How to Deal with Insecurity and Impostor Syndrome 🎭
And the best antidotes for people in tech.
Over the past few weeks I have been talking with many engineers and managers about the trends that are changing our industry.
We mostly discuss three things:
Managers becoming more technical
The rise of product engineers
The use of AI in the dev process
I have already written about the first trend recently, and I will publish two deep dives about the other two in the coming weeks.
Now, a common thread in these conversations has been a sense of insecurity.
The fast changing landscape, the tougher economic conditions, and the harder job market made a lot of people uncertain about their role, and their future in general.
Almost all of them, in my opinion, are doing just fine. So, if you are feeling the same doubts, chances are you are doing fine, too.
But I doubt a blanket statement like that can help you feel better, so this week’s article is dedicated to insecurity. I will cover everything I know about impostor syndrome, confidence, lack thereof, and feeling better about yourself.
This is backed by… my life!
My very first job was co-founder & CTO: I had to scale a company when I barely knew how to program, and fast forward to today I still don’t know what I am doing with this newsletter thing! I went through times where I felt extremely bad about myself, and over time I developed tactics and mental models to do better.
So here is the agenda:
📖 What is impostor syndrome — the true science of it, the confidence equation, and the difference with the infamous Dunning-Kruger effect.
🎭 The five impostors — the five impostor archetypes, and where they come from. Chances are you can recognize yourself in some of these.
⬅️ What causes insecurity — from personal traits, to your environment, to the bad parts of the tech space.
⚔️ How to fight back — the core of the article: talking about feedback loops, self-awareness, growth mindset, and work-life balance.
Let’s dive in!
📖 What is Impostor Syndrome?
Impostor syndrome is a psychological phenomenon in which individuals doubt their accomplishments and fear being exposed as "frauds", despite clear evidence of their competence.
It is not recognized as a clinical syndrome, a psychiatric disorder, or a pathology. You can think of it as a cognitive bias, but this doesn’t make it less dangerous.
In fact, if not addressed, impostor syndrome can easily turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy: you don’t let yourself go after opportunities, and you project to others a wrong image of yourself, which in turn shapes their opinion of you.
The term impostor syndrome was first coined by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978, when they observed it in high-achieving women:
Despite outstanding academic and professional accomplishments, women who experience the imposter phenomenon persists in believing that they are really not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise. Numerous achievements, which one might expect to provide ample object evidence of superior intellectual functioning, do not appear to affect the impostor belief.
Since then, research has shown that this can affect anyone, regardless of gender, job status, or level of success.
Impostor Syndrome vs Dunning-Kruger
A phenomenon often conflated with impostor syndrome is the Dunning-Kruger effect. However, these are two very different things.
The Dunning-Kruger shows that individuals with low actual competence tend to overestimate their abilities (overconfidence). This confidence starts going down when they gain competence—which indeed can lead to feeling like an impostor—but it ramps up again when competence grows.
Individuals experiencing impostor syndrome, instead, tend to continuously underestimate their abilities (underconfidence), even as their competence increases, with the lowest perceived competence occurring at highest levels of actual competence.
So, the TL;DR is: the Dunning-Kruger is nothing to worry about. While impostor syndrome involves persistent self-doubt and often leads to anxiety, Dunning-Kruger is 1) temporary, and 2) doesn’t necessarily cause emotional distress.
5️⃣ The Five Impostors
Impostor phenomenon can manifest in various ways and affects individuals across different professions, life stages, and personal backgrounds.
Dr. Valerie Young has identified five distinct faces, or types, each with its own set of characteristics and origins: