Speaking of Psychology - Encore - How to overcome feeling like an imposter, with Lisa Orbé-Austin, PhD, and Kevin Cokley, PhD

Episode Date: August 10, 2022

Do you ever feel like a phony? Like you’re not really qualified for the job you’re doing, despite your achievements? Those are signs of the impostor phenomenon, also called impostor syndrome. Dr. Lisa Orbé-Austin, a counseling psychologist and career coach in New York City, and Dr. Kevin Cokley, a University of Texas at Austin psychology professor who studies the impostor phenomenon among ethnic minority students, discuss where impostor feelings come from, the repercussions they can have in people’s lives, and what you can do to address imposter feelings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaking of Psychology is taking a summer break, so we're rerunning one of our favorite episodes from the past. In July 2021, I talked to psychologist Lisa Orbe Austin and Kevin Coakley about imposter phenomenon, what it is and how people can overcome it. We hope you enjoy this episode from the archives. Speaking of Psychology, we'll be back with new episodes next week. Thank you for listening. Do you ever feel like a fake? like you're not really qualified for the job you're doing despite your achievements and credentials, or like you've just lucked your way into whatever professional or academic success you enjoy,

but you're just one mistake away from being found out for the fraud you really are. If so, you're not alone. Those are signs of imposter phenomenon, also called imposter syndrome. While estimates vary, some research suggests that up to 70% or more of people experience imposter feelings at some point in their lives. So where do these feelings come from? Who is most likely to experience imposter phenomenon? What repercussions can it have in people's personal and professional lives? And if you're troubled by imposter feelings, what can you do to address them and keep them from holding you back?

Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association, that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life. I'm Kim Mills. We have two guests today. First is Dr. Lisa Orbay-Austin, a counseling psychologist in Korea, career coach in New York City, where she focuses on helping clients with career advancement, career transitions, and leadership development. Her book, Own Your Greatness, Overcome Imposter Syndrome, Beat Self-Doubt, and Succeed in Life,

offers readers advice based on decades of research, as well as her own experience helping clients recognize and overcome imposter phenomenon. Our second guest is Dr. Kevin Coakley, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Coakley studies African American psychology, and he is, particularly interested in understanding the psychological and environmental factors that affect African-American student achievement. As part of that work, he has explored the imposter phenomenon and its relationship to mental health and academic outcomes among ethnic minority students. Thank you both for joining me today. Thank you. Thank you for having us,

let's start briefly by talking about the words we're going to use. In the introduction a moment ago, I used the term imposter phenomenon, but many of our listeners may be more familiar with the term imposter syndrome. Are these just two different names for the same thing? In my own language, I use the language of the imposter phenomenon, which of course is the language that was used by Pauline Kleins and Suzanne Iams when they introduced terminology to the literature. We see in sort of popular discourse now the words, the imposter syndrome, which is more popular than the phrase imposter phenomenon. I tend to stay away from. the imposter syndrome, because of the word syndrome itself,

has such a clinical sort of orientation and innuendo. And it was not, again, it is not a syndrome in a classic sense of something that is, that is diagnosable the way that we think about sort of diagnosis as psychologists. So I tend to use a word imposter phenomenon, but I recognize that in terms of popular discourse, the phrase imposter syndrome is much more known. Yeah, and I agree with Kevin that in essence, in the book I sort of talk about the fact that, you know, you know, it is initially coined as imposter phenomenon, doctors, Clance and Iams, the originators of the concept,

were very clear and never using the word syndrome and not wanting to go in that direction because of the medicalized and pathologizing kind of connotation to it. However, in my work, I often use syndrome because that's how people in popular culture identify it and don't identify it with phenomenon. And so it's easier for people to kind of search and find and connect to the idea. But in terms of it is fairly interchangeable, but I completely agree with Kevin around the concept. So as you said, there's no official diagnosis of imposter phenomenon. It's not in the diagnostic and statistical manual. It's not in the ICD, the international classifications of disease. Do either of you believe that it should be a formal diagnosis? And if so, would that be helpful or harmful?

