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Future Fear: Part Two – Taking the First Step

I’m not sure who coined the phrase impostor syndrome, but over the past ten years, it has become a feature of many different views about how we perceive ourselves in the workplace. This fear—that we will be discovered to be the impostors we believe ourselves to be—and the promise that all you have to do is “fake it till you make it” has become common advice. However, I wonder if that’s all there is to impostor syndrome. I think it may be more complicated, more richly faceted than merely the fear of being exposed as a fraud.   

Endemic Impostor Syndrome 

Sometimes, impostor syndrome manifests as an organisational malaise.  It becomes embedded in the culture—a culture of impostors.  I’ve grown somewhat cynical about large consulting firms.  Very clever people, supported by powerful brands, can charge hefty fees to advise clients on what you should do or simply repackage what you already know in a way that compels action.  This can foster an organisational culture where the entire entity thrives on its ability to be an impostor.  A tiny proportion of any team deployed by one of these firms has deep experience, knowledge or skills in the subject matter they advise on.  Often, the team is not a team but an ad hoc group of consultants who may never have worked together before. 

In my early career, I relied heavily on my deep technical skills.  I remember working with one of the fastest-growing internet service providers in the world, helping them build a provisioning system using a 4th Generation Language software development technology (PowerBuilder), in which I had developed deep expertise over about seven years.  A Big Five consulting firm deployed a very bright young man to write a system in PowerBuilder after less than six months of experience.  He was, in every sense, an impostor—responsible for building a provisioning system he had no subject matter expertise for, extending an enterprise resource planning system, he had never implemented and using the native coding language of the platform.   

He didn’t even have a senior developer to mentor him or oversee his work. The ISP invited me to review his code, and I did, offering a series of critical comments that required rework. However, it wasn’t just his fault. The partner who had sold the work and led the programme had only ever worked in computer risk audit and had trained as an accountant.  He was brilliant and gifted but had never written a line of code beyond the odd spreadsheet macro.  He, too, was an impostor.   

The entire proposition to this client represented a corporate posture of deception. A few months later, the partner whose work I had critiqued invited me to join his firm. The idea was that I would bring the expertise, so they wouldn’t need to fake it any longer. To an extent, that’s precisely what happened. We built a competent Java software development team that could compete globally.  We weren’t impostors. We provided our recruits with a master’s program in object-oriented software development at Imperial College, London.   

But even then, I saw partners in that firm jumping on every new consulting trend every two or three years, presenting themselves as experts, bringing in junior people beneath them and transitioning them just to keep the pretence alive.  Occasionally, you’d bring in one or two experienced hires to “leaven” the team with genuine expertise. Overall, however, it was a culture of impostors.   

Faking it Until You Make It 

One of the most amusing examples of corporate impostor syndrome I witnessed was when I was brought into a Japanese investment bank early in my career.  They had hired a top trading team from a global investment bank to run their emerging market repo trading desk. However, there were two problems. First, they had no trading platform. Second, the head office in Japan wouldn’t extend the credit lines necessary to trade unless a trading platform was in place.   

A few colleagues and I were brought in to build a trading platform from scratch in four weeks. We informed them it would be a prototype and needed rebuilding. They agreed, and we did it. However, during those weeks, the trading team had to pretend to be active in the market. They were quoting prices, asking for deals, and posing as trading, while not confirming any actual repo contracts. For six weeks, they were complete impostors. This wasn’t just a rogue decision; it was sanctioned from the top of the bank in Tokyo down to the London trading floor.   

Personal Impostor Syndrome 

I’ve seen impostor syndrome manifest as a corporate culture.  However, for most people, it represents a deeply personal challenge. Often, you confront it alone, without the organisation’s support.  The groupthink surrounding you encourages you to keep pretending.  You’re not stepping forward with support—you’re stepping out on your own, driven by the fear of being discovered.   

How do you confront that fear?  It’s tempting to say, like Nike, “Just do it,” or to rely on “fake it till you make it.”   But in doing so, you risk betraying your identity. I believe there’s a more powerful stance to adopt.  I discovered this inadvertently when I joined Arthur Andersen Business Consulting.  I had no idea how to run a consulting project, make a profitable consulting bid, or how internal systems worked.  I didn’t even know how to complete my timesheet. However, I was fortunate.  As a senior manager, many of my peers and leaders recognised and accepted the vulnerability I offered by admitting that I didn’t know.   

I admitted that I genuinely didn’t have a clue in some areas. Rather than pretending, I approached people who had been at the firm for five, six, or even ten years and asked for their help. I said, “Yes, I’m an expert in object-oriented software development and technology, but I need your help to build a successful practice. I need your understanding of how things work here—how we run projects, manage risk, share knowledge.”   

And that vulnerability provided me with the most potent education I could have imagined over the next five years. I’ve always perceived that as the MBA I was paid to do. I never wrote an essay, but I learned more than any top-tier MBA program could teach.   

A Judo Move to Defeat Impostor Syndrome 

So maybe the alternative to faking it until you make it is this: don’t let the fear of being found out as an impostor keep you pretending. Be authentic. Ask for the help you need. Own your strengths, admit your weaknesses, and build a team around you that can help you succeed.  Turn your weakness into a strength, lean into your fear and flip it by engaging the help you need. 

Do you need to fear impostor syndrome? Not if you’re not going to be an impostor. Not if you’re willing to acknowledge that admitting your strengths and weaknesses will foster loyalty and trust from your team.   

Charles McLachlan is the founder of FuturePerfect and on a mission to transform the future of work and business. The Portfolio Executive programme is a new initiative to help executives build a sustainable and impactful second-half-career. Creating an alternative future takes imagination, design, organisation and many other thinking skills. Charles is happy to lend them to you.