Imposter Syndrome: How To Spot 5 Top Secret Warning Signs in Colleagues and Clients [Episode 63]

How to spot five top secret warning signs of imposter syndrome in colleagues and clients. Today in episode 63 of the Ditching Imposter Syndrome podcast, we're going to be diving more deeply into how to spot those hidden warning signs, and they are more of a master of disguise than Moriarty. So if you want to go Sherlock Holmes on spotting those warning signs so you can intervene and support a colleague or client before they self sabotage, this episode is for you. We're going to do a brief recap of the obvious warning signs. Then I'm going to share with you five that you might not have realised are actually driven by imposter syndrome.

And that means that you'll be able to spot them in yourself or in others before they become a big deal. Today's episode is for you. If you're a line manager, a coach, consultant, HR professional, mental health, first aid, or someone who's secretly running impostor syndrome themselves, and you want to be able to really spot the warning signs as early on as you can. In a moment, I'm going to give you a recap, the obvious ones, and I'm going to put a link in the show notes to a podcast episode I did on these in more detail. This episode today is if you really want to go for the nuanced warning signs so that you can act as soon as possible to turn imposter syndrome around.

One of the things I loved from my engineering days, I was a six Sigma and lean manufacturing specialist in diesel engine manufacturer and design, was the ability to spot problems as soon as possible in the process. There's this that happens where if you wait till the end of a production process before you find the problem, it takes a lot of effort to put it right. The sooner in the process, the earlier you can spot that issue, the less effort it takes to correct and prevent it. There's this thing called a trajectory, okay? So the tiny changes I make today change the trajectory so the flight path, effectively, of what it is that I'm creating in the world of impostor syndrome.

What this means is the sooner you can spot the earliest possible warning signs of something like self sabotage, the less of an impact it will have and the easier it is to deal with. Now, if you've hung out with me for a while, you'll know that actually the foundation of my work is based in that six Sigma engineering that prevention is better than cure. If you've got a cure, something, you've already experienced it, you've been through the pain, the stress, the hassle, the anxiety, the what ifing, the catastrophizing everything imposter syndrome brings with it. But if you prevent it by doing the deeper root causework, you never have to experience any of that. That is a journey.

It's something I can definitely help you with. The imposter syndrome hacks app in the app Store or Google Play is a fantastic place to start. But what I want to talk about today is how to spot those warning signs so you can take action if you're currently still running imposter syndrome, so that you can prevent it affecting you. And that buys the time for you to do the deeper work, to clear it out and set yourself free from it once and and for all. So many moons ago, back on episode eleven.

Can you believe it? Eleven. We're now on 63 of the Itching Imposter syndrome podcast. I talked to you in detail about the warning signs. It's really worth listening to that episode if this topic is new to you and I want to do a quick recap for you.

Some of the obvious warning signs of imposter syndrome in yourself, in colleagues, in clients, in loved ones waiting slightly too long to return that call or email until the opportunity has passed. And you might even have volunteered someone else in your place. Turning down a longed for golden opportunity. Convincing yourself it wasn't right for you or it was the wrong timing. Not speaking up publicly with a great idea that you might already have shared privately, or toning it down.

Toning down your ideas and opinions so that you don't stand out and you feel accepted and you don't risk being criticised. Putting on a Persona or an alter ego. Channelling your inner Beyonce, for example, masking your imposter syndrome so you're pretending you feel confident when inside you don't, being irritable with a short fuse. This is a side effect of the chronic stress and anxiety that comes with imposter syndrome. That leaves us stuck in the fight flight freeze response with our system flooded with adrenaline and cortisol, meaning that, yeah, we become snappy, we become irritable, we become defensive, and we struggle to be patient with colleagues, clients and loved ones.

Another common warning sign is criticising others, which is a projection of inner perfectionism, one of the four P's of imposter syndrome. We'll talk about those more in a moment. Again, making mistakes and finding it hard to concentrate. Now that is a neuroscience based fear response where when we're stuck in that fight flight freeze chronic stress, the body actually reroutes the blood flow in the brain to prioritise the primal part responsible for survival and short term decision making. It diverts it away from the part of the brain that comes up with our brilliant ideas, and we make more mistakes and find it harder to concentrate.

Because of the impact on imposter syndrome, thoughts and feelings and actions on the brain, we're more likely to brush off success as fluke or luck or a team effort. You'll find that some people will leave the role they loved soon after a promotion because their old coping strategies for imposter syndrome are not enough. This is one of the reasons why I have such a huge soapbox about let's stop pretending it's okay. Let's stop normalising imposter syndrome, let's stop pretending there's nothing we can do about it. When you have the right tools and techniques, you can truly set yourself free from this once and for all in just a few minutes a day.

And that is what I share with you. Another big common warning sign is leaving a role you love because you want to get promoted. A lot of people, particularly women, I've found in my various research studies, will jump ship and leave a job they loved, friends they loved, a company they loved, because the fear of the potential shame if they fail to get that promotion is so great they cannot face applying internally. Another big common warning sign, red flag is not going for promotion that everybody expected someone to want or applying for a sabbatical or a leave of absence. I've been talking with some companies recently where the leave of absence and sabbatical rates are so high.

High that the remaining team members are starting to go out sick with burnout. So these are some of the obvious warning signs for imposter syndrome. Now, we're going to Sherlock Holmes our way through some of the less obvious, semi top secret ones. These are the kind of warning signs that happen so early in that self sabotage process, that often the person you're working with won't even realise they're running imposter syndrome themselves. Number one, deflecting praise.

Instead of accepting compliments. They might shift the focus to others. They might minimise their role. It can indicate a deeper belief that they're not truly deserving of recognition, but it can also indicate a fear of being visible, of being seen. Now, I found in my research studies, because we've been researching imposter syndrome, informed performance reviews and feedback processes, 44% of people will volunteer a but out loud when they're praised, they will publicly criticise themselves in response to praise.

Another aspect of this one is as they suggest an idea, they will volunteer problems with it. They will self criticise their idea even as they're first sharing it. Now, if you remember, I talk about imposter syndrome being the secret fear of others judging us, the way we judge ourselves. So deflecting praise and this volunteering of butts and self criticism is an indicator that there's probably a lot of self judgement going on for the person in their internal narrative. And it's time for you to find a way to help them.

Number two, volunteering to help, despite having a full workload. So this is taking on additional tasks or joining in projects, even when you can see they're already overwhelmed. It's often a way to compensate, to overcompensate rather, and to prove their worth. And they're hiding their fear of being seen as inadequate. This is particularly if they're volunteering for things that have a strong tribe element, giving them a sense of belonging and feeling accepted.

I've talked before about imposter syndrome being an identity level issue about who we are, who we see ourselves as being, rather than just being about mindset and cognitive thought processes. Therefore, because it's an identity level issue, that sense of belonging is vital. Feeling accepted. When we come to one of the models I created from the research study, the four P's of imposter syndrome, this falls under people pleasing. So, just as a quick recap, the four P's are perfectionism, procrastination, project paralysis and people pleasing.

So often this over volunteering can be a way of people pleasing. It can also be a way of feeling like you belong in the tribe. This is one of our most primal fears. It's being excluded from the tribe. It's right there at the bottom in things like Maslow's higher up hierarchy of needs.

And in the yogic world, in the energy centres, the chakras in the body, that sense of feeling safe is right there at the base chakra at the bottom of the spine. Now, volunteering can be really positive, but it can also be an impostor syndrome coping strategy. So one of the things that you're looking for with colleagues, clients or with yourself is whether this is part of a pattern. These are your earliest possible warning signs. They are semi top secret and they're often a hint that maybe you just need to take the person aside for a chat.

I'm going to give you next step. Okay, in a moment. What to do if you spot someone in your team running all of these. So we've got deflecting praise and volunteering to help. Despite a full workload, semi top secret warning sign number three is turning off video on teams calls.

So this can be a sign of discomfort with being seen. It can be a fear of scrutiny, anxiety about showing up. It can be a vulnerability that ties into the fear of exposure that imposter syndrome brings. It is literally not wanting to be visible, not wanting to be seen. This is one of the classic early warning signs of imposter syndrome that's become dysfunctional to the point where people actually can't use their coping strategies to push on through it anymore.

It's that shutting down of being visible, not wanting to stand out, not wanting to be seen. It can also mean that they are overwhelmed, they're overworked. It's also a warning sign for burnout. And we found in our research studies there is a causal link between imposter syndrome and burnout. I'll talk about that more in a moment.

