The Curious Case of the Omnipresent Imposter Syndrome
Scratch the surface of any school leader through the process of reflective supervision and almost inevitably you find yourself in discussions about the 'imposter syndrome'. It is a phrase that I remember using myself during my nine years of headship on more than a small number of occasions. Spending time reflecting with headteachers, and hearing from others through a survey process I recently curated for SSAT, two thoughts have struck me:
If everyone carrying out the role of school leader is an imposter, who are the non-imposters? If everyone is an imposter then perhaps this means no-one is?
If the imposter syndrome is so prevalent and resistant (it never leaves you) in schools, what are we doing wrong in the preparation, formation, and support for school leaders?
It is the purpose of this post to critique rather than criticise the concept of an 'imposter syndrome'. After all, as Psychology Today make very clear, it may not be "a psychiatric condition, but it is a real problem" which has a prevalence of up to 82% of people based on the criteria being considered. If 'imposterism' is something that is experienced by many, this post seeks to consider what it is that is being experienced by those feeling its sting, and what more we can be doing to normalise the experience and, in doing so, perhaps neutralise it.
At the same time, however, one of the issues with considering imposterism as a 'syndrome' is the associations that this word has with pathology. Marriam-Webster, for example, says that a 'syndrome' is "a group of signs and symptoms that occur together and characterise as particular abnormality or condition". Evidence, however, such as the prevalence cited above, suggests imposterism is far from being an abnormal experience for professionals. And, if it as a 'condition', it would be wise to consider the ways in which such 'conditioning' operates.
It's not hard to find further evidence of the individualisation and subsequent tendency towards pathologisation of imposterism amongst the wealth of resources available for those feeling its squeeze. Whilst these resources may be helpful in understanding these experiences, they unwittingly (perhaps) locate it within the person having those experiences. One oft-cited taxonomy of five types of imposter syndrome, for example, uses labels intrinsically linked to self identity: the perfectionist, the expert, the natural genius, the soloist, and the superperson.
Similarly, one website asks those seeking to "get past imposter syndrome" to consider three "hard questions":
What core beliefs do I hold about myself?
Do I believe I am worthy of love as I am?
Must I be perfect for others to approve of me?
The focus for coping then becomes about "confronting some of the deeply ingrained beliefs you hold about yourself". Other people are present as a resource for sharing feelings and as something to focus on beyond the self, but the solutions tend toward the individual: stopping comparing oneself, stopping fighting one's feelings and refusing to let imposterism hold one back. My use of the word 'one' here is intended to highlight the ways in which, considered as a syndrome, even the treatments for imposterism are isolating.
The Imposter Phenomenon (1978)
Interestingly, the 'imposter syndrome' was originally conceived of by Clance and Imes (1978) as a 'phenomenon': It was only later that it became popularised as a 'syndrome'. To Clance, one of the authors of the initial paper, this confuses things as it is "an experience rather than a pathology". The aim of the authors of the paper was to normalise the experience rather than to pathologise it: labelling it a 'syndrome' is thus seen as being technically incorrect and misleading.
In their original paper, Clance and Imes (who were focused on women's experience of imposterism), linked the phenomenon closely to high role expectations of girls within their families, particularly in relation to their siblings, that become problematic during their experience in school. One experience is of the 'sensitive' child who wishes to be seen as being as 'bright' as their sibling but always falls short, whilst the other is of a 'bright' sibling who doubts her intellect and attributes her success to other factors.
Their sample of high-achieving women shows that these experiences may have motivated them to exceed societal expectations of them, but that feelings of 'phoniness' are affirmed by the very gap between their achievements and those expectations. These lead, according to the authors of a set of behaviours by those women that include:
Diligence and hard work for fear that their 'stupidity' will be discovered.
Intellectual inauthenticity for fear or revealing their real ideas or opinions.
Using charm and perceptiveness for fear of not being liked or recognised.
