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Rachel Morris (00:02.552)
Hello and welcome to Work Truths Off the Record, the podcast that opens up honest conversations about what it means to be human at work. I'm Rachel Morris, a coach and your guide as we uncover the stories, struggles and triumphs behind the professional mask. Now, in this series, we're focusing on the imposter phenomenon. If you've ever doubted your own success or felt like you just one step away from being found out, then this series is for you.
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Expect fresh insights, honest personal stories and tools from leading experts to help you feel more grounded, confident and connected in your working life. And today I am absolutely delighted to be joined by Dr. Terry Simpkin. Terry is an academic and a self-confessed, wait for this, chaos wrangler. So we're in for some fun. Her work on capability within people and systems gives her a really
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particularly important perspective on all things imposter. So it is with great delight that I'm able to welcome her here today. So we are in for a treat. Welcome, Terry.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (01:12.158)
thank you so much for that lovely introduction and thank you for allowing me to talk about one of my favourite subjects.
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Rachel Morris (01:17.942)
well, let's start there then, Terry. So can you tell our listeners just a little bit more about your relationship with our topic so they understand kind of how you fit in?
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Dr Terri Simpkin (01:26.399)
Hmm.
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I've got my relationship is twofold. So I have a personal relationship with the imposter phenomenon, having experienced it for many years, and particularly when I was doing my PhD. And then I've got the professional academic relationship with the with the construct, because once I'd had
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a bit of a thinker about my experiences, I started to wonder, well, what is this thing? And that took me off down a research path. So I ended up doing some global research with ended up with about 1000 points of data from from people all over the world and stories from from those people all over the world. And it took me down a different academic path than what I thought I was going to to where I thought I was going to go. So I've got the personal
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aspects of understanding the experience because I've been there, but also the stories from people who were just out of university, right the way through to people who were just about to retire and everything in between across a whole raft of different occupations. So I've got my story as well as the stories of other people and then of course the academic research which came along with that and I've been following that path for the last, I think we're coming up to about 15 years now.
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So working in that space around doing workshops and talking to people such as yourself to get the message out around the actuality of the imposter phenomenon rather than it's equal to in the imposter syndrome. I'm sure we'll get to that.
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Rachel Morris (03:04.226)
Well, yeah, and actually that was where I was going to go next, Terry. The well, I suppose, used phrase, I have imposter syndrome. Come on, give us your perspective on that, please.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (03:17.757)
right. Okay, this is where I start to get a bit ranty. Yeah, it's absolutely not a syndrome. It's, I mean, we've got a hashtag my good colleague, Kate Atkin and I started the the International Impostor Phenomenon Awareness Day, which happens in February. So we had the inaugural year this year. But the hashtag is not a syndrome. Mine started off being it's not a bloody syndrome, but Katie's more genteel than I am.
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and certainly not as angry or ranty as I am. But I can't talk to you enough around how I get really frustrated that the moniker of syndrome continues to be perpetuated by people on social media and people in the academic space who continue to call it a syndrome. It's absolutely not a syndrome. And the reason why...
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people sort of say to me, well Terry, why do you get so exercised? It's just a name. But names come with weight, they are not neutral, they're not just a convenient handle to put onto certain experiences or things. And so syndrome comes with a whole raft of expectation around
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It's a pathology. It's something I have rather than something I experience. It's something that exists between my own ears rather than something that also exists out in the world. It's something that I can't diminish because I've got it. Therefore, I've got it forever. That's absolutely not true. So calling it a syndrome comes with all this baggage and myth and fallacy around the actual
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construct the experience and of course it stigmatizes the experience. And I've had people say to me, I'm so glad that you've actually called it out for it being a phenomenon or an experience rather than something that I have. You don't have the imposter phenomenon. You certainly don't have the imposter syndrome, but it's a learned construct which suggests that if it's learned,
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Dr Terri Simpkin (05:28.625)
it can be unlearned. And you certainly can go down that path of minimizing or diminishing the experiences and the consequences of it. Whereas a syndrome suggests that it's something that you have, that it's your problem to solve. It's a pathology and it certainly stops people from talking about it because they feel a sense of stigma around it. And often with the moniker of imposter syndrome, it's often set up as a mental health condition and of course,
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Even today, 2026, we still have this stigma around mental health issues, which means that people don't talk about it, they don't talk about it, they can't learn about it, they can't learn about it, they don't know that in fact it's something that can be diminished with some awareness and changing behaviors and changing thought patterns. That's why I get really annoyed.
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Rachel Morris (06:17.805)
I hear you, I hear you and just hashtag it's not a syndrome. Let's just keep reminding listeners of that as we move through. It's interesting, isn't it? Because listening to you talk, I was thinking, yeah, if I feel like I am something or I have something, it's incredibly disempowering as well. It's like, you know, I am subject to something and that in and of itself is a problem.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (06:41.269)
Yeah, absolutely, it strips away your agency. So knowing that it is something that it certainly is a thing, you know, it's not I'm not diminishing the fact that it is a real experience. It's been researched for the last 40 odd years. So we know that it's it's a real thing that's out, but it's also out in the world.
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Rachel Morris (06:52.471)
Yeah.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (07:04.711)
not just between your own ears. And talking about agency, but once you actually understand that it can be driven by behaviors, systems, processes, biases that are social and certainly exist in workplaces, then you can start to recognize how
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your learnt experiences are butting up or being fuelled by things out in the world. So it starts to give you more of an understanding how where your bit of it finishes and where the world steps in. And that's where you can start to say, okay, well, it's not just me. It's certainly not just something between my ears or something that I have. It's actually being driven or fuelled by other things that I might not have any control over.
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But I might have control over the way that I react to those things out in the spaces that I occupy.
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Rachel Morris (08:04.333)
Terry, this is the piece that I'd really like us to hone in on and your stories here and examples, I know you have such extensive insight into this piece. This imposter phenomenon is more than an individual mindset issue. So something that is more than just as you describe it between the two ears of the person who is experiencing it.
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Can we, let's start to help our listeners understand and if you have stories that you can share it's gonna help.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (08:38.409)
So we have to go right back to childhood often.
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these experiences are associated with how we're parented, what our relationships are like with our parents and our siblings, our immediate family. so, for example, my experience comes from growing up in a very poor, low socioeconomic background in the East End of London. And the social narrative that I grew up with was, you need to get through school as quickly as you could, get out as soon as you could start working because we've got the
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of scarcity so you need to find a job and social mobility wasn't something that you really took on and even if you did well as well aren't we good enough for you anymore. So there's this sort of crab bucket approach to well you know how crabs try and get out but they often can't get out of the bucket because the rest of them are pulling them back down.
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So that was sort of the environment that I grew up in when I was a child. And so we had the scarcity mindsets. We never really had enough money. My dad was working two jobs. My mum was obviously out at work as well at this time. so this learning creeps in to our adult life. It tempers the way that we...
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approach the world, how we see ourselves and how we see ourselves in comparison to others. So, and I will use my experience if that's all right, because I've got other stories to talk about. And so when I got into university, it brought with it this idea that I should never be here. And so when I was starting to do very well at university, I mean, I've been quite a
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Rachel Morris (10:12.301)
Please do. Thank you, Terry.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (10:31.781)
a nerdy child. just love the whole learning thing and I was voracious reader and those sorts of things. So when I got into university and I started getting some really good marks, I'm sure that somebody has actually made some sort of administrative error here and I thought I'll just bob along under the radar and maybe no one will find out. I won't tell anybody but we'll see how long it takes for them to find out that they've actually given me somebody else's marks. Absolutely convinced that that was the case.
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And that sort of comes from this idea of, you know, don't get a big head. No one likes, you know, a smart aleck. You know, just put a lid on your intelligence. Don't get above your, yeah, you're betraying your class here if you're looking for a social mobility because you're leveraging education. And of course, I went to university late in life because it was never on the cards for me. It was never talked about, you know, getting a
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Rachel Morris (11:12.269)
Yeah, above your station.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (11:31.138)
further education or a higher education. No one in my family had been to university, no one in my immediate family had been to university. So it wasn't something that we talked about. And indeed, you're going back to this idea of class, we know that people from my background are underrepresented. So here we've got the personal lived experience, but we've also got
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the statistics which are making that story true. of it's giving you here is the evidence that you shouldn't be here. So there's the stuff out. I don't belong. You shouldn't be here. What are you doing? You know, in the House of High learning getting some really good results. So anyway, I made it through my undergrad. I was asked back to do another year which is similar to the master's year in Tasmania.
