Imposter syndrome is an unfortunately common condition that affects many employees. It makes them doubt themselves and feel inadequate – leading to reduced confidence, lower performance levels, and various other issues.
If you want to help employees facing imposter syndrome, you need to provide them with the right type of support. Here are 5 ways you can do just that:
1. Encourage Open Communication
Encouraging employees to talk about the problems they’re facing is a good first step to dealing with imposter syndrome. Reassure them that they can discuss their feelings without judgment, and normalize mistakes by sharing some of your own mistakes or issues.
To foster open communication, you can schedule one-on-one meetings with employees so they can discuss any issues they have. Alternatively you could provide channels for employees to voice their concerns anonymously so they can be heard without worrying about exposure.
2. Leverage Employee Monitoring
With the help of employee monitoring solutions like Controlio, you can track employee activities including their work hours, app usage, web usage, communications,productivity and a whole lot more. Based on this data you can spot some of the signs an employee may potentially be facing imposter syndrome, such as if they’re overcompensating by overworking or their productivity is starting to decline.
The data and insights from monitoring apps like Controlio can also help employees see the impact of their work and alleviate some of their self-doubt. With it you can highlight the work they’ve been doing, and point out their strengths and achievements – backed by actual data.
3. Give Constructive Feedback
Constructive feedback can help reaffirm employees and reduce their feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy. Focus on providing feedback that is clear, specific and balanced as opposed to benign vague, perfunctory, or excessively critical.
When providing feedback you should highlight specific achievements and contributions that employees have made while also talking about areas that could use improvement. That will balance things out and let employees know you mean what you say.
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4. Promote a Growth Mindset
One of the biggest problems faced by employees with imposter syndrome is they tend to view challenges they encounter as proof of their inadequacy. Promoting a growth mindset can help fix this by emphasizing learning and development and reframing challenges as opportunities to learn something new.
To promote this type of mindset, you need to first ensure your employees have access to training, workshops or mentorship programs that they can use to improve their skills and boost their confidence. On top of that you should start to recognize hard work and persistence, while teaching employees to view setbacks and failures as potential learning experiences.
5. Provide Mental Health Resources
As you can imagine, imposter syndrome will take its toll on your employees’ mental health. Providing mental health resources can show them you value their well-being, and you can offer access to counselling services, or start workshops on imposter syndrome itself.
If possible, try talkin to your employees directly and ask them what they feel would help them through it. Sometimes apps for employees to connect with one another and interact freely may even help.
Conclusion
Make no mistake, imposter syndrome is a very real and very problematic condition that can cause a great deal of harm if it isn’t addressed. By showing empathy and providing support to any employees who have it, you can help them to face it while at the same time proving how much you value them – which is a form of help in and of its own.
In the long term creating this type of supportive environment will not only benefit individuals who have imposter syndrome, but also your team as a whole.
