In my most recent post, I tackled (from a professional rather than a psychiatric point of view) the troublesome notion of imposterism. I sought to take a nuanced, but critical, perspective on the very familiar conceptualisation of imposterism as a pathological syndrome, drawing in part upon the assessment of Clance (one of the authors of the original paper on the 'imposter phenomenon'). At the same time, I took a similar stance in critiquing the individual-centred and potentially deterministic slant of those authors' belief that the imposter phenomenon can be traced back to childhood experiences in the family and school. I proposed instead a more thoroughly social way of considering imposterism (in school leadership, at least) as a co-constructed phenomenon that is firmly rooted in the unachievable demands placed upon school leaders as a consequence of the dominance of transformational leadership discourse and its subsequent 'myths'.
The critique that I outlined - which leads me to use the term imposterism rather than the more familiar imposter syndrome - obviously struck a chord. At the time of writing this follow-up blogpost, my post on imposterism is approaching 1,000 views which is a record for this site. This level of interest isn't totally surprising given the evidence I cited there that up to 82% of people experience feelings of imposterism. In the responses I have had via social media, two challenges emerged which I would like to take up.
The first, which I will be covering in this post, were challenges around the ways in which school leaders often appear to be over-confident rather than under-confident about their abilities. The second thread of critique was around the question of "so what next?" for those experiencing sensations of imposterism. I will tackle these in a third and final episode of this sequence of posts, to expand upon the necessarily brief overview I gave at the end of the first post. Although I hope to add some more detail in this post too.
Not imposterism, but imposters!
I want to share at length one respondent's challenge about the focus on school leaders and their sense of imposterism. This person asked me to consider the impact of this on others in the school and, in particular, the "staff stress" and "disillusionment" caused by those who seek early promotion to school leadership positions. These people "fall short of the skills/experience to manage and lead others more experienced than them" and as a "defence strategy" bully others to "silence" others who see their "inadequacies". This point was, and is, well-taken but it does two things that merit counter-challenge. Firstly, it assumes that there is a large number of actual imposters into school leadership roles, rather than a large number of people who are capable but are limited by feelings of being an imposter. The second assumption underpinning this argument is that bullying and silencing are deliberate strategies employed by these people to mask their inadequacies, rather than unintentionally patterned behaviour used as a coping mechanism.
My counter-argument to these points is that they are essentially unknowable and therefore impossible to prove one way or another. Even if true, this perspective does not offer a solution that is of help to those at the sharp end of the machinations of these leaders or a remedy for how we improve things. If false, this view generalises the experience of many struggling leaders and negates their struggles, collapsing such struggling into a them-and-us dialectic which might serve to enhance rather than assuage feelings of imposterism. Those seeing themselves as wrongly labelled as genuine imposters will feel conditioned towards one of two 'safe' outcomes: leave the role or lean into the characterisation. An example of the potential for collapsing into a them-and-us dichotomy was given by someone responding to the person making the argument. They said "on the other hand, there are people who have been severely undermined by others, who also develop this syndrome". Again, this argument has resonance for me as well as dissonance but it takes us into a realm where the hatches are battened down on both sides. It too takes an experience of leadership - that of being undermined - and risks generalising it.
I have mentioned that both these arguments have resonance. I would not disagree that some school leaders wield their authority in problematic ways. And I would not disagree that some school leaders face undermining challenges from those they lead who use their own authority in problematic ways. Where I feel a sense of dissonance with both critiques is in the ways in which they generalise from the particular and, crucially, in how the generalisation of these legitimate concerns can lead us into an intellectual and practical cul-de-sac where we (from very different perspectives) criticise but accept the status quo. In this scenario, feelings of imposterism are not tackled productively for the benefit of school leaders, and behaviours that might be indicative of feelings of imposterism on the part of school leaders are not tackled for the benefit of those working with them.
The Inferiority Complex - Alfred Adler
But I do take seriously the concerns that are expressed about the bullying and silencing of others by those experiencing a sensation of imposterism. To do so, I want to take up another popularly misconceived psychological construct, that of Adler's notion of an 'inferiority complex' and its partner, the 'superiority complex'. I should stress that I come to these notions from a non-psychological background, which has its problems as well as its benefits.
The notion of an 'inferiority complex' is problematic in similar ways to that of an 'imposter syndrome', in that "it has lost much of its significance through imprecise popular misuse" that can be "facile", according to the Brittanica website.