Well, I, again, I don't think that there should be a former diagnosis. I agree with Dr. Orbae Austin that that in some ways sort of medicalizes and pathologizes a term that is really rooted in many ways to reactions to external social stimuli. And so I think that to suggest that it be sort of a former diagnosis really is misplaced and does a disservice to not recognizing the external environments and the other. the sort of stimuli that really are imposing upon people that help sort of exacerbate their feelings of imposterism. Yeah, I agree. I think there are many correlates of imposter syndrome to mental health issues. So, you know, people often have higher levels of anxiety or depression. There are other, like, really diagnostic conditions that do result from the experience. But the experience, I think, of it in and of itself probably doesn't require that. And I think, you know, if you think about diagnostic conditions and this idea that it's sort of impacting your

social, relational, academic functioning, a lot of people with imposter syndrome are actually doing quite well. And so, yes, there are internal, you know, potential correlates, but not for everyone. And it sort of, it varies. And so I think it's really not necessarily, it doesn't necessarily have to be a diagnostic condition to receive intervention, support, you know, other things, be able to see it as a valid experience. Given the amount of coverage that this phenomenon has had in the mainstream media, I think many people's general impression is that imposter phenomenon is a bigger problem for women. Does the research bear that out?

Dr. Orbea Austin is, could you answer that? Who is most likely to experience imposter phenomena, imposter feelings? Well, I think, like, I'll also ask Kevin for his opinion, Dr. Coghleys for his opinion, but in my understanding of the research, I feel like there hasn't been a conclusive point. on whether or not one gender experiences it more than another. There isn't conclusive research to suggest, yes, women experience it more than others. I think because it was initially studied with women, I think people then feel like, oh, this is a women's issue.

And I think, you know, some of the research shows that men experience it somewhat differently. And there's a lot of room for discussion around gender diversity and gender expression. We don't have a lot of research around that itself. But I think it's really important to note that sometimes men experience this in what looks like a different way. And so I think it oftentimes then goes a little bit under-reported in terms of their experience of it. Is sexism a factor here? I mean, is it just the fact that women often feel like we have to perform so much better than men? Fred Astaire did, he was phenomenal, but, you know, his partner danced backwards in high heels. I mean, we always have to be a little bit

better than Ginger Rogers. I lost her name for a minute. Is that part of why women may feel it more acutely. And even Dr. Coakley, ethnic minorities. I mean, the same thing. You know, you have to, because you study that area, you have to perform that much higher a level in order to be taken seriously in many situations. Yeah, no, I would agree with what Dr. Orbe also said, that in the original context, the focus was on women and women who were, you know, very successful. And I think that Dr. Clancy and Dr. Iames perhaps thought that it was, you know, more salient with women, but the research itself has been equivocal. In my own research, I have conducted studies where, you know, some studies, you know, women have reported higher imposter feelings,

but in other studies, there's not been any significant sex difference at all. So, and that's, that's the case with other studies that have reported on imposter phenomenon of finding. So, so the findings are equivocal. What I will say, and I agree again with Dr. to Orby-Aa-Austen that you do see that the way that imposter feelings manifest themselves takes on a very gendered sort of approach. So for example, I have found in one of my studies looking at academic outcomes that imposter feelings were much more salient for women with concerning GPA compared to men. There was no significant mean difference. They both reported significant, similar levels of imposterism, but its implications for academic outcomes, in this

case, GPA, was definitely gendered. And so that's the way that I think it's best to think about any sort of potential gender differences involving imposterousal feelings. And then regarding ethnic minorities, absolutely, I became interested in the area because of my own research on the psychosocial experiences of African-recogn students and other BIP students. And when I came across the imposterivism literature, I was fascinated because there had been relatively little work done on students of color. And so I saw where it would be immediately applicable to the work that I was doing. And it turns out that I was right because many, many BIPAC students report feelings of imposterism in predominantly white educational spaces. And so I think that there is definitely a very strong

