Is Imposter Syndrome rare or everywhere in nonprofit leadership?
Imposter Syndrome: Is it rare or everywhere in Nonprofits?
In recent years, the phenomenon of “imposter syndrome” has been getting a lot of attention. Struggling with your confidence in any role, including work in nonprofit organizations, can impact your performance, happiness and overall approach to your career.
But is feeling like an imposter at work really a syndrome? Is it some rare condition that only rears its head in younger workers or those facing new and big roles? Or do most people actually face down imposter syndrome at some point in their careers?
I believe imposter syndrome is pervasive and could be the greatest threat to nonprofit leadership. But it doesn’t have to be. With a few key mindset shifts, we can finally start to believe that we ARE the leaders our organizations and communities need.
Search results from Google Trends on “Imposter Syndrome”
What is imposter syndrome at work?
Imposter syndrome in the workplace is the fear that you are not qualified (or perceived to be qualified) for your current job or role.
The bigger the role or the more unprepared you feel, the more you may experience imposter syndrome. You might worry that others will discover your lack of expertise or experience, resulting in embarrassment and losing your reputation or even your job. But in most cases, these fears are not based on data or actual co-worker attitudes, but instead on irrational fear or worry.
Is imposter syndrome different in nonprofit work?
Nonprofit leadership takes different forms – many of which can set people up to feel like imposters. Volunteers are often asked to take on significant leadership roles. Staff are frequently promoted into leadership positions with little training or support. And people may be asked to lead organizations simply because there is no one else to do the job.
Nonprofit leaders are also often asked to make something out of very little. Which of course exacerbates the sense that you are making things up as you go. There can also be added pressure that being a nonprofit leader means you are somehow special or more altruistic.
In any of these scenarios, who wouldn’t feel underprepared?
Imposter syndrome can be even more acute for women, BIPOC, LGBTQ folks, and people with disabilities. Not only may you not see others like yourself in leadership, but you may also feel like you need to represent “your people” everywhere you go. In addition, we don’t always get the support, coaching, mentorship, or resources that others do. As a gay man, I certainly have felt like I was probably not in the same rooms getting the same training as my straight peers.
We also absorb things from our culture that tell us what a leader is and what a leader is not. Especially for nonprofit leaders, these cultural beliefs inform whether we feel we “deserve” or have earned our role in leadership.
Note, imposter syndrome in nonprofits is not to be confused with “Founder’s Syndrome.” These are not the same. Founder’s Syndrome is when the founder of a nonprofit is still around and either is resistant to change or has actually burned out. It has nothing to do with imposter syndrome. Geesh, with all these syndromes you’d think our sector is sick or something ☺
Pulling back the curtain on imposter syndrome at work
We don’t do a great job in our society talking about issues of confidence and vulnerability. We don’t create safe spaces for people, especially leaders to say out loud, “I have no idea how to do this role,” or “I am new and inexperienced and am going to just make things up as I go.” We don’t create space for leaders to be OK with ambiguity – that it’s OK to not have the answers or a roadmap.
It’s time to pull back the curtain on the critical issue of confidence and imposter syndrome, especially for nonprofits. Because it is costing us key leaders and damaging our organizations and communities.
“What if the biggest obstacle to the success of our nonprofit organizations isn’t fundraising,
it’s our own mindset challenges?”
What if the biggest obstacle to the success of our nonprofit organizations isn’t fundraising, but our own mindset challenges?
In all my years of helping nonprofit organizations, one of the things I have noticed is that many people fall into the role of a nonprofit leader without any nonprofit management training or experience. And sometimes we get drafted to lead an organization because no one else is available or willing to do it. These are not the best conditions in which to lead. No wonder people are confused or scared. There is no roadmap or model for most of us to look to.
Most people don’t even know where to find nonprofit management training. Even if you go to a college to get a certificate or degree in management or leadership, much of the content is rooted in academia or theory. Or it’s based on research on organizations that look nothing like the ones we are leading.