But, despite the high-achieving nature of their subjects, their study found that success was not a cure for imposterism. Instead, they identified a cyclical process of fear of failure leading to a frenzy of hard work resulting in short-term feelings of having avoided disaster that gives way to the familiar fear of imminent failure. This strikes me of very representative of the examination results and inspection cycles as experienced by headteachers, in which even very good outcomes immediately presage significant and uncontainable worries about the following cohorts of students or the next inspection window.
My main concern with Clance and Imes' paper is the location of the imposter phenomenon within the history of the family and schooling. Although seeking a more social explanation for imposterism historically, their analysis seems to locate the disturbance experienced in the here-and-now within the (damaged?) individual. The phenomenological roots of imposterism in the childhood of the subjects are intriguing, but they appear deterministic, covering over the current daily phenomena experienced by high-achieving professionals in carrying out their professional roles that reinforce (produce?) the sensation of imposterism.
Imposterism as Experienced in Education
One of the things I make clear to the school leaders I work with is that I am not a therapist or analyst and have not been trained in such theories. My focus is on organisational and intra-personal dynamics: the processes and relationships that accompany the work of leading a school. In terms of imposterism, my concern is thus about how it manifests itself purely in term of their school leadership practice. This may involve feelings of:
Being ill-equipped, intellectually or personally, for the demands of the role.
Being lucky to have achieved success or accomplished their plans.
Being at imminent risk of being found out by inspectors, governors and staff.
Being less effective than others in the role and/or others in their team.
Being responsible always for things that go wrong and seldom for things that go right.
So, instead of making guesses about their family histories or their personal pathologies, it is far more important for me to work with school leaders in ways that help them pay closer attention to their experiences of working with others in meeting the expectations of those others within the wider framework of professional standards and school effectiveness. And to help them consider how they can approach the issues of success and failure, and of responsibility and accountability for these things, in a more reflective, nuanced manner. Of course, this may bring to mind for them other relationships in which similar patterns might be noticeable, including family ones, but this is not the focus of our work together.
I take this stance based upon the insights gained during my doctoral studies, closely examining my own practice as a headteacher, which culminated in my thesis on 'The Struggle for Plurality and Politics in School Leadership Practice'. The reflective supervision work that I have done with a number of headteachers in the first year of running my own business has reminded me of the deconstructive arguments that I arrived at in this thesis.
Imposterism as Magico-Mythical Thinking
Drawing in large part from the work of sociologist Norbert Elias on the problems of involvement and detachment, particularly his concept of 'magico-mythical thinking', helped me make sense of the school leadership literature I had absorbed across my professional career. For the uninitiated, Elias suggests that the magico-mythical thinking of ancient societies (e.g. that crop failures are a punishment of the gods) reflects involved thinking and a lack of detachment (in this example from a lack of scientific knowledge).
But, in contemporary society, we remain attached to 'attached thinking' in the face of the multiple challenges that come from trying to take a detached stance. When the promised gains of a scientific approach meet the complexity and unpredictability of our human interactions in pursuit of a social goal, it can be tempting to find magico-mythical reasons that explain this failure. In my exploration of the literature that had underpinned my approaches to school leadership (notably around distributed leadership and relational trust theories), I found three particularly potent myths that may explain how imposterism has taken such a deep root for those managing the complex organisations of schools.
The enduring harmony myth
The personal authority myth
The complexity reduction myth
In identifying these myths, I was pointing to issues not solely with the theories of distributed leadership and relational trust literature, but to wider concerns about the discourse around transformational leadership that is dominant - even hegemonic - in the literature of school leadership. Texts on transformation have, over the past half-century, gained a stranglehold on the policy agenda around education since at least 1988 (with its focus on accountability and standards) and the professional formation programmes that have emerged since the 1990s (with their focus on compelling visions and values). The theory of change underpinning transformative approaches is linear, predictable and, ultimately, controllable by leaders. The pedagogy for enacting this change and thus being judged as a success in school leadership, is one of 'best practice' that is competitive to its core.
