Reverse impostor syndrome
Imposter syndrome is other people thinking you’re good, but you don’t believe it yourself. Reverse imposter syndrome is knowing you are good, but others don’t see it from the outside.
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Read time: 7 minutes
NOTE: I originally started this draft 7 years ago (!). I’m keeping it as is, mainly because I want to preserve the frustration I felt at the time with experiencing reverse imposter syndrome.
I’ve done a ton of work to improve my reverse imposter syndrome, and have since helped dozens of clients do the same. I hope this post brings you solace and a new perspective on your own situation.
Recently, I’ve had my ears perked about imposter syndrome because I realized that I have the opposite of imposter syndrome—and my hypothesis is that many people who think they have imposter syndrome actually have the opposite.
I’m calling it Reverse Imposter Syndrome.
I basically realized I didn’t have imposter syndrome, but rather the opposite: that I’m quite good at my craft, and people who see my work up close would agree. The problem is: very few people see my (and your) work up close.
Sometimes I’m shocked at the hard problems I’m solving on a weekly basis and the elegant solutions I create. If you work in-house, your work is likely locked behind closed doors. Even your manager or close colleagues might not know the creativity that goes into the hardest parts of what you do. Literally the only people who see it are 1-3 people who you work most closely with.
It’s also likely that you don’t tell customers how the sausage is made. The reward for elegant solutions is the customer taking the action you want them to take. Again, in this situation, the customer and your own internal team do not see the work behind-the-scenes.
Most people judge us based on external signals, such as your most recent job title, how famous your past employers are (all the ex-Meta, ex-Amazon, ex-unicorn employees), etc as proxies for how good you are.
My worry isn’t that I’m not good enough. It’s that I’m good, but there aren’t enough external signals and clues for outsiders to see it.
Reverse imposter syndrome is a perception problem
The idea of imposter syndrome is widely known. There are debates surrounding the idea, but it’s generally defined as “A cognitive bias where someone feels like they are undeserving of success and are not competent. People with imposter syndrome may struggle to attribute their successes to internal factors.”
People online seem to say the opposite of imposter syndrome is the Dunning-Kruger effect, where one has “excessive confidence in their abilities, even though their actual skills don’t match up.”
What I’m talking about is different:
I define “reverse imposter syndrome” as primarily a perception problem.
You are confident in your abilities, but the external signals and clues about your work understate your actual ability.
If imposter syndrome is worrying that you’re not good enough or don’t know what you’re doing, then reverse imposter syndrome is the opposite: You know what you’re doing, you’re confident in your ability to deliver (and have the track record to show for it), but your external “brand” doesn’t reflect the strength of your actual abilities.
Another way to put it:
Imposter syndrome is other people thinking you’re good, but you still don’t believe it for yourself on the inside.
Reverse imposter syndrome is knowing you are good, but others don’t believe it (as much as you know it to be true).
Who might experience reverse imposter syndrome?
Many of my 1:1 executive coaching clients face reverse imposter syndrome.
In my experience, the operators/leaders most prone to having reverse imposter syndrome are folks who:
are hard working
don’t usually seek the spotlight
got to where they are because they are sharp and able to drive results
are used to their results “speaking for themselves”
are traditionally more comfortable doing the work vs talking about the work
To be clear, reverse imposter syndrome is not an excuse to delude yourself into thinking you are actually better than everyone thinks you are. The people closest to your work (who have visibility into your skills) should believe you do excellent work, and you should have a track record that speaks to the outcomes you’ve driven.
Reverse imposter syndrome often involves how leaders are perceived by those around them.
For example, there is a difference between being strategic and being perceived as strategic. Many of the clients I work with have been driving strategy for years, but due to the way they speak about their work (in a way that’s overly tactical) or because most of their contributions were behind-the-scenes, they aren’t seen as strategic leaders. The people around them don’t view them as strategic.
To take action on this feedback, they should not necessarily learn to be strategic (we are assuming they already are). The way to combat this perceived lack of strategy is to actually speak more often and in a more compelling way about their strategies, be more vocal about their vision, share learnings more broadly with folks outside their own team, etc. Think of it as doing a mini PR campaign where you systematically update how you and your work are positioned. This is something I help clients with.
Folks who deal with reverse imposter syndrome have spent years driving results. So now they need to devote attention to learning a new skill: how to be perceived as someone who drives results.
I think all of us want our outsides to match our insides. It’s quite painful to know you are very good at your job, but know that other people don’t recognize this. For me, I felt resentful and jaded, and upon reflection, jealous of my coworkers who were better at talking about their work than I was.
At first, I tried to explain the problem away by saying people who know how to talk about their work as simply “great talkers.” But I took pride in being a “great doer.” I subconsciously felt like learning to promote my work was beneath me. I’ve since changed my mind on this completely.
I believe it’s every operator’s responsibility to invest in learning how to try to have your outsides match your insides. If we as a society want “deserving” people to rise to the top, then “deserving” people (that’s you) have to learn how to promote their work in a way that feels authentic and grounded.
Internal vs external work
So what should you do?
The go-to solution for normal imposter syndrome is primarily internal. You want to improve your own confidence, to help your own brain “catch up” and “update” your thinking to reflect how good you actually are.
The solution for reverse imposter syndrome, though, is external. If you have reverse imposter syndrome, you should work on how you’re positioned in the minds of others. This includes your colleagues, manager, senior leadership, etc.
I believe most posts about “personal branding,” “increasing your visibility,” and “how to talk about your work” are too surface-level and kind of cringe. Those tips might work if you are trying to grow your audience on social, but they do not work if you are an in-house operator who works with sharp leaders with good taste, who are not easily fooled.
After years of helping tech leaders position themselves and their work (resulting in successful promotions, getting invited to present to senior leadership, getting tapped for high profile projects, etc), I do not believe “positioning yourself” is one topic.
It’s actually a bunch of different sub-skills and behaviors that allow you to be seen as the competent, strategic operator you are. And you do these activities over time, consistently, to change how you are perceived.
If you want to work on your positioning, here’s more I’ve written on the “how”:
How to build your personal credibility (not your personal brand)
How to control the narrative if your work is being questioned
If you feel uneasy about your competence, your mind might jump to the conclusion that “I have imposter syndrome.” We’re so familiar with the phrase it seems like the uneasiness must be attributed to that.
But now that you have the language to identify reverse imposter syndrome, consider if that might be what you’re actually dealing with.
Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you in two weeks on Wednesday at 8am ET.
Wes
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This seems to be what separates companywide leaders from functional ones. Functional leaders can gain authority via proximity: their teams sees their expertise up close and are able to judge it because they have the specific functional knowledge to understand why it's good. But companywide leaders need to be able to gain authority from people who aren't functional experts, which requires zooming out to connect the work to bigger company business goals and clearly articulating that impact to people who don't instinctively "get it."
Yes there is work being done behind the scenes that many do not see, unfortunately these are the type of workers who deserve the promotions but don’t usually get them.
But that’s why when these workers leave, teams collapse.
I don’t like the fact that excellent workers have to market themselves in that way, but that is the reality of workplace culture and politics.
You are discussing a very important topic, Wes.
I think a large part of the challenge is in order to be more vocal you almost have to drop your actual work performance to compensate for your personal marketing, but this type of worker doesn’t want politics they just want to get the work done!