as I call it in my book, Bossed Up: A Grown Woman's Guide to Getting your S*** Together, you know, when you are expanding what you see yourself as and your working identity is starting to grow and you're pushing yourself to new heights, that is when imposter syndrome hits. And that is perfectly normal.
So the biggest thing to take away from this is that, imposter syndrome is not a personal failing. If you're feeling like a fraud, it's not simply that you lack confidence and need to work on your confidence, right? This is not like a personal trait that's lacking or missing. In fact, it's more likely to reflect that you're doing something really courageous, that you're doing something brave. And so, findings that the higher you rise in a company, the more you're likely to experience imposter syndrome, reminds me of some original research I've cited for forever here on this podcast from the Harvard Business Review, September 2013 issue on invisible barriers that women face in leadership. And what they found in that study, which was done by Herminia Ibarra and her colleagues, is that the more women rise in the ranks of leadership, the more risk averse we get, because our visibility increases, the pressure increases, the pressure to prove yourself on behalf of your entire gender or race increases, and the stakes feel higher, so we start to feel like imposters. Turns out men feel that way too. Turns out high pressure, high visibility roles are going to trigger imposter syndrome for everyone.
And I think that's a really important evolution for the conversation that we've had as a society around what imposterism is, or what imposter syndrome is. I try not to call it imposter syndrome, by the way, because it's not a diagnosis, it's not a clinical situation, it's not a personal mental health disorder. So I just think syndrome kind of gives it more weight than it deserves. And so that's why you'll hear me refer to it as imposterism.
So one last thought on this, just to leave you with this thought, is, you know, should we deduce from this Korn Ferry study that men are more likely to have imposter syndrome? Are men more predisposed to feeling like a fraud? Maybe? Or are men more likely to be in senior leadership positions? And being in senior leadership positions predisposes you to experiencing imposter syndrome. So we gotta be careful here about how we draw conclusions from this study. But in a world where still 90% of Fortune 500 CEOs are men and CEOs are more likely to report imposter syndrome, maybe it's less about gender, maybe it's less about identity, maybe it's about who's in charge, who's in high pressure, high visibility role. And so it's not fair to say this is a men's issue either, really. It's never been a women's issue. But I'm not confident in saying that this is like a men's issue either. Perhaps the different rates of imposter syndrome we're seeing between men and women is simply a reflection of the roles that they find themselves in, rather than anything specific about identity at work.
So help me spread the gospel on this, would you? Like, I think imposter syndrome conversations are so commonly had in Women's ERG’s. I mean, I give a lot of workshops and talks to women's employee resource groups about imposter syndrome because it feels so relevant and prevalent for many of us. But my first point whenever I do so is to de-associate this with being a women's issue, because it's not. It's normal. It's widespread. It's common. Share this episode far and wide to help me debunk this myth, imposter syndrome is a women's issue. And share this with the folks in your world who you think could really use a reminder on this, too.
I'd love to hear what you think about this conversation today. So, as always, chime in. In the Bossed Up Courage Community on Facebook or in the Bossed Up LinkedIn Group. I love hearing from you there. And if you want to really develop your confidence further your leadership identity. Further, be sure to check out LEVEL UP, our six month leadership accelerator for women leaders on the rise.
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All about growing your skills as a manager, growing your confidence as a leader. And it's especially great for those of you who are positioning yourself for a promotion in the months and years ahead. Until next time, let's keep bossin’ in pursuit of our purpose and together let's lift as we climb.
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