ARE YOU
SUFFERING FROM
IMPOSTER
SYNDROME?
Despite their success and numerous professional
achievements, many women can’t help feeling like a fake at work
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WORDS: KATE GRAHAM
FINALLY, SOMEONE
WHO KNEW HOW
TO USE POWERPOINT
arah Watts, 41, smiles
as she remembers
how she used to
S prepare for client
meetings. As the
director of her own successful
recruitment consultancy she would
first make sure her clothes were
perfect, then prepare her pitch, and
finally pop a Valium. Because behind
the veneer of pure professionalism,
Sarah was terrified.
“I spent my entire 20s feeling like
an imposter,” she admits. “I felt that
at any moment one of my clients
would turn to me and say ‘You are
a fake, what the hell do you know?’.
To the outside world I was capable
and confident, but inside I feared I
was about to be exposed as a fraud.”
Sarah suffered from Imposter
Syndrome (or IS), a psychological
phenomenon first coined by Pauline
Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978.
It describes people who, despite
reaching significant milestones,
cannot internalise their success or
convince themselves they deserve it.
“They consider themselves to
be ‘impostors’,” wrote Clance.
“Numerous achievements, which
one might expect to provide ample
objective evidence of superior
intellectual functioning, do not
appear to affect the impostor belief.”
Fast forward more than 30 years
and the syndrome has become
widespread, with Clance now
estimating that it affects 30% of the
population. While anyone can have
IS, Dr Valerie Young, author, speaker,
and a self-proclaimed “recovering
imposter” explains why women are
more likely to be sufferers. “We are
under increasing pressure to do
everything – to have the job, the
baby, the wardrobe. The bar is set
so high, and we beat ourselves up
if we don’t meet it.”
Dr Suzanne Doyle-Morris, author
of Beyond The Boys’ Club, agrees.
“I run workshops for women and one
contained 10 female scientists, all
with Phds, all working at senior
levels. One woman said ‘Can you
give me tips on how to feel more
confident? I feel like at any moment
I am about to be found out.’ I asked
anyone who felt the same to raise
their hand, and every single one went
up. The woman’s face went from
shocked to relieved – it was a great
moment for her to realise that
she wasn’t alone.”
There can’t be many women
who haven’t had a fleeting moment
of self-doubt in their careers. But
what sets IS apart is the all-pervading
fear and distress at being exposed,
the unshakeable knowledge
that successes are flukes and
achievements are luck. It is a state
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