Conceptualised by Alfred Adler, the 'inferiority complex' is far more complex than how it is conceived of commonly, where it is often used pejoratively. A key work by Adler on this idea gives a clue to this complexity in its title, 'The feeling of inferiority and the striving for recognition' (1927). In it, Adler's first key argument is that "at the commencement of every life, there must be a more or less deep feeling of inferiority" which arises from the helpless nature of newborn infants and their lack of ability to handle "the problems of existence". Adler sees this inferiorism in dialectical terms as being the "driving force" that generates human "striving" for control over their existence and for recognition. Adler calls this "educability" and argues that it provides for individuals both goals for their existence and the pathway to these goals. Thus, for Adler, educability is itself the feeling of inferiority and, one might add, that the feeling of inferiority is itself educability: to be capable of improving we must feel inferior?
But Adler identifies two factors that are destructive of this educability (or, in other words, of a normally functioning sense of inferiority):
"An exaggerated, intensified, unresolved feeling of inferiority"
" a goal demanding not only security, peace and social equilibrium, but power over his environment, i.e., dominance over his fellows"
The first of these destructive patterns he labelled as the 'inferiority complex' and the second the 'superiority complex'. But what makes the difference between a constructive and a destructive feeling of inferiority? What turns the -ism of inferiorism into an inferiority complex and/or a superiority complex?
'Personal power' versus 'social feeling'
Adler stresses that the educability of inferiority is the healthy striving for dominance over things beyond one's control, but that "the degree of social feeling also helps determine the goal of dominance". The goals generated from feelings of inferiority are artificial creations that do not really exist but help us "orientate ourselves in the chaos of existence", providing a relativity otherwise missing from our social spheres. Goals enable a conceptual shift in the mind of individuals in 'knowing' their unknowable social world. They are more than a "convenient fiction" or philosophic approach, and become fundamental facts in our lives.
Adler refers to this striving to create a knowable social world through goals as being a striving for "personal power" on the part of those who feel powerless. The aim, for those with responsibility for children (Adler's focus is on childhood) is to counterbalance this striving for 'personal power' - rendering it negligible - by developing the child's capacity for "social feeling". This is not an easy task as "even children do not express their striving for power openly, but hide it under the guise of gentleness". The education of children must therefore focus on the development of 'social feeling' aimed at removing their insecurity and feelings of inferiority. This, however, is not a straightforward task as the scales of self-perception in a social world are invisible and so knowing how well-balanced they are is impossible. And without a sense of equilibrium:
Under pressure of the feeling of inferiority, of the torturing thought that the individual is small and helpless, attempt with all its might to become master over this " inferiority complex."
One approach taken is the exaggeration and intensification of the striving for dominance through "extraordinary efforts", "greater haste", "impatience" and "intense impulses" that are done "without consideration for anyone else". Although such approaches can often seem productive and may manifest themselves through conflict, they eventually meet the social world in which they will find others in their path who are perceived as "disturbing elements" to their goal. The social means to success are degraded in preference for the end goals of success. The manifestations of this attitude are uncomfortable to all concerned, preventing recognition in all directions. They also, eventually, lead to isolationism:
Compare such a "power-hungry" individual with the ideal social being, and one can, after some little experience, specify, so to speak, his social index, that is, the degree to which he has removed himself from his fellow-man.
So, what is to be done with people for whom their 'inferiority complex' is manifested as a 'superiority complex'? Adler's recommendations, perhaps unsurprisingly, are focused on demonstrating (modelling?) the 'social feeling' that is imbalanced for for the individual.
Recognise the "difficulties in the evolution of the psychic life" for that person.
Do not blame the person for their "attitude of indignation" - admit their right to it.
"Be conscious that we participate in the common blame for [the] situation".
Treat the person as a "fellow human" and not a "degraded, worthless outcast".
The intention behind such an approach is to see behind the superiorism to the inferiorism, to help the person feel equal to others, and to restore a belief that they are in a world that is not devoid of love or affection for them and that they are not isolated from others: in short, to provide them with a model for developing their sense of 'social feeling' above their sense of 'personal power'. Any other approach involves risking being seen as (or being) an attack in need of defending, which plays directly into the ways in which the person has gone about masking their sense of inferiority, through superiorism.
Beyond 'complex' and towards complexity
As I outlined in my previous post about the imposter syndrome, where I have concerns is the way in which psychology falls back upon notions such as a 'complex' and 'syndrome' to suggest that behaviour is pathological This risks the dangers of scapegoating the individual as the location of disturbance within a group (i.e. the place where everyone else can locate their anxieties that are inherent to the social world). Tracing the genesis of adult behaviours back to childhood in order to label the other as neurotic, for example, appears to me to conflict with Adler's dominant message of the importance of 'social feeling'. Identifying others as being in the grip of an inferiority or superiority complex frees us of social responsibility beyond one-off attempts at intervention in the execution of which our own goals might well be informed by 'personal power' over the other. More to the point, diagnosing the other as being subject to a 'superiority complex' might just be hypocritical in that this points to our own sense of superiority from a position of Adlerian inferiority.