Because of its dominance within the educational academy and its professional bodies for role preparation, transformational theories have come to be not only accepted by school leaders but, in many senses, embodied by them. The myths transformational theories purport can seem to those in the role as natural: failure to achieve those mythic ideals as being representative of individual and collective failure by the leader and/or their team. Of course, the collective failure of the team is also a failure of the individual if that individual is the headteacher. On maps of school leadership, as we have co-constructed them, where there is a lack of harmony, authority and simplicity, "there be imposters".
And yet, in the messy world of school-leadership, things are messy because human organisations are replete with the power and politics that are inevitable where plural beings conduct important work together. Never-ending synergy is impossible. Headteacher dominance (however ethically driven) is undesirable and impossible. Complexity is always ready to rear its head, however much we may aim for consistency in our practices with others. But these realities of complex organisational dynamics are seen by transformational approaches as emblematic of dysfunctionality. Because we have come to (relatively) uncritically accept this insight, it is only natural that school leaders accept this diagnosis of dysfunctionality. We internalise it by seeing ourselves as imposters, even though our experience is normal.
Beyond Imposterism: Co-Deconstructing the Co-Construction
My thesis, however, is not without hope. It includes three reconstructive counter-arguments to the three myths. Recognising the conflictual realities of our organisations as both normal and potentially generative (though not without challenges) is one of them. Thoughtfulness in our speech and actions with others, without whom we achieve very little, is a second. Moving beyond our ideals of 'what ought to be to' pay closer attention to the nitty-gritty of 'what is' as part of a genuine community of inquiry is the third. These counter-arguments do not make promises of an untroubled life for headteachers and school leaders: that would be another example of magico-mythical thinking.
But what these ways of considering and re-considering our school leadership efforts might offer is a small light to help illuminate the dark spaces, both without and within. As I said at the outset, imposterism (whether understood as a phenomenon, syndrome or as a result of magico-mythical thinking) is a very real experience for school leaders. It may not be a recognised psychiatric disorder, but it can lead to feelings of "intellectual and professional fraudulence" that impact powerfully on self-esteem and result in anxiety and depression.
Through my studies, my practice as a headteacher, and now in my role as a provider of reflective supervision for school leaders, I have come to recognise that imposterism is relationally constructed but individually experienced: it is a self-doubt that dare not speak its name amongst colleagues, except perhaps in half-jesting. Some of the self-help resources on this subject suggest that the individual "embrace their fears and move forward", as if the individually-experienced sense of imposterism is indeed an individual problem to be overcome. That way leads back to the notion of imposterism as a pathology, which it isn't.
Instead, my argument in this post is that imposterism is co-constructed within a "society of individuals". It is, at one and the same time, both socially formed (and forming) and psychologically formed (and forming). With this in mind, deconstructing and striving to remove the sensation of imposterism must also be conducted in a society of individuals. The forum of reflective supervision, whether done individually or as part of a group, is perhaps the most appropriate form for such co-deconstruction for three reasons:
Even in a supervisor/supervisee dyad, it comprised a collaborative community of inquiry.
It focuses on reflection and reflexivity to emphasise the agency of the supervisee.
It concerns itself with the phenomena of work and the relationships with others at work.
Reflective supervision is not a magic bullet for the magico-mythical thinking that can contribute to feelings of imposterism. My work with school leaders has demonstrated amply that such sensations run deep and that there is no simple fix to remove them. But, with thoughtful and inquiring reflection upon their work together, it is also clear that our reflective supervision sessions enable them to normalise, learn from, and live with, the feelings of imposterism and perhaps, over time, lessen their feelings of being professionally fraudulent.
If you would like to find out more about any aspect of reflective supervision from someone who has worn the imposter's shoes, feel free to get in touch via the form on this website, or directly via keven.bartle@gmail.com.
References as Links
‘Problems of involvement and detachment’: Norbert Elias and the investigation of contemporary social processes (hud.ac.uk)
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