And what you're looking for with this semi top secret warning sign is a change. Somebody who used to have their video on, who's turned it off. It is always worth a quick phone call. Not a teams call, a phone call, or ideally a cup of tea, an in person meeting, if you can, to find out what might be going on for them. If you're an organisation where everybody routinely has their video off, then it's harder to spot.

And I know that teams and Zoom calls are utterly exhausting, that being on camera can be totally draining. But when you have a culture that allows everybody to have their cameras off, it actually harms team dynamics. It makes the communication more difficult. A shocking percentage of people have hearing issues and might be relying on facial expressions or even lip reading to be able to understand. So having video on is always more positive, if you can.

But this top secret warning sign is if you're in a culture where normally it's video on and somebody has switched their video off, there can be genuine reasons, but it can be another top secret warning sign of imposter syndrome. Top secret warning sign number four is if they're ghosting you, they disappear and stop responding to your messages and your emails. This can often be part of those four P's of imposter syndrome. Again with the project paralysis. This is in the fight flight, freeze fawn response.

This is the freeze response where they are literally ignoring the thing that is triggering imposter syndrome for them, hoping it will go away, knowing that if they have to, they can use the fear and the stress of the adrenaline of the deadline to push on through. There are many reasons why someone might ghost you, particularly if it's a client. But it can actually be fear of success, fear of taking the next step. This is especially common in coaching situations. Someone might ghost you just before a breakthrough, even if they've paid for their sessions, because how they're imagining life on the other side of the breakthrough feels scary.

And another reason why it can happen, particularly in a corporate situation, is that fourth p, the people pleasing from the four P's of imposter syndrome is they feel incredibly uncomfortable about saying no. And so it's easier and safer to ghost. So we have, number one, deflecting praise. Number two, volunteering to help despite a full workload. Number three, turning off video on teams and Zoom calls.

Number four, ghosting you. Hidden warning sign. Number five is actually blindingly obvious when we know about it, and it is burnout. This is a sliding scale. Burnout doesn't mean that you're in hospital with a nervous breakdown.

It's happening a long time before then. Remember that trajectory we talked about? The sooner and the earlier in the process you can catch and prevent burnout and deal with the root causes that were driving it. The less harm and impact it will have and the quicker it is to recover. By the time where someone gets signed off sick from work due to burnout, their recovery could be months or even years.

We found in our research studies. As I said, there is a causal link between imposter syndrome and burnout. It's not a correlation. It is a causal. When you think about simple things like the four P's of imposter syndrome, the perfectionism, procrastination, project, paralysis and people pleasing, it's no wonder that people are burning out.

When you add in the fact that imposter syndrome means that most people running it are experiencing chronic long term stress and their fight flight freeze response is firing off 50 times a day or even lasting days, weeks and months, when actually it's designed to last minutes, flooding their system with cortisol, adrenaline and other stress related biochemical reactions, the body will burn out. It isn't designed to handle that kind of intensity of stress. Over that extended period, people have been pushing themselves beyond their limits, often without taking time to rest or recharge. Or they've got to the stage where the things that used to recharge their batteries are no longer enough. Because you might have come across my two batteries model where you have one that you top up every day with your sleep, the general things you do to recharge with what you eat and then you have the emergency longer term battery that's harder to top up.

One of the things we find with imposter syndrome is that pushing on through the fear means that people are draining their emergency battery every single day. And topping that up is really tough. It's not meant to be emptied, but they're relying on it because their daily battery is empty within minutes of starting work. And one of the things that we talk about with people when we're asking them about imposter syndrome is how long it takes for them after coming back from a holiday and opening their inbox before they feel exhausted again. For some people it's kind of like days and weeks, but for others it's minutes.

So if you spot a member of your team who is looking and behaving like they're exhausted, they're making lots of mistakes, they might be ghosting you. They've turned off videos on team calls. Maybe they're volunteering to do things that are actually beyond their workload and they're deflecting praise. These are all nuanced, subtle signs that they need your help and support. And the problem with imposter syndrome is people are extremely unlikely to ask their boss for help unless they have a very strong relationship with their direct line manager because of the shame that comes with it.