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Rachel Morris (12:01.559)
giving you the evidence, the proof.
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Rachel Morris (12:06.155)
Yeah, you don't belong.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (12:25.843)
honors year and then then I was asked back to do a PhD and I just laughed in the face of the person who suggested that to my section. I fooled everybody up until now there's no way that I'm gonna do a PhD and so all the way through I ended up you know taking on the PhD but there was this period of applying for the place knowing that I was never going to get it. It was look I'll put in an application this person suggested I'll keep them happy.
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And lo and behold, I got a place. And so I had this moment of, well, who I've got a place. then it was, bloody hell, I've got a place. now, now I'm really, this is the point at which I'm really going to get found out. And of course, all of that, that social learning that I grew up with, it was coming to the fore again. And it wasn't until I, I'd
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Rachel Morris (13:04.066)
no!
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Dr Terri Simpkin (13:20.807)
sort of got right the way through to the end and was just about to hand the thing in that I thought I just can't hand this in. I was sitting in my car for ages talking, you thinking about some fairly serious self-harm around, you know, how I could actually get out of this because for the last...
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five years, I'd been expecting my supervisors to say, look, you should never have been doing this. This is a load of rubbish. And then I got to the point where they're just waiting for the external examiners to tell me that this should never have been funded for a PhD at all. And it was that moment where I thought, this can't be right. This, you know, how I'm thinking and how I'm...
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what I'm considering doing just to get me out of handing this thing in. Because I knew that once that thing was out in the world, once my thesis was out beyond A, you can't put it back and B, everyone's going to know that I should never have been doing this. I should never have been accepted and the work was actually not good enough. And not just not good enough, I considered it to be rubbish.
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Rachel Morris (14:18.551)
back.
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Rachel Morris (14:25.495)
Wow.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (14:36.789)
And so I thought, my god, my family were sort of living vicariously through the fact that I was doing a PhD. My friends were all asking me every time they saw me, oh, know, how's it been? It's like, we don't talk about it. It's the thing that shall not be mentioned. And so when I finally did hand it in and sort of ran away and obviously got the marks back and the reports back and it was basically, it's a...
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got about the best mark you could possibly ask for. My first response was, have they marked the right thesis? That can't possibly be true. Have they noticed a spelling mistake on page 157? This can't possibly be my work. And then that's what triggered me to start thinking about what is this thing? How is it that I've been carrying this along for, by this time, explicitly for about 10 years? And then I started reflecting on
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you know, my work and how I was coming to motherhood and other sorts of challenges and always had this idea that I was never good enough. And it wasn't just not good enough, but at some point I'm going to get called out and then I would be shamed. And it was time and time again. And that's what put me on the path of actually thinking about looking at this.
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from a research perspective. And of course then it came out. Yes, this has been studied for some time. It's called the imposter phenomenon. And so that's where I started going down the path of exploring it, as something that affected, not just something that affected individuals, but how the external environment was playing a part here. And when I started doing that research, there was very little work done on external factors. It's come along since then. So,
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Rachel Morris (16:19.277)
you
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Rachel Morris (16:25.527)
Mm.
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in part because of you Terry.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (16:30.741)
Well, I mean, other academics are looking at the similar sorts of things. So that's when I started thinking, well, you know, we need to look at this in a much more broad manner. So I'm not quite sure that that answered the question.
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Rachel Morris (16:46.947)
Terry, I think your story is powerful. And I imagine for our listeners, are feeling the power of your story too. So I'm incredibly grateful to you for sharing that. It seems to me that you've talked about kind of social systems in terms of kind of social demographics.
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But as you were talking, I was thinking, you your friendship system had expectations of you, what they were seeing and what you were experiencing. There was a discord there. They were totally different. You know, the academic system in which you were operating in, your tutor clearly felt that you had a huge amount of potential and lots of great things to see. And so we are operating within multiple systems, aren't we, at any given moment in time. And I'm curious about whether in your experience and from your research,
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your feelings or the feelings of being an imposter kind of go across those social systems or whether some elevate it more than others.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (17:49.224)
that's a really interesting question. Yes and no. Yes, in that a person can experience the imposter phenomenon across all of those contexts. So it could be the family situation, the friendship situation, motherhood or parenthood, plus academic plus the workplace. However, having said that, some people will experience it only in one context, but not in others.
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So for example, somebody might experience it at university because they might be first in family, they might not see anybody who's like them, they might be coming from a different cultural background, they might have some form of difference that sets them apart or they feel that they are different to other people in their cohort. So they might experience at university or school or in further education, but not at work.
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Other people might feel it in certain workplaces, but not experience it in others. And so this is what it becomes a really slippery construct. It's like trying to nail jelly to the wall. And so this is where the chaos wrangler thing comes in, because it's a really, it's really quite a, it's really quite a difficult construct to pin down and say, this is how it's going to be experienced by all people. The one thing that is pretty common,
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Rachel Morris (18:59.927)
Yeah, it's quite ambiguous, isn't it?
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Dr Terri Simpkin (19:10.773)
across most people that I've spoken to as part of my research and indeed in the early work that Pauline Rose Clance and Susan Imes did, so they're the original theorists, and subsequent work identifies that it is a cyclical recurring suite of behaviours and thoughts and feelings. you will experience, the normative approach is that an individual will experience the
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highs and lows of being invited to do something. For me it was PhD, for other people it's just getting up and going to work every day. The person has that that sort of good I'm going to do this, my now I'm really going to have to do this, and this is the point that where I'm going to get found out. Then there's a period of procrastination, a period of of hard work and panic because we know that perfectionism is a key characteristic of the experience of impostor phenomenon.
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So you're not gonna be able to do this project or leave PhD. You're not going to be able to just hand any old thing in. It has to be up to those lofty standards that perfectionists will set for themselves. Yeah, and you put that into context. So I'm gonna put it off, put it off, put it off, kick it down the road because I really don't wanna face up to it. Cause I know that I'm gonna get called out, but no, it's now it's due. I'm gonna have to do this.
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Rachel Morris (20:22.423)
So the pressure on self is incredibly high.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (20:37.781)
So I put in huge amounts of work into it over work. So you get stressed and anxiety around that. Then you might hand the thing in and then there's a period of catastrophization of, oh my God, they can now know that I'm no good at what I do. This is terrible. Sitting in my car wondering how I'm actually gonna get out of this thing. And then the feedback comes in, it was absolutely brilliant. You're in on time, in on budget. The project was perfect. And then it was, oh no, it wasn't me, it was my team.
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I just got lucky. Were they reading the right thesis? The thing is, the thing that makes this different to self doubt or normal sort of experiences of questioning one's own capabilities when you're doing something new, it can be very healthy. This is not so healthy. And I would argue that is not healthy at all that one, once something else comes along, it could be the next day at work, it could be a new project or a new
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Rachel Morris (21:18.295)
Yep, which can be healthy. Yep. Yep.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (21:33.782)
new role, could be a promotion, you go through that at time and time again. So it's like Groundhog Day. And people that I spoke to said, I know I'm doing it, but I just can't stop. And that was a very common story that I know that I'm going through this, but I just can't get out of this cycle. And so once you've actually put the cycle in front of somebody and say, this is how it's working for you, it's like the lights go on.
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Yes, that's exactly how it works for me. you know, I've, like I said, I've been doing this work for many, many years now. And every time I show somebody this cycle, I mean, this basically was part of the work that Pauline Clance and Susan Iames did. It's absolutely enlightening. Because once you actually understand how it works in this cyclical, you know, Groundhog Day way, you can start going, okay,
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I know that this is going to come. I know I'm going to behave in this way and I know what's going to go through my mind. Once you know that those things are going to come up for you, you can start putting in interventions or practices, your mind games to actually get you out of that cycle. And once you start breaking down that cycle, then you start diminishing the experience and the hold that the imposter phenomenon experience has over you.
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Rachel Morris (22:45.261)
Yeah.
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Rachel Morris (22:55.949)
Terry, I want to a little later come on to those things that can be put in place, both at a personal and a local level, but also wider. There's just something you've said that struck me, and I'm mindful that we may have listeners who are line managers, listeners who are people professionals. We absolutely have listeners who are colleagues of others. So those behaviours, that pattern, that cycle that you've just described, which is you just...
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beautifully articulated what is going on within the person when they maybe procrastinate or put it off or then seem to suddenly rush at last minute to get something done. The piece that I'm interested in is what could we as the line manager or the people professional be saying, because I might be thinking she's losing control, she's lost her mojo, she's lost her woo woo as you like to call it, she's...
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Dr Terri Simpkin (23:49.961)
Yeah.
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Rachel Morris (23:51.68)
or last minute, she's underperforming, good Lord, she's now not who she was. And God forbid, I might then put you through a PIP, onto a PIP or through some sort of performance management process. that, again, I use, it feels like this word discord is coming up this morning, but it's like the reality of what is happening to the individual and how that may be perceived seems so very different and potentially incredibly dangerous, incredibly problematic.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (24:20.019)
Yes, and this is what became really clear to me when I was talking to all these people around the world saying, how is this playing out for you in the workplace? Because as I said, I was interested in the social stuff and the workplace stuff rather than necessarily what was going on for the individual. I mean, that's really important, but little work had been done on the social stuff. You will see in terms of if you're a line manager or
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supervisor working and you perhaps suggest to somebody there's this job coming up it's a it'd be a fabulous promotion for you why don't you apply for this job no I couldn't possibly do that no I'm not qualified enough no it's not for me so where people are actually discounting themselves from roles or projects or activities that somebody else absolutely knows that the individual could do because they've got a track record of evidence stretching behind them.
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It be qualifications, could be customer client testimonials, it could be performance management, which you he's saying to all intents and purposes, this person is capable, qualified, perfectly able to do the next level up or do a different project or do some sort of career enhancing activity and they are discounting themselves outright. and often people believe,
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line managers or third parties might believe, well, you're just being, you know, self-effacing. You're just waiting to be, yeah, you're just waiting for me to ask again. Where in fact, the individual is genuinely believing that they are not up to snuff. Because, and the thing that actually stops this from the individual absorbing this is that they genuinely are unable to see
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Rachel Morris (25:49.869)
bit over modest or.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (26:11.497)
their track record of success or their achievements. Even when they've got qualifications, bits of paper, it's like, well, they must have been giving those away in Cornflakes packets. Well, you know, it couldn't have been too hard if I had done it. So there's this discounting, even when something is evidenced, that could be from, say, performance management, could be feedback from colleagues, it could be continual promotions. So where somebody has been promoted,
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Often we see stress, anxiety, this construct is often associated with depression where somebody might take it on because they've completed that cycle as I mentioned, but it comes with a price of ongoing sense of anxiety that someone is going to find me out. I shouldn't be doing this.
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Rachel Morris (26:55.297)
Yes.
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Rachel Morris (27:03.021)
great human cost at all stages in the cycle for the individual. From start, from the start of the cycle through to navigating through to completion, through to actually then, my gosh, now I've got to keep going. Exhausting.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (27:05.717)
Yes, absolutely.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (27:18.709)
You also, it is exhausting. know, one woman that I spoke to said that she drove to work half an hour early every morning and she'd sitting her car in the car park rebuilding herself before she went into the office because she knew, she knew in her bones that that was the day she was going to get tapped on the shoulder and told, we've made some horrible mistake. He's a box, put your stuff in it. The person that we should have hired is going to...
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I this is years, years into her tenure and she still felt this. this is, again, going back to my rage, this is why I get angry that this experience is diminished in social media. That all you need to do is hug a tree, do a bit of yoga, pat a cat, think happy thoughts. All those things are really good, but they are not going to scratch the surface of an individual who's going through this every single day.
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Rachel Morris (28:03.981)
Yeah. Yeah.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (28:14.803)
So, sorry, go on.
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Rachel Morris (28:17.581)
So I was just, sorry, forgive me, I was just going to ask you, this kind of diminishing in social media prompted me to think about when we recorded series one on burnout, there was a theme that went through which is almost that there is a bit of a badge of honor of I worked so hard I very nearly got close to burnout. Is that at all transferable to the imposter phenomenon? I have imposter syndrome. Is that ever a thing?
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Dr Terri Simpkin (28:44.597)
No, imposter syndrome is not a thing, but we know that burnout is associated with experiences of the imposter phenomena or imposter feelings. Because if you're working harder than you actually need to do, because you think this is the project where I'm going to get found out, it has to be perfect. It has to be superhuman. I have to put in so much effort.
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Rachel Morris (28:46.923)
No, that is, it is not a syndrome hashtag.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (29:14.053)
at the other characteristic of the imposter thoughts is I have to work hard in order to justify the the the judgment that other people have of me of being good. have I have to work really, really hard. And people often suggest to me, well, you know, isn't imposter phenomenon, you know, my superpower? No, it isn't because you're already good.
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By diminishing your own capacities, by not internalizing your successes, by not accepting the fact that other people believe you to be competent, capable, qualified, and plea good at doing what it is that you've been asked to do. By overworking to compensate for your own sense of inadequacy, all you're doing through the imposter experience is bringing anxiety, stress, depression, self-handicapping, all these other sorts of things. You are already good.
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So the imposter phenomenon is in no way a superpower and it is not what makes you good. It is despite your capabilities. So you are already good. If you got rid of the imposter thoughts and feelings, you would be able to diminish that sense of anxiety, of stress, of burnout, all of those other things that we know are associated. Because you are already good. It's not what makes you good. It's what makes you worried about being
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Rachel Morris (30:35.509)
You are already good.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (30:42.813)
and all of those consequences that come along.
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Rachel Morris (30:46.605)
So what can we do, Terry, both on an individual level? So we'll have people listening to it thinking, what can I do? We might have line managers or colleagues thinking, what can I do? And I think there is an important piece of wisdom that you have for organizations of what on that business or organizational level people can do. Can we just get some ideas on those?
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Dr Terri Simpkin (30:48.853)
Hmm.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (31:09.749)
Sure. Yeah, listen out for the language. You'll hear it in the language that people are using. Things like pushing back on praise when, not in a throwaway sense, but if you're seeing this as a pattern where it wasn't me, it was my team, anybody could have done that. particularly if it's coupled with body language of pushing it away, you often see people sort of showing this.
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showing the hand of, wasn't me, anybody could have done that. That project came in on time, in on budget, everybody's really happy with the work that you did, anyone could have done it. If you're seeing that all the time, then I'm not suggesting that we go around diagnosing people or trying to call them out as perhaps experiencing postive phenomenon, but just being aware of that. If people are really,
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Rachel Morris (31:42.861)
Yeah.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (32:05.511)
uncomfortable in situations where they're asked to put their work on the table. So where they're seeking peer review or review from line managers where it's sort of lots of shuffling and lots of of this sense of discomfort. What is very common is that when people go into say performance management or appraisals where they're asked to put their good work on the table, this is what I've done over the last
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six months, 12 months, wherever, and this is what I'm gonna do for the next 12 months, aren't I fabulous? Because that's the place where you expected to be blowing your own trumpet. If somebody turns up and says, well, you know, I did this, but it wasn't really good enough, and I did that, but I had a lot of help, and they're having difficulty actually explaining to you in very clear terms, their value, what they've done, and how their capacities have made a-
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Rachel Morris (32:33.047)
months.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (33:00.373)
to a team or to a project or to the workplace. If they're really looking as if they're uncomfortable, then that might be a consequence of that they are unable to internalize the evidence that they've been doing good work. And in fact, there's a flight or flight response, that brick that you feel in the pit of your stomach. One of the women that I interviewed said,
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My toes are curling just thinking about going into a performance review because I just feel I would much prefer to get constructive criticism than be told that my work is good. And so there's this sense of I don't want to hear it because what that's doing is pushing back on the story that I have. My story is...
