Are you an impostor?

In the various social groups I am part of—conferences, lecturers, consultants, and mentors—it does not take long before someone mentions “the impostor syndrome”. In this post, I'd like to look at what actions usually lead to this syndrome and how can we alter our behavior to steer clear.

It's a fact, not a “syndrome”

First of all, I'd like to set straight that the word “syndrome” does not refer to something fabricated, fictional, or delusional. If you feel like an impostor, then you most likely are one. There are many shades of gray between “completely honest” and “deliberately scamming” and the usual case of the impostor is somewhere in between. You aren't explicitly trying to be a fraud, it's just that in the circumstances you don't know any other way, so you're unwittingly pretending to be something you're not. And the body notices and reminds you—with the emotions that make up the impostor syndrome.

I can give an example how this happened to me when I was very new to programming in a team. I had my ways and the team had their ways. The team's way was not as rigorous, hygienic, and long-term sustainable as mine. My ways came from studying real-life large scale projects, such as the Linux kernel and various open-source software combined with reading a lot of books. It might appear that would buy a lot of credibility. But, in fact, that's when my impostor problems started.

Two sources of knowledge

Our knowledge is of two types: first-hand experience and second-hand intellectual knowledge, which is heard or read from someone else. In short, let's ask ourselves: do I know this because I've done it, or is it because I read or heard it somewhere? When our knowledge is experiential, we can say “when I did X, the result was Y”. There's no way that statement could be fraudulent. With first-hand experience, I can't be an impostor.

When our knowledge is intellectual, we need to be more careful. If we want to be authentic, we should say “I read that when person Z did X, the result was Y”. Let's see how that would play out in my case:

• “The kernel developers use pattern X to solve issue Y, let's try that instead of what we're doing.”
• “But we aren't developing the kernel here.”

Now the team is talking from their experience—they indeed are not kernel developers—while I am pulling my knowledge out of thin air. Not a good position to be in if you want to convince someone!

So, instead of that, I would obscure my source and just say: “Doing pattern X is better” or “doing pattern X is how it is done.” Putting it like that leaves the team wondering: “Is he talking from his own experience? Or not?” And, if they don't push it, it might just be the leverage one needs to convince someone. There's just one problem—I pretended to have an experience I actually hadn't. Not in so many words, but silent pretending counts too. Even if they don't know, my mind knows and my body knows. And the more I would do it, the more the feeling of an impostor would grow. And guess what? Majority of communication is non-verbal, so over time, the team was able to sense it too. Our mutual trust went down and conflicts went up.

The way out

Does that mean we should only speak up when we have direct experience of something? And inexperienced people should stay out of conferences, teaching halls, etc? Not really. There's plenty of ways to work with unknowns and actually turn them into more experience. Just don't play smoke and mirrors. Here are a few examples that would be applicable to my case:

• “Pattern X might be useful here, but I don't know for sure. Let's try implementing it for an hour and see if we like it afterwards.”
• “According to what I've read, doing what we're doing has these negative consequences: […]. Our circumstances are very similar, so I think it's likely that we're going to run into these issues too. I suggest implementing pattern X to mitigate them.”

I hope it's now apparent how staying authentic can never result in being an impostor. Even when I'd make an educated guess based on similar experiences—a very useful skill—I can't be an impostor as long as I take care to explain how I got there. Do we need to always verbalize all that context to be authentic? No. The better the trust is between parties, the lower the need to explain everything. But we should be ready to do it if the trust drops or our partner is just curious.

Recognizing impostors

Finally, I would like to point out how to recognize impostor in others and what to do about it.  Actually, it's very simple. The impostor likely does not have any experience, they are just relaying other people's knowledge and aren't honest about it.

When we provide an alternative opinion to the impostor, they will usually fight vigorously, but without substance. We're after all challenging that which they pretend to be. That's the oil on water you should be looking for. The next thing is to ask “what's your direct experience on this matter?” That's it.

In all cases, the aim should not be to publicly discredit or harm the impostor. They're likely not doing it on purpose, they're just not authentic enough. The aim should be to bring some transparency to the situation. Then, it's usually more fun and straightforward to discuss opinions and solutions. Setting an example is helpful too:

• “I'm not very experienced with these things as well. An alternative to what you say is pattern X. Let's try implementing both for an hour and then evaluate the results.”
• “Actually, I do have some experience and what you say does not apply. The main difference is that your case describes […], while our circumstances are […] I propose to implement pattern X instead.”

To wrap up: learn from my past mistakes. Let others know exactly where you are. The alternative is far worse. In the long run, this will prompt you to seek more experience yourself, and in turn that lowers your chances to become an impostor.