Why Imposter Syndrome Didn't Make Me Leave The Career I Loved - But It Triggered Something Else That Did

I was 15 when I knew I wanted to be an engineer. Where fellow teenage girls had pop stars smothering the pink, flowery wallpaper their mothers had chosen for their bedroom walls, I had posters of Lambourghini Countachs. Always. In. Red. And a secret photo of Morten Harket, ripped from a magazine, on the inside of my wardrobe door.

I wanted to know how car engines worked. My GCSE physics teacher couldn't tell me, so I decided to study Mechanical Engineering to find out - despite the less encouraging of my two A-level physics teachers telling me I had no aptitude for the topic.

I got a first, which probably entitles me to claim the #girlieswot hashtag. I did it to prove my physics teacher wrong. And I got my first job in the automotive industry. I immediately fell in love with the smell of the factory floor - the oil, the noise of the machines, the conversations with the people, the magic of making things. I specialised in Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing and loved the intellectual challenge of solving quality problems against the clock - it cost $2,000 per minute to stop the production line.

I also discovered there was a name for people like me - #petrolheads. I loved driving my little sports car. Especially with loud music at 6am along the country lanes to the factory.

But, there was a but.

I felt like the biggest fraud in the world... the only person on the planet who knew I was faking it - winging it - achieving success by pure luck - was me.

I couldn't believe I had pulled the wool over everyone's eyes. I hadn't intended to. They actually thought I was good at my job. They even promoted me to Senior Engineer, five years ahead of schedule.

The stress of keeping up appearances was making me die inside. I was terrified I would finally slip up and show them I wasn't as good as they thought I was; that my luck would break. I lost so much sleep over the worry it caused.

So I worked 14-hour days and did the work of three people, hoping that might buy me some goodwill slack, once the truth inevitably came out.

Then, one day, as I walked back from the coffee machine with a friend who was the only other female engineer in the place, I plucked up the courage to ask her a question that had been keeping me awake at night for months.

I was terrified she would judge me; but I had to talk to someone. I couldn't keep pretending things were ok. My heart was racing, my mouth had gone dry, and I held my breath as I waited for her to answer my question:

"Do you ever worry that they'll find you out and realise that you don't belong here? That you're not up to the job?"

She stopped walking, looked me in the eyes, and I saw the scared expression on her face:

"You, too?"she whispered.

It was only years later that I realised this feeling had a name: Imposter Syndrome. And it was even more years after that, that I realised there was something I could have done about it.

Instead, I pushed on through, ignoring the fears, working harder; changing elements of who I was, to fit in; putting up with things I shouldn't have put up with, so I wouldn't rock the boat and be ejected from the tribe.

And that is how Imposter Syndrome triggered me leaving a career I loved. It wasn't the fear of being found out, though that was having a major impact on my mental health, even causing me to need anti-depressants for a few months.

The final straw was the stuff that Imposter Syndrome caused me to put up with.

I accepted being formally disciplined for saying the word 'fine' in the wrong tone of voice to someone who had just caused me major agro and accused me of something awful that I hadn't done - because she was the Union leader's relation and had put in a complaint.

I accepted being called 'peanuts' as I walked into shop floor meetings on cold mornings in the unheated factory. And I accepted having my face drawn on Page Three posters as an apparent 'compliment'.

I accepted having promotions to leave blocked by my boss's boss, who would have lost his diversity bonus had the factory dropped to only having one female engineer.

I accepted being grabbed by the throat and held against a wall, being threatened with having my face smashed in, by a 6'5" male colleague who objected to me talking to his subordinates while our mutual boss was away and I was covering the manager's role. No one ever talked about that event, despite the witnesses. He was - allegedly - the leader of the local Masonic lodge, of which most of the managers were members. I didn't feel I could complain, for fear of being fired.

But there was one final event that pushed me too far and made me leave: sitting in a diversity training course - the only woman - with the managers in there laughing about how they decided where to put the rape alarms in the women's loos. No one anywhere in the factory had raised a stink about why such an intervention was necessary - not even when they signed off the Purchase Order for its installation.

And I kept quiet, too. But I quit. To go travelling in South America. And when I came back, I changed career.

I've often looked back to the me-in-her-twenties and wondered why she didn't fight to fix all of this. After all, now I'm pretty well known for being a passionate world-changer. It always comes back to the fear of being found out as not good enough and expelled from my tribe: Imposter Syndrome.

Imposter Syndrome damages people, performance, productivity and profits in ways that aren't always obvious.

In my case, it caused me to put up with the unacceptable, for fear of rocking the boat. For others, it can be becoming a workaholic, never seeing their kids. Or it might be subconsciously bullying their team, as their inner perfectionist fights to protect them from 'the one mistake that will get me found out'. Or it might be putting off taking action on a project for so long that it doesn't happen - or disrupts others' work. Or it might be turning down golden opportunities to shine - or playing down your achievements, and missing out on the perfect promotion.

All of these - and more - were actions that the 2019 Imposter Syndrome Research Study found are hurting businesses and their employees every day, yet we still pretend we're ok and don't speak up about how we're feeling.

That was twenty years ago for me, now. And I've dedicated the past fifteen of those to helping business leaders who have struggled with Imposter Syndrome, so that they can finally feel good enough and become the leader they were born to be. In fact, I've just published a book on how to do exactly that - Ditching Imposter Syndrome.

Too many of us have an Imposter Syndrome story to tell. But most of us keep it silent.

One of the most important things the Research Study showed was opening up the discussion at work, so you realise you're not alone - and that you can do something to set yourself free from Imposter Syndrome. Done in the right way, this conversation can create breakthroughs, rather than the common CEO-fear of it becoming a 'badge of honour' and an excuse for sub-standard work.

If you want to talk about how Imposter Syndrome might be affecting your business and what you can do about it, DM me and we can set up a call.

And if this article resonated with you - and you're ready to finally set yourself free from all this, so you don't have to take Imposter Syndrome with you into 2020, let's talk! I've got ONE spot left for 1:1 mentoring for Q4 2019. Does it have your name on it?

I'm curious: what's your Imposter Syndrome story?

Clare Josa is considered the UK's leading authority on Imposter Syndrome, having spent the past fifteen years working with business leaders to help them to overcome it, as well as leading the landmark 2019 Imposter Syndrome Research Study and publishing her new book: Ditching Imposter Syndrome.

An expert in the neuroscience and psychology of performance, her original training as an engineer, specialising in Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing, means her approach is grounded in practical common sense, creating breakthroughs not burnout.

She is the author of eight books and has been interviewed by the likes of The Independent, The Daily Telegraph and Radio 4, amongst others. Clare speaks internationally on how to change the world by changing yourself.