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Rachel Morris (33:51.405)
Mm.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (33:53.792)
because it's socially constructed and I've carried it with me probably from childhood into adulthood. My story is that I'm not good enough. And you're telling me that I am, which is making my story untrue. So there's this cognitive dissonance. One of the things that is truly difficult for people who experience this is, you're fabulous. You always are. go for that promotion. Do that new project.
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Rachel Morris (34:04.311)
got even waterproof. Yeah.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (34:23.763)
You know, you're absolutely brilliant at this. and this, the individuals going, my goodness, you think I'm good. You're telling me you think I'm good. And now I'm going to have to keep being good because I always, that is really disquieting for people who experience IP. So rather than say, you're fabulous. You always are. you you work is sensational, yada, yada.
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Rachel Morris (34:35.124)
Bye!
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Dr Terri Simpkin (34:48.595)
Here is the evidence. Look, here is the customer feedback. Here is the metrics that are identifying that your work achieved X, Y, and Z and have it as evidence because that's more difficult to wriggle out of than hyperbole. It's one of the worst things that you can do for people who are experiencing this is be overwrought with flowery feedback. It has to be evidence-based because that's
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Rachel Morris (35:13.933)
Praise. Amen.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (35:18.153)
more difficult to dismiss.
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Rachel Morris (35:21.165)
and Organizations, Organizational Systems.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (35:24.435)
Systems, one of the most important thing is creating a workplace that is not only inclusive, but allows people to feel that they belong. Now, inclusive or diverse workforces are not always synonymous with a workplace that enables people to belong. We can over-index on recruitment of people from non-traditional backgrounds, for example, but allowing people to believe that they are
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valued, that they have something to bring and that they are psychologically safe in that environment doesn't always follow. So for example, women in boardrooms, one woman found herself in the boardroom, was, she had a sense of discomfort about being elevated to, to the board. She did it anyway, she went through that, that sort of that, good, I'm going to be on the board. bugger, now I'm going to have to really up to being on the board. Yeah.
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Rachel Morris (36:21.935)
gonna be on the board. Yeah.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (36:23.997)
So she rolled up to the board and this is horrifying. She got there early because she was overworking, feeling that she needed to have something to prove. One of her board mates walks in, hands her his coat and his coffee order. And then, so she's now feeling that she doesn't belong there anyway and then to be treated as
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Rachel Morris (36:32.801)
feeling everything she's feeling.
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Rachel Morris (36:49.261)
yeah. Now I have the evidence I don't belong here.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (36:53.179)
Now I have, you've just given me evidence that I shouldn't be here. She walks out says, well, can you show me to where the ladies convenience is? They said, actually, I don't know. No, we haven't had women on this floor before. So in the space of, you know, one board meeting, she's got this evidence that she doesn't belong because the systems, the processes, the behaviors of other people are actually confirming
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Rachel Morris (37:14.487)
Yeah. Repeated evidence.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (37:22.697)
her own story, even though that story is untrue. So systems and processes need to be in place around, for example, if you know that somebody is likely to be diminishing their own capacities, but would be excellent for a certain project, give them evidence rather than just going, well, you should apply. And then when the person doesn't apply, just go, well, too bad. So sad that person hasn't applied. You're being able to sit that person down and say, this is why we think that you.
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be a good fit for this role because this, this, this, here's the evidence. And of course, once we start thinking about women on boards, men in non-traditional occupations such as early years teaching or midwifery, if we allow people to discount themselves out of those sorts of processes and we don't gently put evidence in front of them to suggest that they are good, we may well be a
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doing ourselves as an organisation a disservice because we're not getting the talented people into those roles. But we're also allowing that continued leaky pipeline or leaky funnel of people from alternative backgrounds into different roles. Particularly, mean, we see it with women on boards, women in senior leadership and those sorts of things, particularly in non-traditional environments such as construction.
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example. So if we allow people to discount themselves and not internalize their own successes then we are perpetuating those through our systems and behaviors and processes.
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Rachel Morris (39:05.133)
Terry, we're starting to come to the close of this episode and I'm mindful that there may be people listening to this now who are thinking, I'm experiencing this now, now. As I hear you, I'm going, goodness, yeah, yeah, yeah, I relate to this. So the closing message I'd like to make for them, for that person. So from your perspective,
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What would you say to somebody in that situation who's listening right now?
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Dr Terri Simpkin (39:36.096)
Yeah, really get to grips with what the construct is. discount some of the stuff that you will find on the social media. I've got some material on a website called forfakesake.org. Yeah, you have to be careful how you say that. But there's no paywall, there's no, you don't have to
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Rachel Morris (39:52.939)
make sure it's in the show notes, she's got some amazing websites guys.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (40:05.045)
put in any details or anything. It's just sort of where I put my bits of media and some writings and some blogs and those sorts of things. So you can get some materials out of that. But also start to unpick your own stories. If you've got an hour while you've got access to a back garden, particularly as the UK is coming into spring and summer and the weather's getting better, Sunday afternoon, turn the TV off, sit in the back garden with an elderflower cordial or a gin and
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whatever your beverage of choice and start thinking about those stories from your childhood. What has really kicked that off for me? What stories are I carried from childhood into my life now? To the people who created those stories and often it's parents, not because they're monsters or because they're trying to do you a disservice. It's just that they come from a different time, they came from a different social background or whatever. You're carrying with...
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you those stories and you are making those stories true in whatever context you may well be experiencing this. Could be parenthood, could be workplace, could be university, could be all sorts of different contexts. And start unpacking those because you can work on the behaviors and you can diminish the thoughts and the behavioral patterns.
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But until you actually get underneath those narratives and how they're being perpetuated by what we master narratives, so the social stuff, the bias, the stuff of stereotyping that sits out in the world, once we actually sort of look at that as a whole, then we can start going, okay, I've reflected on this, it comes from my low socioeconomic background and now I'll find myself in a different sort socioeconomic environment, I can see how that's.
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butting up against the work that I'm doing. How can I start to unpick that? It's not something that you can do before morning tea on a Monday morning. This stuff necessarily for people who experience it intensely, it can take some time, but also sit down and talk to a mentor, somebody who has no interest in being nice to you. And I say that in that people who are your friends will say, you're fabulous. we know that you've got a brain the size of a planet.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (42:24.787)
We know that you're really good at what you do. Can't you see that? Why isn't it that you can't see that? Somebody who is going to put the evidence in front of you and not allow you to wriggle out of it. So really underpinning all of this is that there comes a point where you have to face up to the discomfort, that brick that you feel in your belly, that flight or fight response, those toe curling moments and start going, why is it that I'm feeling my toes curling? Why is it that I feel like I want to run away here?
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Rachel Morris (42:44.45)
Yes.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (42:53.801)
Why is it that I'm physically pushing away that good feedback and start to think about those things? It's a start.
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Rachel Morris (43:00.525)
Terri, thank you so much. And you know, it is a start and there's a phrase that was gifted to me once by one of my own supervisors and I often share it with my clients, which is, you know, and we do things like this one step at a time and with kindness to ourselves as we do, because it's a process.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (43:17.813)
That is so important because we spend so much time as in, you know, people who experience this beating ourselves up for these sorts of things. And you have to come to it with being, you wouldn't talk to other people the way that your thoughts talk to you.
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Rachel Morris (43:37.71)
Terry, thank you. I'm so grateful to you for talking to us today. And I'm sure the evidence will show that you've done a phenomenal job today because we'll get the evidence for you, Terry, to say that this has been a really powerful exercise, episode for us. So thank you very much indeed. Powerful insight, powerful stories. And I am certain our listeners are going to reflect and be really keen to kind of action think about.
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do explore the ideas that you've shared. And so guys, if you want to do that, we've talked about these wonderful websites. I'm not going to repeat one of them for fear that I get it wrong, but we'll make sure that the links to Terry, to her work, to all the exciting resources and information that she's got are in the show notes. So just be sure to kind of check those out.
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And just once again, thanks ever such a lot, Terry, for being with us today. And remember it is hashtag it is not a syndrome, everyone. Thank you, Terry. Hashtag not a syndrome. Get it right. Thanks, Terry.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (44:35.337)
Yeah, hashtag not a syndrome. No, it's entirely my pleasure.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (44:43.325)
It's entirely my pleasure. Thank you, Rachel.
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Rachel Morris (44:48.376)
All right.
