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.
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!
Oh how I wished you would have published this post 7 years ago.... I love the branding of this concept. I've learned the hard way that's its definitely not enough to do a great job. In fact, it's mostly about your ability to talk about the great job you're doing that dictates your growth path. I coach this to my clients and my team and hold tightly to this principle.
this is a major occupational hazard for back-office people (IT infrastructure, finance operations, etc.) where the results of doing your job really well are that nothing ever appears to happen.
Example: our website recently went down for 30 minutes. This had not happened in a very, very, very long time: Our outage-notification page said "copyright 2014" and had some outdated links on it that briefly embarrassed us.
Result: The owner of the company praised us for running such a solid IT shop that the website had literally not had a significant outage in *over 10 years*...
... yeah, that didn't happen.
(which, of course, is on me for failing to tell my team's story well)
This resonated with me deeply. Especially as orgs are becoming more flat and middle management jobs disappear, the normal career progression opportunities become fewer and fewer. So there are less external signals available. It's very frustrating.
Wes, I also think it's link to a skill. I learned it at the #IAmRemarkable workshop - self-promotion skill. We're not taught how to do it. I played tennis for 10 years, all my wins and losses were visible. So I thought it would be the same in corporate. But it was not. And it made some days really hard, because I didn't have that skill.
If you Google, you'll find their website. And they have hundreds of facilitators worldwide. And it's free for everyone. It was an internal initiative at first, but it's been years that it's offered publicly. Honestly it's worth it.
I think reverse imposter might also lead to a need for continuous validation, from authorities (functional or emotional). What works best for me is I am ok, you are ok.
Building visibility in a corporate environment takes deliberate effort. The lever to pull is influence—earning trust, shaping decisions, and making your work easy to see and credit.
I built a course called “30 Days to Greater Influence.” It’s designed for CX pros, but the tactics are timeless and work across roles and industries. Details are on my Substack.
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!
Oh how I wished you would have published this post 7 years ago.... I love the branding of this concept. I've learned the hard way that's its definitely not enough to do a great job. In fact, it's mostly about your ability to talk about the great job you're doing that dictates your growth path. I coach this to my clients and my team and hold tightly to this principle.
this is a major occupational hazard for back-office people (IT infrastructure, finance operations, etc.) where the results of doing your job really well are that nothing ever appears to happen.
Example: our website recently went down for 30 minutes. This had not happened in a very, very, very long time: Our outage-notification page said "copyright 2014" and had some outdated links on it that briefly embarrassed us.
Result: The owner of the company praised us for running such a solid IT shop that the website had literally not had a significant outage in *over 10 years*...
... yeah, that didn't happen.
(which, of course, is on me for failing to tell my team's story well)
This resonated with me deeply. Especially as orgs are becoming more flat and middle management jobs disappear, the normal career progression opportunities become fewer and fewer. So there are less external signals available. It's very frustrating.
Thank you or this. I'm thinking about myself a bit differently after reading your post.
Wes, I also think it's link to a skill. I learned it at the #IAmRemarkable workshop - self-promotion skill. We're not taught how to do it. I played tennis for 10 years, all my wins and losses were visible. So I thought it would be the same in corporate. But it was not. And it made some days really hard, because I didn't have that skill.
How do we find this #IAmRemarkable workshop? Instagram?
This post is a great breakdown of Reverse Imposter Syndrome but now what…?
If you Google, you'll find their website. And they have hundreds of facilitators worldwide. And it's free for everyone. It was an internal initiative at first, but it's been years that it's offered publicly. Honestly it's worth it.
I think reverse imposter might also lead to a need for continuous validation, from authorities (functional or emotional). What works best for me is I am ok, you are ok.
[Option A]
Building visibility in a corporate environment takes deliberate effort. The lever to pull is influence—earning trust, shaping decisions, and making your work easy to see and credit.
I built a course called “30 Days to Greater Influence.” It’s designed for CX pros, but the tactics are timeless and work across roles and industries. Details are on my Substack.