Imposter Syndrome: It’s Not Just for Women Anymore

I learned of the imposter syndrome early in my career at a women’s professional meeting, and through the years I’ve come to understand that the imposter syndrome is not just for women anymore. Way back when, the speaker on the podium described the phenomenon she said many women experience, and I immediately recognized the inner voice I constantly heard telling me, “You don’t belong here, and the minute they discover that you don’t deserve to be here, they’ll shame you and kick you out. Save yourself the embarrassment and shrink down so no one notices you… or just leave now!”

Listening in a large crowd of women nodding their heads, I felt seen and experienced a sense of validation. But I also suddenly felt vulnerable and exposed. Because, while I was relieved I’d discovered that this feeling had a name, it also became something I felt helpless to change. I chalked it up to something I’d have to learn to live with as a woman in professional circles. 

Over the years I came to find that almost every woman I met, actively participating in the workforce or not, experienced some form of the imposter syndrome. It didn’t always stop us from succeeding, but it took its toll on us all psychologically, causing unnecessary levels of stress and anxiety, particularly when operating in our stretch zones.

Photo by Gama. Films

Imposter Syndrome: A Feature (Not a Bug) of the Human Psyche

While I’ve come to see the imposter as a friend and ally, helping us navigate the discomfort of our stretch zones, until very recently I considered it largely a function of the female psyche. 

So imagine my surprise when I began to hear men admit to encountering this voice of doubt! Both privately and publicly, I’ve begun to notice men owning up to the imposter syndrome in articles, podcasts and personal conversations, and it’s now clear to me that the imposter syndrome is not just for women.

Overall I think men jumping on the imposter bandwagon is great because it means:

• The imposter is a feature of the human psyche and that women are not more “broken” than men
• Men seem to experience it differently, and in so doing demonstrate strategies to overcome it
• Men are beginning to role model new levels of vulnerability, which can take the shame out feeling less confident for women and for other men

When I hear men talk about their imposter feelings, they almost always quickly follow it up with how they moved on, which I hear women verbalize less often. Many men share their imposter as a success story, “I felt uncomfortable but pushed past it,” while women tend to share it as a core dynamic beneath their lack of confidence. 

I think that the “I pushed past it,” attitude men express can feel a bit inauthentic to many women, for reasons I speculate on below, but overall I’m glad they’re speaking up. I do believe that imposter feelings are normal human reactions to operating in new environments with higher risk levels, particularly when you haven’t had to work with a new level of risk before. You feel over your head because you are. So I appreciate men who own up to this fact and show how it doesn’t have to get in the way of learning to manage our inner voices while also learning to manage greater risk and success. 

How the Imposter Syndrome Plays Differently with Unconscious Bias and Cultural Stereotype 

While I’m encouraged that men and women both experience this inner world of self-talk, I am very aware that they seem to experience imposter self-talk differently. 

I think it’s important to note that while we all have an inner voice of doubt, that is not the only voice in our heads. We also have inner champions, allies, saboteurs and more. What I find most interesting about how women and men experience the imposter is that it provides insight into the ways internalized stereotypes can make us stronger or more vulnerable. 

Based purely on personal experience with both female and male clients and colleagues I notice that men don’t tend to believe the imposter as “everything that is true about me” in the same way some women do. In my experience, women are more likely to feel helpless, as though the imposter is part of their core self, whereas men have been conditioned to believe it’s a passing state. And men’s self-talk response to noticing the imposter is in alignment with this, in essence, “This feels bad right now, but I can get beyond it.” 

I once heard an interview with a former CEO of a major, Fortune 10 company. He bragged about how as soon as he took on the CEO role he started experiencing imposter syndrome all the time. He said that every morning he’d just look in the mirror and say, “You can do this!” until one day he proved to himself that he could, and his imposter quieted down.

Listening to this I found myself feeling that this strategy would not have worked for me at all. It would ring false, and thus would bring to the surface for me more cynicism and doubt. Then again, I realized, I don’t really recall many external voices in my life telling me, “You got this” when it came to taking on big professional challenges, especially early on. I recall most people expressing surprise that I wanted to take on a professional risk, or concern that I would be putting myself or my family at risk financially by doing so. The subtle message was, “It’s safer to play small.”

And this tracks with my experience of what women and men encounter in many workplace cultures. Following cultural stereotypes that reward high-risk plays from men more than women, men are often encouraged to go for the gold while women are more likely to be cautioned to think twice and avoid setting themselves up for failure.

I must be clear that this is not always true for every man and every woman, but for me and many of my clients, the Imposter gives voice to these external forces by internalizing them so they pop up to plant seeds of doubt at the most challenging times. 

So how can we keep the Imposter from tearing down our confidence completely?

The good news is that the Imposter Syndrome need not make us feel helpless. It turns out that we all have an inner critic that knows how to get our attention, but we also have other voices we can call on to help us manage it. 

I particularly enjoyed the advice from an MIT Sloan lecturer to learn to manage your inner voices as part of the journey to develop your leadership skills. Here is what her advice boils down to:

1. acknowledge that your inner critic’s voice is not “your truth”
2. engage your “inner champion” to remind you that you’re human and resilient
3. turn to your “inner editor” for constructive criticism you can act on

The truth is that when you take on high-risk responsibilities for the first time you ARE an imposter, but only until you prove yourself. Those feelings of anxiety are there to help you pay attention to what you’re learning while you develop in your stretch zone, so that you do actually prove it–to yourself and everyone else! With greater awareness, self-compassion and mindfulness you’ll more quickly learn what you need to know to succeed, and your imposter feelings can fade away as that truth about you fades away too. 

These lessons are just as important for men as for women to internalize so I’m really glad to see that the culture in general, and men more specifically, are picking up on the fact that the imposter syndrome is not just for women.