Today we had a conversation about barriers to success, especially those which we place in front of ourselves; irrational fears, impostor syndrome. I personally suffer from the latter. An article at Inc.com explains more about Impostor Syndrome:
The public assumes CEOs will be knowledgeable about every aspect of their businesses, and business is getting more complex. In this respect, those with scant education are especially vulnerable. “It’s like the skills I have are just commonsense skills, like being able to relate to people,” says Stockwell. “They don’t feel as valid as knowledge-based skills.” Myhill-Jones, for his part, is the founder of a software company who knows very little about technology. “To this day I can’t do the work we do,” he says. “I can make a comment on the user interface or something. But I don’t understand the underlying technology.”
I guess this goes along with the idea that a manager of a business should always hire people smarter than him. It depends on the work to a degree, but in a business where productivity on a creative or intellectual level is important, why wouldn’t you hire the smartest and brightest people you can afford.
Impostor Syndrome isn’t crippling in itself – it manifests in people who have already attained a degree of success – but it brings on other symptoms which can be debilitating in other areas.
In extreme cases, desperate efforts to shore up foundations perceived as weak can bring down the whole structure, says Kets de Vries. He recalls treating one entrepreneur who felt himself wholly inadequate to run a company, as though nothing he did was ever good enough. “So he kept pushing and pushing,” says Kets de Vries. “His company was falling apart, his wife had left him, his children didn’t like him anymore. He had physical symptoms.”
That would suck! I think my kids like me 🙂