And also, you kind of know you're blackballing yourself for future opportunities to shine. So it almost feels like asking for help is a way of self sabotaging. There are a lot of fears and layers of guilt and embarrassment that go with asking for help with imposter syndrome. This is why in the work I share, step Zero is about removing the taboo. You can go and approach a team member, a client, a colleague, a loved one, and talk to them about imposter syndrome.

But it actually works best if you can create a culture where asking for help with imposter syndrome is as okay as asking for help with training from Microsoft Office or whichever systems you're using. And I've got a number of resources for you. If you're spotting any of these warning signs in a member of your team and you want to know what to do next. Firstly, inside my imposter syndrome hacks app. So it's impostersyndromehacks.com, or you can get it at the app store or Google Play Free.

Inside the app is a course called Imposter syndrome 101. One of the lessons in there is how to remove the taboo. Another one of the lessons in there is how to raise the conversation. So if you find that this podcast episode has made you think, do you know what? I really need to talk to so and so, because I think I'm seeing these signs for them.

Download the app, create your free account. Yeah, free account. And that course, imposter syndrome 101, is waiting for you under the courses tab. Look for those lessons, watch them and then have the conversation. Now I've got a treat coming for you very soon.

If you're listening to this episode when it was published in September 2024, then we're just a few weeks away now from my new book being published, coaching Imposter syndrome. This is about what to do when imposter syndrome gate crashes your one to one conversations. This is a book I am giving away to you. Okay? Certainly the first 2000 copies we are giving away both as the digital book to read on your kindle, your ear, your phone, and also as an audiobook.

Coaching imposter syndrome guides you through in more detail what you most need to know as a line manager, HR professional, mental health, first aid, a coach or consultant who is not specialising imposter syndrome work. And then it talks you through what you can do at a practical level, including techniques you can share with people right away to give them some emergency sort of help and relief, how to know when to refer on and how to take those next steps. So you can register to get your copy as my gift, if we've still got some copies left at coachingimpostersyndrome.com and if you really want to be able to go beyond kind of the foundation level stuff, and you want to really go beyond the tea and sympathy into practical solutions that people can use to set themselves free from this once and for all, then make sure you're on one of my coaching certification programmes. I'm going to put a link for that in the show notes.

And finally, if you've got a colleague or a client and you're pretty sure that your inner Sherlock Holmes is right, you've smoked your pipe, you've played your violin, you think you're seeing these warning signs for imposter syndrome, I've also got a gift for them. Okay, absolutely free. I have a mini course that they can do. It's a research backed quiz based on our ten years of research studies that gives them their imposter syndrome risk score. It tells them which of the three core categories or types of imposter syndrome and self sabotage they're running.

And it gives them a personalised action plan training for what they can do to start turning it around today. So that is called do I have imposter syndrome and what can I do about it? Yeah, it does what it says on the tin and I'm going to put a link to that in the show notes as well. And you would be very welcome to share them. Share that with them as my gift.

So I hope you are feeling a bit more qualified to be able to spot the super secret hidden warning signs for imposter syndrome that you found today's episode useful. And if this has been resonating for you for yourself, there are two things you could do right away today to start turning this around. Because imposter syndrome is not incurable. You don't have to put up with it. You don't have to push on through.

You can either go and get yourself ditching imposter syndrome the book right away and you could start acting on this by the end of the day today. Or go and get the imposter syndrome hacks app wherever you like to get your apps on Google or on the Apple App Store. Once you've registered for your free account, you can upgrade to the Courage club and I'm giving it to you for 14 days as my gift. Try it on for size. There's bite sized practical inspiration for imposter syndrome hacks you can start using right away in under five minutes to shrink your stress levels, crank up your confidence, and wave goodbye to imposter syndrome once and for all.

Above all, please don't ignore this. If you're seeing the warning signs, they're actually a gift from the future. You saying, how about today you make that decision and decide that you're going to turn this around? It doesn't have to be this way. And setting yourself totally free from imposter syndrome is so much simpler than most people think.

I hope you found that useful. Have an amazing week. I will be back next time with episode 64, which is all about coping strategies. And I'm going to share with you the science and the research behind why it's so important to move away from the bridge of coping strategies approach for imposter syndrome and practical things that you can do right away to turn this around.