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Rachel Morris (00:02.552)
Hello and welcome to Work Truths Off the Record, the podcast that opens up honest conversations about what it means to be human at work. I'm Rachel Morris, a coach and your guide as we uncover the stories, struggles and triumphs behind the professional mask. Now, in this series, we're focusing on the imposter phenomenon. If you've ever doubted your own success or felt like you just one step away from being found out, then this series is for you.
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Expect fresh insights, honest personal stories and tools from leading experts to help you feel more grounded, confident and connected in your working life. And today I am absolutely delighted to be joined by Dr. Terry Simpkin. Terry is an academic and a self-confessed, wait for this, chaos wrangler. So we're in for some fun. Her work on capability within people and systems gives her a really
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particularly important perspective on all things imposter. So it is with great delight that I'm able to welcome her here today. So we are in for a treat. Welcome, Terry.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (01:12.158)
thank you so much for that lovely introduction and thank you for allowing me to talk about one of my favourite subjects.
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Rachel Morris (01:17.942)
well, let's start there then, Terry. So can you tell our listeners just a little bit more about your relationship with our topic so they understand kind of how you fit in?
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Dr Terri Simpkin (01:26.399)
Hmm.
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I've got my relationship is twofold. So I have a personal relationship with the imposter phenomenon, having experienced it for many years, and particularly when I was doing my PhD. And then I've got the professional academic relationship with the with the construct, because once I'd had
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a bit of a thinker about my experiences, I started to wonder, well, what is this thing? And that took me off down a research path. So I ended up doing some global research with ended up with about 1000 points of data from from people all over the world and stories from from those people all over the world. And it took me down a different academic path than what I thought I was going to to where I thought I was going to go. So I've got the personal
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aspects of understanding the experience because I've been there, but also the stories from people who were just out of university, right the way through to people who were just about to retire and everything in between across a whole raft of different occupations. So I've got my story as well as the stories of other people and then of course the academic research which came along with that and I've been following that path for the last, I think we're coming up to about 15 years now.
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So working in that space around doing workshops and talking to people such as yourself to get the message out around the actuality of the imposter phenomenon rather than it's equal to in the imposter syndrome. I'm sure we'll get to that.
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Rachel Morris (03:04.226)
Well, yeah, and actually that was where I was going to go next, Terry. The well, I suppose, used phrase, I have imposter syndrome. Come on, give us your perspective on that, please.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (03:17.757)
right. Okay, this is where I start to get a bit ranty. Yeah, it's absolutely not a syndrome. It's, I mean, we've got a hashtag my good colleague, Kate Atkin and I started the the International Impostor Phenomenon Awareness Day, which happens in February. So we had the inaugural year this year. But the hashtag is not a syndrome. Mine started off being it's not a bloody syndrome, but Katie's more genteel than I am.
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and certainly not as angry or ranty as I am. But I can't talk to you enough around how I get really frustrated that the moniker of syndrome continues to be perpetuated by people on social media and people in the academic space who continue to call it a syndrome. It's absolutely not a syndrome. And the reason why...
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people sort of say to me, well Terry, why do you get so exercised? It's just a name. But names come with weight, they are not neutral, they're not just a convenient handle to put onto certain experiences or things. And so syndrome comes with a whole raft of expectation around
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It's a pathology. It's something I have rather than something I experience. It's something that exists between my own ears rather than something that also exists out in the world. It's something that I can't diminish because I've got it. Therefore, I've got it forever. That's absolutely not true. So calling it a syndrome comes with all this baggage and myth and fallacy around the actual
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construct the experience and of course it stigmatizes the experience. And I've had people say to me, I'm so glad that you've actually called it out for it being a phenomenon or an experience rather than something that I have. You don't have the imposter phenomenon. You certainly don't have the imposter syndrome, but it's a learned construct which suggests that if it's learned,
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Dr Terri Simpkin (05:28.625)
it can be unlearned. And you certainly can go down that path of minimizing or diminishing the experiences and the consequences of it. Whereas a syndrome suggests that it's something that you have, that it's your problem to solve. It's a pathology and it certainly stops people from talking about it because they feel a sense of stigma around it. And often with the moniker of imposter syndrome, it's often set up as a mental health condition and of course,
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Even today, 2026, we still have this stigma around mental health issues, which means that people don't talk about it, they don't talk about it, they can't learn about it, they can't learn about it, they don't know that in fact it's something that can be diminished with some awareness and changing behaviors and changing thought patterns. That's why I get really annoyed.
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Rachel Morris (06:17.805)
I hear you, I hear you and just hashtag it's not a syndrome. Let's just keep reminding listeners of that as we move through. It's interesting, isn't it? Because listening to you talk, I was thinking, yeah, if I feel like I am something or I have something, it's incredibly disempowering as well. It's like, you know, I am subject to something and that in and of itself is a problem.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (06:41.269)
Yeah, absolutely, it strips away your agency. So knowing that it is something that it certainly is a thing, you know, it's not I'm not diminishing the fact that it is a real experience. It's been researched for the last 40 odd years. So we know that it's it's a real thing that's out, but it's also out in the world.
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Rachel Morris (06:52.471)
Yeah.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (07:04.711)
not just between your own ears. And talking about agency, but once you actually understand that it can be driven by behaviors, systems, processes, biases that are social and certainly exist in workplaces, then you can start to recognize how
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your learnt experiences are butting up or being fuelled by things out in the world. So it starts to give you more of an understanding how where your bit of it finishes and where the world steps in. And that's where you can start to say, okay, well, it's not just me. It's certainly not just something between my ears or something that I have. It's actually being driven or fuelled by other things that I might not have any control over.
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But I might have control over the way that I react to those things out in the spaces that I occupy.
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Rachel Morris (08:04.333)
Terry, this is the piece that I'd really like us to hone in on and your stories here and examples, I know you have such extensive insight into this piece. This imposter phenomenon is more than an individual mindset issue. So something that is more than just as you describe it between the two ears of the person who is experiencing it.
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Can we, let's start to help our listeners understand and if you have stories that you can share it's gonna help.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (08:38.409)
So we have to go right back to childhood often.
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these experiences are associated with how we're parented, what our relationships are like with our parents and our siblings, our immediate family. so, for example, my experience comes from growing up in a very poor, low socioeconomic background in the East End of London. And the social narrative that I grew up with was, you need to get through school as quickly as you could, get out as soon as you could start working because we've got the
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of scarcity so you need to find a job and social mobility wasn't something that you really took on and even if you did well as well aren't we good enough for you anymore. So there's this sort of crab bucket approach to well you know how crabs try and get out but they often can't get out of the bucket because the rest of them are pulling them back down.
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So that was sort of the environment that I grew up in when I was a child. And so we had the scarcity mindsets. We never really had enough money. My dad was working two jobs. My mum was obviously out at work as well at this time. so this learning creeps in to our adult life. It tempers the way that we...
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approach the world, how we see ourselves and how we see ourselves in comparison to others. So, and I will use my experience if that's all right, because I've got other stories to talk about. And so when I got into university, it brought with it this idea that I should never be here. And so when I was starting to do very well at university, I mean, I've been quite a
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Rachel Morris (10:12.301)
Please do. Thank you, Terry.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (10:31.781)
a nerdy child. just love the whole learning thing and I was voracious reader and those sorts of things. So when I got into university and I started getting some really good marks, I'm sure that somebody has actually made some sort of administrative error here and I thought I'll just bob along under the radar and maybe no one will find out. I won't tell anybody but we'll see how long it takes for them to find out that they've actually given me somebody else's marks. Absolutely convinced that that was the case.
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And that sort of comes from this idea of, you know, don't get a big head. No one likes, you know, a smart aleck. You know, just put a lid on your intelligence. Don't get above your, yeah, you're betraying your class here if you're looking for a social mobility because you're leveraging education. And of course, I went to university late in life because it was never on the cards for me. It was never talked about, you know, getting a
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Rachel Morris (11:12.269)
Yeah, above your station.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (11:31.138)
further education or a higher education. No one in my family had been to university, no one in my immediate family had been to university. So it wasn't something that we talked about. And indeed, you're going back to this idea of class, we know that people from my background are underrepresented. So here we've got the personal lived experience, but we've also got
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the statistics which are making that story true. of it's giving you here is the evidence that you shouldn't be here. So there's the stuff out. I don't belong. You shouldn't be here. What are you doing? You know, in the House of High learning getting some really good results. So anyway, I made it through my undergrad. I was asked back to do another year which is similar to the master's year in Tasmania.