connection there. Yeah, and I think I'll add to that in the sense that we talk about this in our work, and our training is about sort of the double impact of imposter syndrome for women, for people of color, of this experience of having these internal feelings, like, I might be a fraud. Like, I don't know if I belong here. I might be incompetent. And then this external communication happening

from the world being like, male, maybe you don't belong here. Maybe you got here because of a diversity program. Maybe you're not good enough. And so as you're working on it and trying to believe in your competence and skills, you're getting these external messages that are reinforcing the imposter syndrome,

which I think makes it more difficult to overcome, because you're getting these additional signals like, hey, maybe you are. And I think, you know, as a result of systems of oppression and other things, they kind of benefit from you maintaining your imposter syndrome. So, you know, I think it's really important to kind of recognize that it can be experienced very different and different populations. Well, let's talk for a minute about how imposter feelings affect people's lives. Dr. Orbe Austin, how do you see it affecting your clients in terms of their career paths and the career choices that they make? Well, I mean, I think it's interesting because I think many of them, I deal with mostly, I work a lot with women, and I think many of them, you know, what the literature finds around women

and some of the ways in which they deal with it is that they're counterphobic, and so they actually face the thing that they're afraid of. And so I don't see them not achieving. I do see them struggling to advocate for themselves in terms of salary, to sometimes feel like they can find other opportunities elsewhere, feeling like maybe this is the only place that will really appreciate me and sort of getting stuck in places. I find it they often struggle with, you know, advocating for promotion and other things. And also, too, I think also in management, struggle with delegation and and micromanagement feeling like their direct reports are direct reflection on them and they don't want to be exposed. And so I do see it

and come up in these different ways. And Dr. Coakley, how does it affect achievement and mental health in the students you've studied? Well, it's interesting because with students of color, I see them really sometimes struggling with acknowledging to other people that they have these feelings. So what ends up happening is that BIPOC students in predominantly white spaces are well aware of the perception that they, by son, that they don't belong there, that they're simply there because of affirmative action. And so they want to sort of prove to others and to themselves that though I belong here because of my achievements and because I am meritorious. but yet they still have this little voice that says, you know, maybe you really were just simply a product of a firm perfection.

So this causes, in addition to all the other sort of stressors that all college students experience, this added sort of what I call this sort of like racialized expression of imposterism is an additional burden and stress on students of color, which ends up sort of taking a toll on them emotionally and their well-being. Now, I will say this, that it's interesting because when you look at, and there's not a lot of empirical data right now to support this, but when you look at the sort of effect on the actual achievement, you'll see that in some cases, I mean, this is perhaps more anecdotal than supported by data, but it seems that individuals who have imposter feelings are also performing in some cases at even higher levels. In other words, they work so hard to, try to counter any sort of perceptions that they don't belong there, that they might end up doing, you know, relatively well, but suffer from sort of, you know, mental health sort of challenges. And so certainly I see, you know, with students of color, them also sort of overachieving, overperforming, trying to sort of counter what they believe to be perceptions about their worthiness of being there.

So they might, on the one hand, look, you know, pretty good on paper in terms of their academic achievements, but they may be suffering from mental health decline. You've both written about your personal experiences with imposter phenomenon. Can you talk about those a little bit how those experiences have informed the work that you do? I mean, for me, it's what drew me to the work, actually, is my own personal experience with imposter syndrome. I've probably had a very different research path early on, and I think, and writing path. But I think that, you know, having experienced it very, very, like pretty impactfully. I mean, I talk about in a TEDx talk and I was in a particularly bad job after I graduated

from my PhD program and I was working for a pretty oppressive boss and felt stuck. I felt stuck in a very really, I felt like stuck in a way I couldn't apply for other jobs. I couldn't talk to people. I was really, really stuck in this job where he was really just making sure that I didn't go anywhere He wasn't necessarily ever complimenting me or ever saying I did a good job, but making sure that I felt really underwater. And it wasn't until I was in a meeting, and I show this often that I was in a meeting. It was an all-female senior staff, and there was music playing in the background, and someone said, what is this music that's playing? And he said, it's music to soothe the savage breast.