Instead, paying attention to how we see and experience examples of what we perceive to be inferiorism and superiorism on the part of others - and indeed ourselves - involves ongoing and iterative processes of reflection and reflexive consideration. Paying attention reflectively to the patterns of interaction we have with others, in the here-and-now of our interactions with them, and bending those insights back onto ourselves with reflexive skill and awareness might just be the best example of social feeling we can muster, however uncomfortable those insights might be (and perhaps should be).
This is essentially what good reflective supervision processes offer to those prepared to engage with them. Taking imposterism, inferiorism and superiorism seriously as fleeting, repeated and normal moments for those engaged in complex work helps us to better understand ourselves and the others with whom we work. The alternative is seeing the repetition of those fleeting moments as abnormal and as signs of in-built deficiencies to which we or they (the other) or both are doomed. This does not really take us anywhere other than confirming our biases in how we view the social world: back to the cul-de-sac I mentioned near the start of the post. Or perhaps more problematically, in the abstract rather than the particular of a specific interaction, it takes us to a trench warfare mentality in which specific cases are forgotten altogether. Lobbing grenades at the other can seem like fun (until one is on the receiving end) but, like trench warfare, the results are static at best and attritional at worst.
A final digression on the nature of 'personal power' and 'social feeling'
I mentioned last time around that my thoughts about the complexity of school leadership and the supervision of school leaders and staff have been shaped by my doctoral research on 'the struggle for plurality and politics in school leadership practice'. One particular set of insights from my research problematises Adler's notion that 'personal power' and 'social feeling' are somehow balanceable (through his use of the metaphor of scales). These are the insights into power provided by Hannah Arendt, who I think has a more radically social understanding of power and of 'sensus communis', or common sense, than Adler.
For Arendt, the idea of 'personal power' would be anathema. As she outlines in multiple essays and, most coherently in her (for me) magnum opus, 'The Human Condition' (1958), power only emerges between people speaking or acting in the public realm. When an individual seeks to assert or exert power over others, they abandon and destroy the commonly-held power and instead resort to force or violence. Because force or violence belong to the activities of the private realm (labour and work), they do not belong in the public realm of speech or action. For this reason, when an individual seeks to exert power over others, through force or violence, power and the public realm cease to exist.
Arendt would also struggle with Adler's notion of 'social feeling' as something that is - or is not - possessed by an individual about others. Instead, she conceptualises a notion of 'common sense' that is significantly more complex than how the phrase is generally used. Her 'sensus communis' is instead understood as being like a sixth sense which - like power - only emerges between a group of individuals speaking and acting together in the public realm: common sense supplements the individual senses of the participants. Like power, this too will disappear when the group disappears or when individuals within the group attempt to impose a 'common sense' upon the group, for example through prescribing 'shared values' for that group.
With this in mind, Adler's insights - perhaps naturally for a psychologist - tend to locate meaning-making within the individual and, as a consequence, 'personal power' and 'social feeling' are presented as individually owned and forming a dichotomy in need of balance. Arendt's ideas, however, describe power and social feeling as being social through and through and, as a consequence, utterly paradoxical in nature: they cannot be separated from the groups that are making sense of them nor even fully understood individually by members of those groups. They emerge from the process of communicative interaction between the members of that group in the pursuit of entirely social and powerful goals.
This to me, feels more like what it means to experience imposterism, inferiorism and/or superiorism as a school leader, whether those insights are about oneself or others in the group. These instances do not happen outside of the powerfully social (and socially powerful) groups within which we are involved, although it can be experienced as such in the quintessentially private realm of the life of our minds when consider the group and our contribution to it. This is why those who feel isolated by such feelings can gain a lot by reflecting in supervision about how, when and why these feelings and sensations occur with others. In doing so, they can bend those insights back upon themselves reflexively to help them in their future contribution to the maintenance of power dynamics and social feelings experienced with others. This is not without risk and comes with no guarantees for a more harmonious future with that group, but has more chances of success than trench warfare about who is to blame when imposterism, inferiorism or superiorism occur.
If you would like to know more about reflective supervision, please fill out the forms on any of the pages of this website, or contact me directly at keven.bartle@gmail.com.
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