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Rachel Morris (12:01.559)
giving you the evidence, the proof.
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Rachel Morris (12:06.155)
Yeah, you don't belong.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (12:25.843)
honors year and then then I was asked back to do a PhD and I just laughed in the face of the person who suggested that to my section. I fooled everybody up until now there's no way that I'm gonna do a PhD and so all the way through I ended up you know taking on the PhD but there was this period of applying for the place knowing that I was never going to get it. It was look I'll put in an application this person suggested I'll keep them happy.
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And lo and behold, I got a place. And so I had this moment of, well, who I've got a place. then it was, bloody hell, I've got a place. now, now I'm really, this is the point at which I'm really going to get found out. And of course, all of that, that social learning that I grew up with, it was coming to the fore again. And it wasn't until I, I'd
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Rachel Morris (13:04.066)
no!
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Dr Terri Simpkin (13:20.807)
sort of got right the way through to the end and was just about to hand the thing in that I thought I just can't hand this in. I was sitting in my car for ages talking, you thinking about some fairly serious self-harm around, you know, how I could actually get out of this because for the last...
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five years, I'd been expecting my supervisors to say, look, you should never have been doing this. This is a load of rubbish. And then I got to the point where they're just waiting for the external examiners to tell me that this should never have been funded for a PhD at all. And it was that moment where I thought, this can't be right. This, you know, how I'm thinking and how I'm...
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what I'm considering doing just to get me out of handing this thing in. Because I knew that once that thing was out in the world, once my thesis was out beyond A, you can't put it back and B, everyone's going to know that I should never have been doing this. I should never have been accepted and the work was actually not good enough. And not just not good enough, I considered it to be rubbish.
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Rachel Morris (14:18.551)
back.
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Rachel Morris (14:25.495)
Wow.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (14:36.789)
And so I thought, my god, my family were sort of living vicariously through the fact that I was doing a PhD. My friends were all asking me every time they saw me, oh, know, how's it been? It's like, we don't talk about it. It's the thing that shall not be mentioned. And so when I finally did hand it in and sort of ran away and obviously got the marks back and the reports back and it was basically, it's a...
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got about the best mark you could possibly ask for. My first response was, have they marked the right thesis? That can't possibly be true. Have they noticed a spelling mistake on page 157? This can't possibly be my work. And then that's what triggered me to start thinking about what is this thing? How is it that I've been carrying this along for, by this time, explicitly for about 10 years? And then I started reflecting on
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you know, my work and how I was coming to motherhood and other sorts of challenges and always had this idea that I was never good enough. And it wasn't just not good enough, but at some point I'm going to get called out and then I would be shamed. And it was time and time again. And that's what put me on the path of actually thinking about looking at this.
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from a research perspective. And of course then it came out. Yes, this has been studied for some time. It's called the imposter phenomenon. And so that's where I started going down the path of exploring it, as something that affected, not just something that affected individuals, but how the external environment was playing a part here. And when I started doing that research, there was very little work done on external factors. It's come along since then. So,
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Rachel Morris (16:19.277)
you
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Rachel Morris (16:25.527)
Mm.
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in part because of you Terry.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (16:30.741)
Well, I mean, other academics are looking at the similar sorts of things. So that's when I started thinking, well, you know, we need to look at this in a much more broad manner. So I'm not quite sure that that answered the question.
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Rachel Morris (16:46.947)
Terry, I think your story is powerful. And I imagine for our listeners, are feeling the power of your story too. So I'm incredibly grateful to you for sharing that. It seems to me that you've talked about kind of social systems in terms of kind of social demographics.
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But as you were talking, I was thinking, you your friendship system had expectations of you, what they were seeing and what you were experiencing. There was a discord there. They were totally different. You know, the academic system in which you were operating in, your tutor clearly felt that you had a huge amount of potential and lots of great things to see. And so we are operating within multiple systems, aren't we, at any given moment in time. And I'm curious about whether in your experience and from your research,
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your feelings or the feelings of being an imposter kind of go across those social systems or whether some elevate it more than others.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (17:49.224)
that's a really interesting question. Yes and no. Yes, in that a person can experience the imposter phenomenon across all of those contexts. So it could be the family situation, the friendship situation, motherhood or parenthood, plus academic plus the workplace. However, having said that, some people will experience it only in one context, but not in others.
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So for example, somebody might experience it at university because they might be first in family, they might not see anybody who's like them, they might be coming from a different cultural background, they might have some form of difference that sets them apart or they feel that they are different to other people in their cohort. So they might experience at university or school or in further education, but not at work.
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Other people might feel it in certain workplaces, but not experience it in others. And so this is what it becomes a really slippery construct. It's like trying to nail jelly to the wall. And so this is where the chaos wrangler thing comes in, because it's a really, it's really quite a, it's really quite a difficult construct to pin down and say, this is how it's going to be experienced by all people. The one thing that is pretty common,
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Rachel Morris (18:59.927)
Yeah, it's quite ambiguous, isn't it?
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Dr Terri Simpkin (19:10.773)
across most people that I've spoken to as part of my research and indeed in the early work that Pauline Rose Clance and Susan Imes did, so they're the original theorists, and subsequent work identifies that it is a cyclical recurring suite of behaviours and thoughts and feelings. you will experience, the normative approach is that an individual will experience the
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highs and lows of being invited to do something. For me it was PhD, for other people it's just getting up and going to work every day. The person has that that sort of good I'm going to do this, my now I'm really going to have to do this, and this is the point that where I'm going to get found out. Then there's a period of procrastination, a period of of hard work and panic because we know that perfectionism is a key characteristic of the experience of impostor phenomenon.
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So you're not gonna be able to do this project or leave PhD. You're not going to be able to just hand any old thing in. It has to be up to those lofty standards that perfectionists will set for themselves. Yeah, and you put that into context. So I'm gonna put it off, put it off, put it off, kick it down the road because I really don't wanna face up to it. Cause I know that I'm gonna get called out, but no, it's now it's due. I'm gonna have to do this.
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Rachel Morris (20:22.423)
So the pressure on self is incredibly high.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (20:37.781)
So I put in huge amounts of work into it over work. So you get stressed and anxiety around that. Then you might hand the thing in and then there's a period of catastrophization of, oh my God, they can now know that I'm no good at what I do. This is terrible. Sitting in my car wondering how I'm actually gonna get out of this thing. And then the feedback comes in, it was absolutely brilliant. You're in on time, in on budget. The project was perfect. And then it was, oh no, it wasn't me, it was my team.
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I just got lucky. Were they reading the right thesis? The thing is, the thing that makes this different to self doubt or normal sort of experiences of questioning one's own capabilities when you're doing something new, it can be very healthy. This is not so healthy. And I would argue that is not healthy at all that one, once something else comes along, it could be the next day at work, it could be a new project or a new
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Rachel Morris (21:18.295)
Yep, which can be healthy. Yep. Yep.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (21:33.782)
new role, could be a promotion, you go through that at time and time again. So it's like Groundhog Day. And people that I spoke to said, I know I'm doing it, but I just can't stop. And that was a very common story that I know that I'm going through this, but I just can't get out of this cycle. And so once you've actually put the cycle in front of somebody and say, this is how it's working for you, it's like the lights go on.
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Yes, that's exactly how it works for me. you know, I've, like I said, I've been doing this work for many, many years now. And every time I show somebody this cycle, I mean, this basically was part of the work that Pauline Clance and Susan Iames did. It's absolutely enlightening. Because once you actually understand how it works in this cyclical, you know, Groundhog Day way, you can start going, okay,
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I know that this is going to come. I know I'm going to behave in this way and I know what's going to go through my mind. Once you know that those things are going to come up for you, you can start putting in interventions or practices, your mind games to actually get you out of that cycle. And once you start breaking down that cycle, then you start diminishing the experience and the hold that the imposter phenomenon experience has over you.
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Rachel Morris (22:45.261)
Yeah.