And in that one moment, I sort of, like, woke up, and I was like, what am I doing to myself? And why am I here? and why am I putting up with this? And it was all the imposter stuff. I didn't feel good enough. I didn't feel worthy. I didn't feel like I deserved anything. I didn't, you know,

and I just really decided I didn't want to live like that anymore. And I actually quit the job on that Monday and left. And started my practice, like soon after and finally took my licensing exam, did all the things that I was actually not executing on it that were related to my dreams and my goals and my wishes. So for me, like the way it connects for me is that, you know, I feel a very disconcern. distinct passion for making other people aware of how it operates in their lives and helping them, you know, be free of it so that they can feel like they can live in their dreams and not feel the oppression of it. And I think, you know, like Kevin was mentioning, I think from an external

level, I don't think anyone would have been looking at my career going, God, that's a disaster. But for me, it felt like that's what was happening. And I wasn't living in the things that I wanted to be doing for myself. And so that's how it connects for me. Dr. Coakley, what about you? Well, you know, it's interesting. When I give talks to students about my own path to sort of where I've gotten professionally, I always share with them the stories of some of my struggles as an undergraduate student and how, you know, I, you know, had an academic scholarship. I was immediately placed on academic probation after my first semester in college. And just so I talk about sort of how I struggle, you know, as a student. academically. And then when students sort of see where I am now and professionally, they're always amazed. But what the where it is relevant for me even today is that in spite of all of the accolades and things that I've been able to accomplish in my career, I still harbor vestiges of imposterism. And it may seem crazy because, you know, I've, you know, I've done pretty well as an

academic. And yet I still sometimes look at myself and think, you know, are you really all that your accolades would suggest that you are? I mean, it's crazy. I honestly still struggle with that at times. It's so not crazy, Kevin. I mean, I was having, I was having imposter feelings last night because I was going to be on this podcast with you. And I was like, oh my God, what do I know about imposter syndrome? It's Dr. Copley. Yeah. No, it's real. It is very real. Well, so that raises a question of whether imposter phenomenon can ever have any positive effects. I mean, does it spur people to excel? I think you talked about that a little bit.

Yeah, no, it does. I mean, I think that, you know, so for example, when I describe what has been documented as the imposter cycle, you'll see that people sort of take these sort of two paths, one of over-preparation and one of procrastination. For me, it's the path of over-preparation. So when I'm, for example, giving a talk on the imposter feelings, I prepare as though I've never given the talk before. Like, as though I haven't given dozens and dozens and dozens of the talk so much so that my partner says to me, Kevin, why are you spending so much time repairing? Like, you know this like the back of your hand.

Yes, I do. But I never want people to sort of hear me and think he does not know what he's talking about. So I really overprepared. And so I think what happens with people who experience imposterism is that. that they will sort of go to the extra mile. They will work extra hard to try to, you know, sort of do well whatever the task is. And so I think in that sense, it can have a positive effect. But again, I want to make sure that you understand that oftentimes is coupled with, you know,

the negative impact that it has on one sort of well-being. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a great point. Like there's always like, as I'm sort of in recovery of my own imposterousity, I'm always working to check myself around the overwork and overfunctioning. that has done me well. I went to an Ivy League calling. I did all this things.

But I think that it has had such negative other aspects that I've come to recognize that I can be successful without thinking that everyone's going to think I'm a fraud and that those skills still exist within me, whether I think I'm a fraud or not. And then I think it's so much better if I just proceed forward as if I'm not a fraud because I think it'll be better for me a long term.

