“Until I used your materials, I hadn’t considered this before. I haven’t stopped to think about it.”

Leo* is a senior manager in a multinational company.

He came to me for leadership coaching and in our first conversation shared that he felt he had “a bit of impostor syndrome”.

He told me about a nagging doubt that he could do the job he was hired to do and described the feelings that popped up whenever he had a new task to do or a new problem to solve.

When it came to leadership skills, he worried that his direct reports were leagues ahead of him. And rather than seeing role models in his leaders, he described constantly comparing himself negatively to those with many more years' experience than him. He talked about how he was letting others down and believed the only logical next step was for his company to fire him.

Like many who keep feelings like these to themselves, Leo found he felt much better after saying all this out loud in a confidential space. Fortunately, he didn’t leave it there. One of Leo’s top strengths is tenacity and he wanted to do something different in order to stop thinking this way.

Here’s some of what we did over the course of 6 sessions:?

Explored what he was doing to look after his wellbeing and developed personalised strategies to settle the mind.

He knew the things that helped him to feel better from day-to-day and he knew where these had slipped. Working with a coach meant he could quickly identify his own “emergency plan” which helped him to deal with the drained feeling that can come from worry. Making these changes also helped him to think more analytically about some of the things he was treating as firm facts (we made a plan for these too).

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Explored what impostorism is and is not.

The pivotal moment for Leo was when I shared materials on impostor feelings and building self-belief. So much of the story he was telling himself was only making the feelings much worse. He knew enough about impostorism to recognise some of what he was experiencing but hadn’t connected some of his other behaviours.

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Until I used your materials, I hadn’t considered this before. I haven’t stopped to think about it.

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Built self-belief.

He realised that he was looking at the issue through a blurred lens. Once he started systematically viewing situations through different lenses, he was able to give himself more realistic feedback, seek out more accurate evidence, and challenge the thoughts that previously seemed indisputable.

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Created an action plan and outlined future habits to focus on.

Together we made a record of the tools and habits that helped Leo most. Then, to keep his personal toolkit front of mind, we planned review points where he would return regularly to the learning once the coaching was completed. This way Leo was prepared for future impostor feelings should they pop up.

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Leo's journey from self-doubt to self-belief was testament to the power of coaching, and his own hard work and tenacity. When we last spoke, Leo shared that the impact of the changes he had made went beyond himself. His team now benefit from being led by someone who understands impostor feelings and who can role model the emotional agility required to move past them. Wider still, his family benefit from him being present and no longer caught up in a pattern of worry and rumination.

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If you’re in the same situation that Leo was in, book a call to talk through how I can help you - https://lnkd.in/eGyEeHEK

*Name has been changed. Permission granted to share.