Beyond the title: Why impostor syndrome is toxic for new managers & how to beat it
Focus on the team to avoid impostor-syndrome navel gazing.
So. You are a new manager and living the cognitive disconnect that comes from a sudden shift in your place in the hierarchy. Perhaps you’ve experienced the awkward pause followed by the uncomfortable jolt as you realise that the roomful of your colleagues is waiting for you to start the meeting. Colleagues treat you differently now. Or maybe you grew up with the idea that Managers are Special and, now that you are a Manager, you are disconcerted to find you still only have the same mix of skills, flaws, and insecurities that you had before you took the job.
Do not worry. This is the most common feeling new managers run into and there are specific, actionable things you can do to make it go away.
But first, let’s ask ChatGPT
I once saw someone on the internet describe the chatbot as “like having infinite inexperienced laypersons working for you” and I like to ask it what it thinks about life.
ChatGPT thinks that you should acknowledge and normalise your feelings, use positive affirmations, and practice self-care. Thanks, ChatGPT!
Look, this advice is “generally right but specifically wrong”, but we’ll get into that in a minute.
If you have deep-seated feelings of inadequacy or feel like a phony for much of your life & in a wide range of areas outside of work, ChatGPT’s advice is good and honestly you should talk to a professional - this article is not for you.
However, if you have feelings of being an impostor that are specifically related to your recent promotion into management, I have better advice.
Step 1: Let it go
Like most bothersome things in life you should acknowledge the feeling, take a breath, let it go and get on with it. However, you need to do this really quickly - within a couple of days max. If you’re finding this difficult - and if you’ve read this far, I’ll take that as a sign - more drastic action is required.
As a new boss, you only have a short honeymoon period (and you might actually have a negative honeymoon if you’ve been promoted to lead coworkers) so you can’t afford to waste time here.
Step 2: Get over it
Management is a team sport, and the focus should be 100% on the team. Impostor syndrome, however, is inherently selfish. “I feel like…”.
You are focusing on the wrong things. It is not fair, but nobody cares. Your team especially will not care when their self-centred boss spends more time worrying about their own inadequacies instead of creating a positive environment and removing roadblocks so that people can do their job and be successful.
Step 3: Take positive action
As a new leader at any level, there are so many things to learn and understand about your team. Done right, you won’t have any space in your mind for feeling like an impostor.
If you are worried about feeling like an impostor, here is a non-exhaustive list of questions you should try focusing on instead:
Where is the team at? (Is it effective or ineffective? Is it a helpful and collaborative or is it siloed and isolated? Does the team take joint ownership of its goals or do you feel like the sole owner & everyone else is disconnected from them? Do people focus on the success of the team or only on their narrow individual goals? Is there a clear definition of team “success”? Does the team have clarity of purpose - if you ask people on the team what the goal is, could they answer you? Is there a discipline of training & learning? Do people make friends at work? Is it a hierarchical environment where only the boss speaks during meetings, or do all teammates contribute? If some people don’t contribute, why is that? What are everyone’s skills & unique strengths or interests? What is your boss’s perception of your team & why? What are other teams’ perceptions of your team? How does your team interact with other teams - do they go direct, or do they expect you to manage communications? How do other teams interact with each other? Is this ideal or not?)
Where does the team need to get to? (Considering all of the above, what does the team & yourself need to focus on to get better? Is the team aligned with the business’s goals? If the business reaches its goals over the next year or two, how will the team need to change to support this? Have you got a plan for this? Does the team know about the plan & have they had input on it, or are you imposing your plans on them? If you’ve identified issues e.g. with collaboration/communication/alignment/etc how will you fix these? What do people on the team think needs to change, & is this the same as what you think needs to change? What sucks about working here? What are the big obvious opportunities we should be pursuing but aren’t?)
How does the team work? (What is everyone working on, what blockers are they facing right now & what’s likely to block them in 1/2/4 weeks time? Would someone tell you if they were blocked? Have you built enough trust for them to do that? If not, how would you know? Does the team have the right habits in place, e.g. how does it prioritise its time? What type of input do they expect from the manager - is it technical leadership as well as context & prioritisation? How does the team measure progress & results? What would happen if something went wrong - how would the team address this & course correct? What series of meetings - formal and informal - are in place to ensure information is shared effectively?)
There are literally hundreds of things a new leader will need to learn about the team, its people, & its place in the world, but the above is a good starting point. Shift the focus from “me” to “we” and you will find you have much less mental energy to spend on feeling like an impostor.
Can you be more specific?
When you start work tomorrow, immediately start work on fixing on a blocker for one of your team. If you don’t know of anything blocking them, ask around and find one.
I guarantee you somebody will have something, even if it’s just “the tea in the tearoom sucks” example from Radical Candor.
Ask someone else “what is the worst thing about working here?” about your organisation or team. Take notes, their answer is a future blocker for you to put in your mental backlog.
Every day after this, try to answer one of the questions I highlighted under Step 3.
The bottom line
If you follow the above advice, you will be much too busy to feel like an impostor. If you then act upon the things you learn, in a short amount of time, you will have made so much progress & have so much to show for it, that you will have the evidence required to dispel those feelings for good.
Remember: The best way to stop feeling like an impostor is to simply not be an impostor.
Good luck on your journey!