We have seen women more consistently reach positions of great power and authority in recent decades, from Margaret Thatcher to Angela Merkel, and I am delighted to say that this group of powerful women is showing no signs of slowing down. I believe female leaders in business and politics are set to gain greater relevance with global impact. Just this year, Kamala Harris became the first female and Black and Indian American vice president-elect of the United States, and she lays out behind her a forged path for other women to follow and even surpass her.
Yet, although Margaret Thatcher became the leader of the Conservative Party back in 1975, it has still taken until 2020 for the first senior partner of a magic-circle law firm to be appointed. Georgia Dawson was elected as senior partner of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in September this year.
The Financial Times, 2020
Furthermore, a recent article published by the Financial Times in 2019 uncovered a concerning issue: women in high-power positions are suffering from so-called “imposter syndrome” — anxiety about being exposed as a fraud — in many professional fields. In 2019, Nicola Sturgeon was starkly honest in a radio interview about her own fear of failure, admitting to experiencing imposter syndrome, “Every time I stand up in parliament or do a television interview or television debate, I feel vulnerable, because just in the blink of an eye I could just crash and burn.”
Some will see weakness in her confession, but experience tells me it’s an issue some men also suffer from, along with other mental health issues, and it’s probably a conversation that many of them would like to have. However, because of the rarity of women in higher positions, imposter syndrome appears to be a more common concern among female employees. For example, fewer than 25% of partners among magic-circle law firms are female, and with regards to Freshfields, the number is 17%. However, there have also been examples of women successfully heading up leading law firms. Lesley MacDonagh became the first woman to become managing partner of a Top 10 City firm, as managing partner of Lovell White Durrant. Her tenure was uncontested for three terms and she was credited with overseeing major growth, doubling the firm’s lawyer headcount to more than 1,600 and completing several mergers.
Michelle Obama, Harper’s Bazaar, 2020
Nonetheless, we need only look to other high-profile women, including former US First Lady Michelle Obama and Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, to learn of their own fears of career vertigo, vocalising the phenomenon of imposter-syndrome among other women in the workplace. But, when it comes to battling imposter syndrome, have you ever been told the dismissive, overly simplistic instruction of “Don’t look down”? Miranda Green from the Financial Times deems this to be the standard advice for women in the workplace after the admission of imposter syndrome.
Is imposter syndrome part of the issue holding women back in the workplace and perpetuating the issue of salary inequality? Is the lack of self-belief more prevalent among women, and more debilitating? Finally, how can this be addressed?
There are logical steps that we can take to overcome the feeling of imposter syndrome and the consequent shame it generates. These steps are applicable to anyone in any situation, professional or otherwise. The important thing to remember is that the feelings themselves can be the last things to change. What comes first is the active effort to reframe our own thoughts.
In our experience, many candidates have feelings of being imposters. As NLP master practitioners, we work with candidates to reframe these feelings and replace them with new beliefs.
Amalia Morris, December 2020.