That’s why I dedicated my business to supporting nonprofit executive directors…they’ve been left out in the cold to fend for themselves. They need to know about compliance, hiring and firing, best and worst practices, and the key areas of responsibility. And they need support to put into practice the mindset shifts that can help tame imposter syndrome in nonprofit work.
Shifting the nonprofit executive director mindset
“We ARE the leaders we have been waiting for.”
We ARE the leaders we have been looking for. We ARE doing a great job starting and running nonprofits. We are making something out of nothing. Part of becoming an excellent leader means knowing where to focus our energy. And focusing on how we don’t measure up is wasted energy.
None of us are perfect. We all make mistakes – sometimes daily. We will accidentally waste money or time or make the wrong hire or fail to get a grant. But these things happen to everyone including the most masterful “experts” in our field.
After failing to create a lightbulb many times before having success, Thomas Edison allegedly said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” True or not, I love that perspective.
We must be OK not being perfect. In fact, we shouldn’t even try to be perfect. We should just try to be thoughtful, thorough, kind, patient and comfortable with ambiguity. We don’t always know the answers. Sometimes we guess. Sometimes we are inventing the path forward in real-time. Or as some say, “building the plane as we are flying it.”
To fix our nonprofits we may need to fix the way we’re thinking about our own skills, mastery, experience, and judgment. Below are six mindset shifts that can help.
Coaching and consulting services to address imposter syndrome
Mindset Shift 1: Nonprofit leaders as entrepreneurs
Nonprofit leaders are entrepreneurs. Period. Like any entrepreneur, we see something that could work better, and we set out to solve it, oftentimes with few resources to start with except our drive, insights, vision and instincts – just like entrepreneurs. It’s critical that we transform our mindset and see ourselves as entrepreneurs and stop ceding that identity to those in the for-profit world.
How does one start a nonprofit without being an entrepreneur? How do you start a nonprofit in Texas, California, New York or anywhere without doing research, thinking about goals, and positioning and then building your team?
We have been socialized in the nonprofit sector to not think in business terms. But I have come to realize and appreciate that you don’t need to be in “business” to have an entrepreneurial mindset or entrepreneurial skills. By not assuming we have the instincts and skills that successful business people do, we subconsciously diminish ourselves and limit our options.
Mindset Shift 2: Should someone else do the job?
It is perfectly fine to wonder if others could do your job better than you. There will almost always be another person somewhere on Earth who could do your job better, but that isn’t the point. Who cares if someone else could do the job better? You are doing it well and that is…all…that…matters! Almost every job in the world could possibly be done better by someone else if they had ideal circumstances.
The imaginary person who might be better at your job didn’t know about the job, didn’t interview for it, and likely didn’t want the job. What really matters is if you can do the job – not whether you are the best person in the world for the job.
Mindset Shift 3: Superego and negative self-talk
If you believe in Freud’s theories, the human ego makes us think we’re great. It allows us to expand, see potential, be ambitious and even take risks. The superego is the counterbalance to the ego. It keeps us in check by talking us down from getting too high-and-mighty with our ego and ambition.
The problem with the superego is that it feels like negative voices in our head telling us we suck, or that people don’t like us. The superego, in essence, is part of how imposter syndrome holds many of us back.
How many times have you told yourself something like: “I can’t apply for that role, I don’t have an advanced degree,” or “I’m not ready to run the entire nonprofit, I don’t even know what an audit is?”
Yet some people stare into the unknown and instead of being intimidated, they take a deep breath and a fresh perspective, and say, “I am going to lean into this uncertainty and see it as an opportunity to learn a new skill. I’ll probably mess up something but that will only make me wiser at the other end.”
Imagine what would be possible if negative self-talk didn’t get in the way.
Mindset Shift 4: Confidence, not comparison
““If your mind is empty … it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.””
