Are you an Impostor?

Do you find yourself making things up on the fly trying to sound like you know what you’re taking about even when you aren’t sure?

Do you find yourself avoiding new approaches even when the current approach isn’t working so well?

Do you feel like you always have to be the smartest in the room?

Do you hate having your ideas challenged?

If not then well done. You are one of the few leaders who doesn’t suffer from feeling like an imposter.

They also tend to see it as a personal internal struggle that has little effect on those around them.

The reality is very different as each time you make something up on the fly you create uncertainty and confusion EVEN when it ‘sounds good’.

Each time you avoid new approaches you miss opportunities to be more productive, skilfully and valuable to others.

Each time you work to be the smartest in the room you stifle the intelligence of those who hired to make the company better and cause THEM to feel like impostors.

Each time you defend your ideas you prevent yourself and your company from using collective intelligence to make infinitely BETTER ideas while causing those that you hired to speak up fear doing so.

How we show up causes ripple effects through everyone we interact with.

The truth is though, you don’t have to feel this way.

Feeling like an imposter is a predictable response to the beliefs you hold about how you should be showing up in the world.

Those beliefs were likely not specifically designed by you but rather collected across your childhood, perhaps even inspiring you to lead, but ultimately causing you to do it anything but YOUR WAY.

So the question is, are you ready to lead your way?

Or an even better question, how much longer are you willing to continue operating as an imposter?