And it reminds me of something my husband said to me when I was trying to be. trying to break out of my imposter syndrome. And he said, like, if you work as hard for yourself as you do for others, you're going to be unstoppable. And part of my work was around really learning how to work in that effort for myself, as opposed for proving myself, as opposed to making people like me and all this other stuff. And I did it because of things I was invested in, I was interested in that I wanted to do.

I think it was a much better investment of my energy in that direction. but it's a constant battle. How is this different from just being an overachiever? Because it sounds like that's what you're describing, except that maybe you feel like there's somebody at your back, who's chasing you or criticizing you. Well, I mean, I think there's certainly a lot of overlap. I mean, being an overachiever, and in fact, what you'll see, for example,

one of the studies that I conducted, perfectionism has been oftentimes linked to feelings of imposterous. And that's absolutely the case that individuals who have imposter feelings oftentimes will find themselves to be sort of perfectionist. And of course, we know perfectionism, the perfectionism can be both adaptive and maladaptive. And it's the maladaptive forms of perfectionism that will result in sort of feelings of imposterism being particularly harmful. And so certainly there's a strong sort of connection between sort of perfectionism and sort of, and sort of, you know, these sort of feelings that we sometimes struggle with of imposterism. And I think it's such an interesting point because I think the other thing can happen,

which is true too, which is I see underachievement as well because of the perfectionism. It's like, if I can't do it perfectly, I'm not going to do it at all because then it will expose me. And so I think you can see both the overachievement and you can see underachievement. And sometimes they're in different domains or in other areas. But I think it's such an important piece around the perfectionism and how it does underlie. It can make you a great success and it can make you a great success. and it can make you a great failure. And I think it's really kind of how it sort of operates in your particular experience.

So it sounds like you both have techniques for dealing with this within yourselves. What kind of advice do you give to people who are experiencing imposter phenomenon that might be holding them back? Are there techniques that they can use? I've read, for example, that group therapy is one thing that might be helpful. What else can people do if they're having this experience? Well, I mean, I'll offer one that I sort of talk about. So part of what happens with individuals who experience apostarism is that they tend to discount the really positive things that they have achieved, all of their accomplishments. And so it's helpful if you make people or if you sort of ask people to really make a concerted effort to attend to and to document all those things that they actually have done well. So for example, if you sort of ask people to really make a concerted effort to, to attend to and to document all those things that they actually have done well. So for example, if you sort of say, look, consider keeping a weekly or biweekly sort of diary. Every time that you've done something well where you've been acknowledged, where you've done a very good job, acknowledge it, just sort of

documented. And then sort of come back and review that because what ends up happening is you'll see, you know what, I actually have done a very good job on, you know, fill in the blank on this test, on this task, on this, you know, sort of project. Because when you're suffering from imposterism, it becomes very easy to minimize or to discount all those things. You just don't even acknowledge or sometimes you just forget. So attending to those things and making a concerted effort to document them and to revisit them periodically to see, hey, you know what, I have actually done, you know, better than what I give myself credit for.

Yeah, and I think, you know, my book is like all the interventions that have been in the literature and then and sort of also things that I've seen work in my practice. And I think the other, I would definitely agree with Dr. Coughley on that. And I think in addition to dealing with your automatic negative thoughts, you know, learning that certain thoughts are triggered by the imposter syndrome and how do you combat the automatic negative thought and don't just believe it and fall into the cycle of overworking or procrastinating. Working on yourself care, oftentimes when we have imposter syndrome, we put ourselves

at the bottom of the list of who we care about or who we take care of, who we spend time on, really learning how to prioritize that because one of the biggest outcomes from imposter syndrome, Impostalgia syndrome is burnout. And so how do you help avoid chronic burnout? How do you deal with it? How do you recognize and structure self-care? I think oftentimes also we're caught up in very rigid roles around our imposter syndrome. We know how to be the helper. We know how to be the go-to person. We know how to be certain things, but we don't know how to expand outside of those roles. So how do we learn how to ask for help? How do we learn how to widen our role sets? And also building community around this. We often struggle with this alone. And how do you build