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Rachel Morris (22:55.949)
Terry, I want to a little later come on to those things that can be put in place, both at a personal and a local level, but also wider. There's just something you've said that struck me, and I'm mindful that we may have listeners who are line managers, listeners who are people professionals. We absolutely have listeners who are colleagues of others. So those behaviours, that pattern, that cycle that you've just described, which is you just...
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beautifully articulated what is going on within the person when they maybe procrastinate or put it off or then seem to suddenly rush at last minute to get something done. The piece that I'm interested in is what could we as the line manager or the people professional be saying, because I might be thinking she's losing control, she's lost her mojo, she's lost her woo woo as you like to call it, she's...
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Dr Terri Simpkin (23:49.961)
Yeah.
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Rachel Morris (23:51.68)
or last minute, she's underperforming, good Lord, she's now not who she was. And God forbid, I might then put you through a PIP, onto a PIP or through some sort of performance management process. that, again, I use, it feels like this word discord is coming up this morning, but it's like the reality of what is happening to the individual and how that may be perceived seems so very different and potentially incredibly dangerous, incredibly problematic.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (24:20.019)
Yes, and this is what became really clear to me when I was talking to all these people around the world saying, how is this playing out for you in the workplace? Because as I said, I was interested in the social stuff and the workplace stuff rather than necessarily what was going on for the individual. I mean, that's really important, but little work had been done on the social stuff. You will see in terms of if you're a line manager or
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supervisor working and you perhaps suggest to somebody there's this job coming up it's a it'd be a fabulous promotion for you why don't you apply for this job no I couldn't possibly do that no I'm not qualified enough no it's not for me so where people are actually discounting themselves from roles or projects or activities that somebody else absolutely knows that the individual could do because they've got a track record of evidence stretching behind them.
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It be qualifications, could be customer client testimonials, it could be performance management, which you he's saying to all intents and purposes, this person is capable, qualified, perfectly able to do the next level up or do a different project or do some sort of career enhancing activity and they are discounting themselves outright. and often people believe,
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line managers or third parties might believe, well, you're just being, you know, self-effacing. You're just waiting to be, yeah, you're just waiting for me to ask again. Where in fact, the individual is genuinely believing that they are not up to snuff. Because, and the thing that actually stops this from the individual absorbing this is that they genuinely are unable to see
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Rachel Morris (25:49.869)
bit over modest or.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (26:11.497)
their track record of success or their achievements. Even when they've got qualifications, bits of paper, it's like, well, they must have been giving those away in Cornflakes packets. Well, you know, it couldn't have been too hard if I had done it. So there's this discounting, even when something is evidenced, that could be from, say, performance management, could be feedback from colleagues, it could be continual promotions. So where somebody has been promoted,
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Often we see stress, anxiety, this construct is often associated with depression where somebody might take it on because they've completed that cycle as I mentioned, but it comes with a price of ongoing sense of anxiety that someone is going to find me out. I shouldn't be doing this.
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Rachel Morris (26:55.297)
Yes.
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Rachel Morris (27:03.021)
great human cost at all stages in the cycle for the individual. From start, from the start of the cycle through to navigating through to completion, through to actually then, my gosh, now I've got to keep going. Exhausting.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (27:05.717)
Yes, absolutely.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (27:18.709)
You also, it is exhausting. know, one woman that I spoke to said that she drove to work half an hour early every morning and she'd sitting her car in the car park rebuilding herself before she went into the office because she knew, she knew in her bones that that was the day she was going to get tapped on the shoulder and told, we've made some horrible mistake. He's a box, put your stuff in it. The person that we should have hired is going to...
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I this is years, years into her tenure and she still felt this. this is, again, going back to my rage, this is why I get angry that this experience is diminished in social media. That all you need to do is hug a tree, do a bit of yoga, pat a cat, think happy thoughts. All those things are really good, but they are not going to scratch the surface of an individual who's going through this every single day.
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Rachel Morris (28:03.981)
Yeah. Yeah.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (28:14.803)
So, sorry, go on.
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Rachel Morris (28:17.581)
So I was just, sorry, forgive me, I was just going to ask you, this kind of diminishing in social media prompted me to think about when we recorded series one on burnout, there was a theme that went through which is almost that there is a bit of a badge of honor of I worked so hard I very nearly got close to burnout. Is that at all transferable to the imposter phenomenon? I have imposter syndrome. Is that ever a thing?
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Dr Terri Simpkin (28:44.597)
No, imposter syndrome is not a thing, but we know that burnout is associated with experiences of the imposter phenomena or imposter feelings. Because if you're working harder than you actually need to do, because you think this is the project where I'm going to get found out, it has to be perfect. It has to be superhuman. I have to put in so much effort.
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Rachel Morris (28:46.923)
No, that is, it is not a syndrome hashtag.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (29:14.053)
at the other characteristic of the imposter thoughts is I have to work hard in order to justify the the the judgment that other people have of me of being good. have I have to work really, really hard. And people often suggest to me, well, you know, isn't imposter phenomenon, you know, my superpower? No, it isn't because you're already good.
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By diminishing your own capacities, by not internalizing your successes, by not accepting the fact that other people believe you to be competent, capable, qualified, and plea good at doing what it is that you've been asked to do. By overworking to compensate for your own sense of inadequacy, all you're doing through the imposter experience is bringing anxiety, stress, depression, self-handicapping, all these other sorts of things. You are already good.
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So the imposter phenomenon is in no way a superpower and it is not what makes you good. It is despite your capabilities. So you are already good. If you got rid of the imposter thoughts and feelings, you would be able to diminish that sense of anxiety, of stress, of burnout, all of those other things that we know are associated. Because you are already good. It's not what makes you good. It's what makes you worried about being
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Rachel Morris (30:35.509)
You are already good.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (30:42.813)
and all of those consequences that come along.
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Rachel Morris (30:46.605)
So what can we do, Terry, both on an individual level? So we'll have people listening to it thinking, what can I do? We might have line managers or colleagues thinking, what can I do? And I think there is an important piece of wisdom that you have for organizations of what on that business or organizational level people can do. Can we just get some ideas on those?
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Dr Terri Simpkin (30:48.853)
Hmm.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (31:09.749)
Sure. Yeah, listen out for the language. You'll hear it in the language that people are using. Things like pushing back on praise when, not in a throwaway sense, but if you're seeing this as a pattern where it wasn't me, it was my team, anybody could have done that. particularly if it's coupled with body language of pushing it away, you often see people sort of showing this.
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showing the hand of, wasn't me, anybody could have done that. That project came in on time, in on budget, everybody's really happy with the work that you did, anyone could have done it. If you're seeing that all the time, then I'm not suggesting that we go around diagnosing people or trying to call them out as perhaps experiencing postive phenomenon, but just being aware of that. If people are really,
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Rachel Morris (31:42.861)
Yeah.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (32:05.511)
uncomfortable in situations where they're asked to put their work on the table. So where they're seeking peer review or review from line managers where it's sort of lots of shuffling and lots of of this sense of discomfort. What is very common is that when people go into say performance management or appraisals where they're asked to put their good work on the table, this is what I've done over the last
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six months, 12 months, wherever, and this is what I'm gonna do for the next 12 months, aren't I fabulous? Because that's the place where you expected to be blowing your own trumpet. If somebody turns up and says, well, you know, I did this, but it wasn't really good enough, and I did that, but I had a lot of help, and they're having difficulty actually explaining to you in very clear terms, their value, what they've done, and how their capacities have made a-
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Rachel Morris (32:33.047)
months.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (33:00.373)
to a team or to a project or to the workplace. If they're really looking as if they're uncomfortable, then that might be a consequence of that they are unable to internalize the evidence that they've been doing good work. And in fact, there's a flight or flight response, that brick that you feel in the pit of your stomach. One of the women that I interviewed said,
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My toes are curling just thinking about going into a performance review because I just feel I would much prefer to get constructive criticism than be told that my work is good. And so there's this sense of I don't want to hear it because what that's doing is pushing back on the story that I have. My story is...
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Rachel Morris (33:51.405)
Mm.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (33:53.792)
because it's socially constructed and I've carried it with me probably from childhood into adulthood. My story is that I'm not good enough. And you're telling me that I am, which is making my story untrue. So there's this cognitive dissonance. One of the things that is truly difficult for people who experience this is, you're fabulous. You always are. go for that promotion. Do that new project.
