Read Online The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It by Valerie Young - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Valerie Young
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less responsibility, a deputy in another office was making ten thousand dollars more a year than she was. So Myers went to chief of staff Leon Panetta to straighten out what she presumed to be a simple and easily remedied oversight. Instead Panetta explained that the other guy had taken a pay cut to work for the president, there was no money in the budget for a raise (we’re talking eight hundred dollars a week here, folks), and besides, he had a family and she didn’t. When Myers tried to press her case, Panetta abruptly ended the meeting with “It’s not going to happen.”
You don’t have to be especially motivated by power or money to recognize the diminishing effect such experiences can have on a woman. Myers writes, “The president and the senior staff made the job less important than it had been. And that made
me
less important.”
Connecting the Dots to Your Life
If you’ve been selling yourself short, it may be because the world you live in does too. To begin to connect the dots, look for instances in your own life when you have felt ignored, trivialized, or otherwise taken less seriously. Instances when you had to work harder for your voice to be heard and/or ways you may have been devalued financially. Do you see possible connections between these external realities and your internal struggle to feel competent and deserving?
Even when you understand the larger social landscape, you can’t controlwhat other people think or do. There are, however, things you can do to mitigate certain situations or at least be mindful of. Take showing anger at work. You can still get riled if you want, but at least be aware that doing so puts you at risk of being seen as less competent. Know too that when women explain why they are angry, researchers found people more apt to cut them slack, whereas they are less forgiving of men who do the same because offering reasons for their emotions is considered a sign of weakness.
It really is harder to take yourself seriously when the people around you don’t. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have a role here. Remember how the one boy in the science-project group spoke twice as much as all three girls combined? We’ve all run into men who hog the stage—but who lets them? If you don’t feel heard, pay attention to how you may contribute to this dynamic: Do you use the more traditionally female mode of communication, which is to defer and wait your turn? That’s fine to do when the stakes are low. But there are situations where in order to be heard you have to forgo the usual rules, starting with the belief that you always have to follow the rules.
It’s not enough, for example, to raise your hand. You have to
keep
it raised, even if it means not doing what you’re told—a lesson Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says she learned, ironically after delivering a speech to employees on why there are so few female leaders. Shortly after her talk Sandberg was approached by a young woman who said her big take-away was that she needed to keep her hand up. The employee went on to explain that after her talk Sandberg said she would take two more questions. Once she did, the employee put her hand down and noticed that all the other women put their hands down too, only to watch as Sandberg continued to take more questions—all from men who kept their hands up.
If you want to be heard, you’re going to have to step out of your comfort zone in other ways too. Impostor syndrome or no impostor syndrome,you’re probably not comfortable tooting your own horn. You can have all the confidence in the world and still be reluctant to self-promote out of a steadfast belief that a person’s work should speak for itself. It doesn’t. Men understand this, which is why they’re more comfortable tooting their horn, no matter how small the instrument.
My work has brought me in touch with scores of highly successful female partners in major law firms. On more than one occasion I’ve watched them
You don’t have to be especially motivated by power or money to recognize the diminishing effect such experiences can have on a woman. Myers writes, “The president and the senior staff made the job less important than it had been. And that made
me
less important.”
Connecting the Dots to Your Life
If you’ve been selling yourself short, it may be because the world you live in does too. To begin to connect the dots, look for instances in your own life when you have felt ignored, trivialized, or otherwise taken less seriously. Instances when you had to work harder for your voice to be heard and/or ways you may have been devalued financially. Do you see possible connections between these external realities and your internal struggle to feel competent and deserving?
Even when you understand the larger social landscape, you can’t controlwhat other people think or do. There are, however, things you can do to mitigate certain situations or at least be mindful of. Take showing anger at work. You can still get riled if you want, but at least be aware that doing so puts you at risk of being seen as less competent. Know too that when women explain why they are angry, researchers found people more apt to cut them slack, whereas they are less forgiving of men who do the same because offering reasons for their emotions is considered a sign of weakness.
It really is harder to take yourself seriously when the people around you don’t. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have a role here. Remember how the one boy in the science-project group spoke twice as much as all three girls combined? We’ve all run into men who hog the stage—but who lets them? If you don’t feel heard, pay attention to how you may contribute to this dynamic: Do you use the more traditionally female mode of communication, which is to defer and wait your turn? That’s fine to do when the stakes are low. But there are situations where in order to be heard you have to forgo the usual rules, starting with the belief that you always have to follow the rules.
It’s not enough, for example, to raise your hand. You have to
keep
it raised, even if it means not doing what you’re told—a lesson Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says she learned, ironically after delivering a speech to employees on why there are so few female leaders. Shortly after her talk Sandberg was approached by a young woman who said her big take-away was that she needed to keep her hand up. The employee went on to explain that after her talk Sandberg said she would take two more questions. Once she did, the employee put her hand down and noticed that all the other women put their hands down too, only to watch as Sandberg continued to take more questions—all from men who kept their hands up.
If you want to be heard, you’re going to have to step out of your comfort zone in other ways too. Impostor syndrome or no impostor syndrome,you’re probably not comfortable tooting your own horn. You can have all the confidence in the world and still be reluctant to self-promote out of a steadfast belief that a person’s work should speak for itself. It doesn’t. Men understand this, which is why they’re more comfortable tooting their horn, no matter how small the instrument.
My work has brought me in touch with scores of highly successful female partners in major law firms. On more than one occasion I’ve watched them
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