community around you that can support you as you kind of recover from this experience. So I think like those are some of them I would also add. Is imposterism something that tends to affect younger people, college students especially, or is that just because that's the research that's out there right now? But by the time people are more established in their careers, does it, does it taper off? I mean, do you just grow and become more confident or do you really have to keep working on it for your whole life. I mean, I think there are ways to kind of minimize it and to get, I always say, isn't it going to go away? Probably not. But can you turn the dial down on it so quietly that you can't even hear it or barely hear it? Yes. And it depends on sort of your trigger and when you're

getting triggered. But I would say like some of the early dates, there's some data out there that suggests that does not get better with time. There was a study by KPMG in 2020 that showed that female executives had a rate of 75% imposter syndrome. So that's higher numbers. than we generally see. So part of the, I think part of the understanding of that is as we become more visible, have more responsibility, have more on the line, it can sometimes make our imposter syndrome worse because there's just a greater stakes at hand. If we lose this, it's a bigger deal. So it can be exacerbated over time depending on responsibility, but I don't know if it's, it's, if there are cohort effects, but I would, I definitely, I'm very interested in sort of more research in the field of

imposter syndrome. But yeah, no, I would agree with what Dr. Orba Alston said. I'm not aware of any research that has examined cohort effects. But as I sort of shared anecdotally, you know, I, you know, I'm a 50-year-old man who's, you know, reasonably successful in my profession and still have had, you know, experiences where I struggle with imposterism. So I would just sort of say that there's probably not a lot of data that would suggest that there are, you know, sort of these profound sort of age differences. Although there may be, I'm just, I just, I'm not. I'm not, not aware of any research. But I would agree with Dr. Orbi-Alson that I think that people can certainly learn to sort of dial down those imposter feelings with sort of age and experience and maturity.

At least we hope that that's the case. So what is the relationship between imposter phenomenon and other mental health challenges that you mentioned earlier like anxiety or depression? Well, I mean, the relationship is that there has been a consistent finding that imposter feelings are associated with increased feelings of anxiety or symptoms of anxiety and depression. I mean, every study that I've ever conducted and every study that I've ever seen reported shows this association. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's, I think we're pretty confident in the saying that if you

are experiencing, you know, imposterism, you are likely going to be also experiencing feelings of, you know, symptoms of anxiety and some depression. And so if you treat those symptoms, then does that help? the imposter phenomenon? Not necessarily. They can be different, right? I think you, you know, one of the things that I've seen, though, is people who have treated their, you know, anxiety with, like, CBT skills or can use some of the similar CBT skills around their imposter syndrome. So I think you can, the skills that you're learning are transferable, but I think you have to tackle the specific, you know, experiences of imposter syndrome around this experience of being a fraud and it being competent.

One of the things that I think is really important for me and my work has been to help people to identify the early experiences that were the foundation for why this imposter syndrome became what it became, whether it was rigid roles in childhood or whether it was family dynamics that were common. I think that has been really helpful for people because I think they start to realize, oh, this thing didn't come from nowhere. And the reason why I'm triggered by particular things today has a history. make sense to me as opposed to this thing came out of nowhere and I know I don't know how to stop it. I think it has, it gives people agency in a sense of like, oh, I get it now. This didn't come from absolutely nowhere. Yeah, no, if I could build on that, I mean, when you read, you know, some of the early work by Clans and Iams, they talk about both having internal factors and the external environment

sort of factors in terms of contributing to how the impossible phenomenon was created. So, for example, regarding internal factors, what they noticed amongst the women that they were working with was the women reported receiving messages about being competent in all these different areas. You know, you're so skilled interpersonal. You're so skilled, I mean, in all these other areas, but not anything related to their intelligence. So they started to at some point think, well, I'm good in these other ways that are more sort of socially related, but no one is ever telling me that I'm, you know, naturally intelligent or that I'm intelligent. So they started to internalize those messages. And then in terms of the external environment, being told, for example, that they, in fact, were really smart, very competent, superior even. But then finding that even though I'm being told this, I'm struggling to meet these expectations.