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Rachel Morris (34:04.311)
got even waterproof. Yeah.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (34:23.763)
You know, you're absolutely brilliant at this. and this, the individuals going, my goodness, you think I'm good. You're telling me you think I'm good. And now I'm going to have to keep being good because I always, that is really disquieting for people who experience IP. So rather than say, you're fabulous. You always are. you you work is sensational, yada, yada.
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Rachel Morris (34:35.124)
Bye!
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Dr Terri Simpkin (34:48.595)
Here is the evidence. Look, here is the customer feedback. Here is the metrics that are identifying that your work achieved X, Y, and Z and have it as evidence because that's more difficult to wriggle out of than hyperbole. It's one of the worst things that you can do for people who are experiencing this is be overwrought with flowery feedback. It has to be evidence-based because that's
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Rachel Morris (35:13.933)
Praise. Amen.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (35:18.153)
more difficult to dismiss.
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Rachel Morris (35:21.165)
and Organizations, Organizational Systems.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (35:24.435)
Systems, one of the most important thing is creating a workplace that is not only inclusive, but allows people to feel that they belong. Now, inclusive or diverse workforces are not always synonymous with a workplace that enables people to belong. We can over-index on recruitment of people from non-traditional backgrounds, for example, but allowing people to believe that they are
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valued, that they have something to bring and that they are psychologically safe in that environment doesn't always follow. So for example, women in boardrooms, one woman found herself in the boardroom, was, she had a sense of discomfort about being elevated to, to the board. She did it anyway, she went through that, that sort of that, good, I'm going to be on the board. bugger, now I'm going to have to really up to being on the board. Yeah.
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Rachel Morris (36:21.935)
gonna be on the board. Yeah.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (36:23.997)
So she rolled up to the board and this is horrifying. She got there early because she was overworking, feeling that she needed to have something to prove. One of her board mates walks in, hands her his coat and his coffee order. And then, so she's now feeling that she doesn't belong there anyway and then to be treated as
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Rachel Morris (36:32.801)
feeling everything she's feeling.
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Rachel Morris (36:49.261)
yeah. Now I have the evidence I don't belong here.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (36:53.179)
Now I have, you've just given me evidence that I shouldn't be here. She walks out says, well, can you show me to where the ladies convenience is? They said, actually, I don't know. No, we haven't had women on this floor before. So in the space of, you know, one board meeting, she's got this evidence that she doesn't belong because the systems, the processes, the behaviors of other people are actually confirming
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Rachel Morris (37:14.487)
Yeah. Repeated evidence.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (37:22.697)
her own story, even though that story is untrue. So systems and processes need to be in place around, for example, if you know that somebody is likely to be diminishing their own capacities, but would be excellent for a certain project, give them evidence rather than just going, well, you should apply. And then when the person doesn't apply, just go, well, too bad. So sad that person hasn't applied. You're being able to sit that person down and say, this is why we think that you.
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be a good fit for this role because this, this, this, here's the evidence. And of course, once we start thinking about women on boards, men in non-traditional occupations such as early years teaching or midwifery, if we allow people to discount themselves out of those sorts of processes and we don't gently put evidence in front of them to suggest that they are good, we may well be a
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doing ourselves as an organisation a disservice because we're not getting the talented people into those roles. But we're also allowing that continued leaky pipeline or leaky funnel of people from alternative backgrounds into different roles. Particularly, mean, we see it with women on boards, women in senior leadership and those sorts of things, particularly in non-traditional environments such as construction.
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example. So if we allow people to discount themselves and not internalize their own successes then we are perpetuating those through our systems and behaviors and processes.
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Rachel Morris (39:05.133)
Terry, we're starting to come to the close of this episode and I'm mindful that there may be people listening to this now who are thinking, I'm experiencing this now, now. As I hear you, I'm going, goodness, yeah, yeah, yeah, I relate to this. So the closing message I'd like to make for them, for that person. So from your perspective,
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What would you say to somebody in that situation who's listening right now?
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Dr Terri Simpkin (39:36.096)
Yeah, really get to grips with what the construct is. discount some of the stuff that you will find on the social media. I've got some material on a website called forfakesake.org. Yeah, you have to be careful how you say that. But there's no paywall, there's no, you don't have to
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Rachel Morris (39:52.939)
make sure it's in the show notes, she's got some amazing websites guys.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (40:05.045)
put in any details or anything. It's just sort of where I put my bits of media and some writings and some blogs and those sorts of things. So you can get some materials out of that. But also start to unpick your own stories. If you've got an hour while you've got access to a back garden, particularly as the UK is coming into spring and summer and the weather's getting better, Sunday afternoon, turn the TV off, sit in the back garden with an elderflower cordial or a gin and
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whatever your beverage of choice and start thinking about those stories from your childhood. What has really kicked that off for me? What stories are I carried from childhood into my life now? To the people who created those stories and often it's parents, not because they're monsters or because they're trying to do you a disservice. It's just that they come from a different time, they came from a different social background or whatever. You're carrying with...
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you those stories and you are making those stories true in whatever context you may well be experiencing this. Could be parenthood, could be workplace, could be university, could be all sorts of different contexts. And start unpacking those because you can work on the behaviors and you can diminish the thoughts and the behavioral patterns.
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But until you actually get underneath those narratives and how they're being perpetuated by what we master narratives, so the social stuff, the bias, the stuff of stereotyping that sits out in the world, once we actually sort of look at that as a whole, then we can start going, okay, I've reflected on this, it comes from my low socioeconomic background and now I'll find myself in a different sort socioeconomic environment, I can see how that's.
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butting up against the work that I'm doing. How can I start to unpick that? It's not something that you can do before morning tea on a Monday morning. This stuff necessarily for people who experience it intensely, it can take some time, but also sit down and talk to a mentor, somebody who has no interest in being nice to you. And I say that in that people who are your friends will say, you're fabulous. we know that you've got a brain the size of a planet.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (42:24.787)
We know that you're really good at what you do. Can't you see that? Why isn't it that you can't see that? Somebody who is going to put the evidence in front of you and not allow you to wriggle out of it. So really underpinning all of this is that there comes a point where you have to face up to the discomfort, that brick that you feel in your belly, that flight or fight response, those toe curling moments and start going, why is it that I'm feeling my toes curling? Why is it that I feel like I want to run away here?
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Rachel Morris (42:44.45)
Yes.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (42:53.801)
Why is it that I'm physically pushing away that good feedback and start to think about those things? It's a start.
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Rachel Morris (43:00.525)
Terri, thank you so much. And you know, it is a start and there's a phrase that was gifted to me once by one of my own supervisors and I often share it with my clients, which is, you know, and we do things like this one step at a time and with kindness to ourselves as we do, because it's a process.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (43:17.813)
That is so important because we spend so much time as in, you know, people who experience this beating ourselves up for these sorts of things. And you have to come to it with being, you wouldn't talk to other people the way that your thoughts talk to you.
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Rachel Morris (43:37.71)
Terry, thank you. I'm so grateful to you for talking to us today. And I'm sure the evidence will show that you've done a phenomenal job today because we'll get the evidence for you, Terry, to say that this has been a really powerful exercise, episode for us. So thank you very much indeed. Powerful insight, powerful stories. And I am certain our listeners are going to reflect and be really keen to kind of action think about.
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do explore the ideas that you've shared. And so guys, if you want to do that, we've talked about these wonderful websites. I'm not going to repeat one of them for fear that I get it wrong, but we'll make sure that the links to Terry, to her work, to all the exciting resources and information that she's got are in the show notes. So just be sure to kind of check those out.
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And just once again, thanks ever such a lot, Terry, for being with us today. And remember it is hashtag it is not a syndrome, everyone. Thank you, Terry. Hashtag not a syndrome. Get it right. Thanks, Terry.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (44:35.337)
Yeah, hashtag not a syndrome. No, it's entirely my pleasure.
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Dr Terri Simpkin (44:43.325)
It's entirely my pleasure. Thank you, Rachel.
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Rachel Morris (44:48.376)
All right.
