Promoted During the Great Resignation? Don’t Let Imposter Syndrome Hold You Back.
These three tips will help you feel like the pro you are.
Leadership training is more important now than ever: During the Great Resignation, U.S. workers left their jobs at rates of four million per month. Their reasons for leaving ranged from low pay to toxic culture.
To fill all these open positions, companies either had to hire new employees or promote internally.
Which means there are a whole lot of new leaders right now.
Regardless of how you came into your position, the disappointing truth is this: Most managers never receive formal leadership training. Researchers Todd Rofuth and Julie Piepenbring’s book on leadership and management noted this dearth of training for managers and supervisors—both in their field of social work and others.
Combine this lack of training with new-job jitters, and you’ve got the ingredients for overwhelm and burnout. How can you succeed at the art of leading? How can you help your team reach their full potential?
The good news is that you don’t have to summit this alone. Here are three tips to overcome imposter syndrome in your new role.
Learn Self-Regulation
When your imposter syndrome is triggered, it’s difficult to think clearly. You may feel tense, indecisive, or even paralyzed.
Luckily, you have options. In the 2022 anthology Women in Mechanical Engineering, Toni Crowe and Stephanie Slocum wrote about the importance of self-regulation.
One goal of self-regulation is to disrupt emotions—in this case, imposter syndrome. Crowe recommends a process called self questioning. To do this, she writes down her thoughts about a situation or event.
When she’s done, she re-reads what she wrote. If the thoughts are mostly negative, they probably stem from imposter syndrome. In this case, Crowe recommends:
forgiving yourself for common feelings like fear;
assessing your expectations, to ensure that they’re realistic (and not setting you or your team up for failure); and
reaching out to mentors, who may have been in this situation before.
Being able to interrogate your emotions will benefit both you and your team. It’s one of many qualities of a good leader. You must know yourself to lead yourself.
Seek a Mentor
Meeting with a mentor is kind of like unofficial new manager training: You can ask questions, get advice, solicit feedback, and learn the ins and outs of your industry from someone with more experience.
Some jobs have inherent mentors, such as managers or supervisors. You may even need to check in with that person regularly. If so, these check-ins are great opportunities to voice your concerns.
Unfortunately, speaking openly with your manager isn’t always possible. In these situations, seek out mentors elsewhere. Even if you changed jobs during the Great Resignation, you don’t have to drop your former coworkers! You can stay in touch with old managers, bosses, supervisors, colleagues, or even former teachers and professors.
Conferences are also a great way to meet leaders. Cold emailing works, too.
Your goal is to find someone you can talk with openly. They should be supportive of your fears and concerns. Ideally they should inspire you to find out what it's like to be on the other side of you.
While you can commiserate at times, you should remain professional. Take this reminder from NPR to heart: “Remember that this relationship is not a therapy session.”
Your mentor should help you face challenges, not encourage complaining.
Learning to communicate with a mentor can also improve your employee engagement and your communication with your team. This mentor relationship may make you more receptive to your employees’ concerns, and it may give you the opportunity to provide impact through influence: You can model, for your employees, how to handle tense and difficult moments.
Prepare for New Situations
It’s common to practice for job interviews, but what about practicing for other aspects of your job, after you’ve accepted an offer?
A 2022 study found that imposter syndrome increased during career transitions. This includes not only the interview process, but also the start of your new job, when you’re still learning the ropes.
You may feel silly practicing how to respond to an aggressive boss, but research shows that these dry runs help. For one, Crowe and Slocum advocate role-playing when a specific scenario activates your imposter syndrome. Ask a friend, partner, coworker, or even your new mentor to help.
Walk through the scenario, step by step. Practice what to say, and how to say it. Decide how you’ll react to different responses, both positive and negative. Ask for honest (but kind!) feedback.
You can also enroll in a course. Some jobs offer professional development opportunities, but many don’t. If your position falls into the latter category, don’t panic! Various programs are available online, such as the Altitude Training course, a guided journey to elevate your leadership using practical tools.
Taking a course may not feel productive in the traditional sense—you won’t have something tangible in your hands at the end, such as an award or a completed report. But this is an instance of presence over productivity. Learning how to deal with a new situation is powerful. Practical tools allow you to stay present in hard moments. These tools then allow you to fight for the highest good of others. They help you become a better leader.
In Short: Follow the Platinum Rule
The platinum rule reminds us that we should do unto others as they would have done unto themselves. For new leaders, this can sound impossible—among all your other responsibilities, how can you also identify, and act on, each of your employee’s individual needs?
Addressing imposter syndrome is one way. When you silence the avalanche of fear, you’ll be surprised at how much you can learn—and how much more capable you’ll feel.
Want to learn which type of leader you are? Do you know how to best harness your strengths and weaknesses? Find out by signing up for the 5 Voices quiz here.
Interested in the Altitude Training course? Learn more—and level up your skills—here.