You know, I'm trying to sort of live up to what people are saying that I am, but not being able to or feel like they're not being able to. And so both those sort of internal factors in the external environment were reported by, you know, clients and I am as sort of contributing to the creation of imposter feelings. What is the role of institutions and leaders like professors or managers to address imposter syndrome? We've been talking a fair amount about what individuals can do themselves, but is there something that institutions, companies can do to recognize and help people address it? Where do I get started on this? I think, you know, companies benefit from this. Right? Because if you are over functioning and overworking and overperforming, they're benefiting.

They're in essence sometimes getting two or three people for the price of one. And so I do think it is there's a lot of inside the system that encourages this level of impossible. I actually was doing a training recently and someone was saying, look, I'm working on trying to have more balance in my life. And I want to do an adequate job. And I ask my manager, can I just do an adequate job and not do exceeds expectations? but then their comp, their comp was, like there's ties to their comp and their bonus structure that if they don't exceed, they don't get anything. So if you just do a good enough job at your job, which we're always telling people who have

perfectionism, like, it's focus on the good enough. Like, if you just do good enough, you don't get additional compensation. So you have to constantly be exceeding to be able to reach certain comp norms. I do think there's a lot in our systems that really have to change so that we don't reinforce force this. Don't burn people out and use them for what they have and then discard them. We have to be more thoughtful about the workers in our system and how we take care of them and how we create longevity for their careers. And I think there's a lot we can do around management and organizations to change these systems that are reinforcing it, you know, ordinarily. Yeah, no, absolutely.

And the other sort of suggesting that I would make, and this is a more difficult one because it really speaks to culture is creating an environment where it's okay to acknowledge that one has made a mistake, to acknowledge that one is not perfect. And this should come from the leaders, from the people, the managers. And this is a bit, imagine, imagine what it would be like for an employee to have a manager to sort of say, you know what, I messed up. I dropped the ball here. I made a mistake. And, you know, it's okay. You know, we're human. Imagine the impact that that would have on employees when their managers acknowledge that sometimes they make mistakes as well.

Yeah, I'll take it one step further, which is like, and then do like a post-mortem on the mistake so everyone can learn from it. Exactly. You know? Exactly. And have such more of a growth mindset perspective as opposed to a fixed mindset perspective about people's capacities and capabilities. Now, exactly.

Now, we all know that changing culture is easier said than done. culture tends to be among the most difficult things to sort of try to change. But if that could happen, it could go such a long ways. I mean, if companies are really serious about being responsive to the needs of their employees, this is one of the things that they absolutely should do. Yeah. The well-being of their employees are a lot of talk about well-being and mental health. And these, there are correlates to imposter syndrome to mental health outcomes,

burnout, depression, anxiety. If you want to reduce that in your staff, reduce some of the ways. in which you are organized to encourage them to do this, you know. Well, this has been really interesting. I think you've offered some good advice to people who may be experiencing the phenomenon, and certainly it doesn't appear that it has held you to back in any way in life. I think you've been quite successful, and I've enjoyed spending some time with you. So thank you.

Thank you. Likewise. I've enjoyed it, too. It's been lovely. For our listeners, you can read more about imposter phenomenon in the June issue of APA's magazine Monitor on Psychology. Go to www.apa.org slash monitor or look for a link in our show notes. You can find previous episodes of Speaking of Psychology at speakingof psychology.org or on Apple, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're so inclined, please leave us a review. If you have comments or ideas for future podcasts, email us at speaking of psychology at APA.org.

That's Speaking of Psychology, all one word, at APA.org. Speaking of Psychology is produced by Lee Wynerman. Our sound editor is Chris Kondyenne. Thank you for listening. For the American Psychological Association, I'm Kim Mills.