We tend to compare ourselves to others, which is usually NOT helpful. Sure, it’s fine to admire someone’s ability to speak publicly or navigate conflict, but constantly comparing ourselves to others is a losing game. We have no idea what is really going on with other leaders or their organizations. Someone may appear amazing, but they are imperfect like you and me and may be suffering from imposter syndrome themselves.
You may admire a nonprofit leader because they are a great speaker, but their finances may be a mess. They may seem like they have built an amazing board, but their staff may be complaining anonymously on an internet chat forum about poor morale at the organization. We just never know!
If you want to compare yourself to others, do so to improve your skills, not to diminish yourself. If you see a skill you don’t have, either learn it or outsource it (if you are the executive director) or just be OK not knowing it all.
The Halo Effect is a phenomenon where we think someone is great and so we attribute all sorts of positive attributions and assumptions to them. It results in us thinking they are above the rest of us, like an angel with a halo, turning everything they touch to gold. The Halo Effect unfairly puts people on a pedestal. Try to notice if you are doing it to others.
Mindset Shift 5: Emergent strategy
Emergent strategy has many definitions, but for the purpose of this blog post, think of emergent strategy as a deliberate decision to not be constrained by rigid plans. It can be strategic to determine the path ahead for your organization by constantly monitoring the conditions in which you operate.
Starting in a new role requires a great deal of curiosity and fact-finding. There is rarely a manual with any kind of directions or standard operating procedures. Most of us are “muddling through” and finding our path by creating it. But we all have training, life experience, judgment, and critical thinking skills to handle the challenges in front of us.
Sometimes the best leadership decisions are made by being comfortable with ambiguity (not knowing for certain what resources our outcomes you should expect) and being as nimble as possible in pursuit of your mission. I have found that one of the most powerful mindset shifts we must make to confront imposter syndrome is giving up on the notion that we have to know it all or that strategic plans, which can be expensive and time consuming, are the only way to be strategic.
One hundred percent of people have improvised something in their job. They didn’t know what they were doing, but they called upon all their assets, took a leap or made a decision and then moved forward. 80% of the time it will work out just fine. Trust yourself.
Mindset Shift 6: It’s also OK to be small
One of the dominant values of our culture is that bigger is better. Unfortunately, we tend to value bigger organizations, bigger foundations, bigger budgets, and bigger projects. We romanticize small business owners, but we love a good story about their “success” in becoming huge companies.
It’s easy to feel the pressure to scale since everyone seems to be using that word. I can’t tell you how many foundation program officers and other donors have asked me, “How can you scale your work?” But what if the best work is done locally and with modest budgets? A friend of mine once said to me, “Evolution has always benefited smaller creatures over larger creatures.” Being small allows you to do one or two things well instead of 20 things poorly. Staying small allows you to save money and be laser focused on impact in a specific area. You can be small and serve people locally, nationally, or internationally. The bigger you get, the more money you have to raise for salaries, benefits, technology, rent and other infrastructure.
Imposter syndrome can creep in when you think that you are supposed to grow your organization. It’s easy to feel like a failure if you don’t scale. I’m here to tell you that all organizations can’t scale, and they shouldn’t. Being OK with being small is something that can be a strategic decision, not a failure.
“If you want to compare yourself to others, do so to improve your skills, not to diminish yourself.”
Get Help – No one does it alone
Finally, don’t be afraid to ask for help.
For higher stakes decisions, it’s appropriate and common to enlist support from others. We are all operating in less than perfect conditions with less than perfect training and tools. If you are already a nonprofit leader, it’s likely you have been asked to lead by others. Well, you don’t have to interview for the job you already have. Think about this when someone challenges your judgment or skills, including if that person is yourself.
Get support from your peers or join online communities of other nonprofit leaders on Reddit, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. If you are still feeling like an imposter after a year or two, consider working with a coach. Be OK with the tension of imposter syndrome. You’re not a failure if you don’t over commit.
Coaching can be a powerful tool for any leader, but especially in dealing with imposter syndrome. Work with me here.
Here is a little piece from the web that may also be helpful.
