Zendesk Women in Leadership: How to overcome imposter syndrome

“I actually feel it right now… Why does anyone want to listen to me talk?” The Head of Customer Experience at a top UK football club asks the audience from her seat on a panel at Zendesk’s Women in Leadership event in London last month.

What she is describing is felt by women around the world every day–feelings of self-doubt and thoughts that they are unworthy of the roles they have worked so hard to achieve. Putting it simply–it’s imposter syndrome.

The term “imposter syndrome” first appeared in the late ‘70s when two psychologists published the study “The Impostor Phenomenon in High Achieving Women,” which focused on successful women who believed they had fooled people into thinking they were excellent, rather than believing it themselves.

Over 45 years later and it’s still a problem. For some, it’s a little niggle in the back of the mind; for others, it can be crippling. But for many women, it is always there, which is why forums like this Women in Leadership event are safe spaces to discuss methods to overcome feelings of not being good enough.

“It’s a work in progress, but it’s always there,” agrees Anuradha Deshpande, Director of Customer Operations at GoCardless. “It’s very common, and I think what we need to do is ensure we know how to work with it, live with it, and I want to ensure I’m inspiring others as well.”

Ta-daa!

Reminding herself of her achievements is how Deshpande instills confidence in her working life: “At the end of every month, I update my ‘ta-daa list’,” she says. “It’s not a to-do list, but it’s a list of what I’ve achieved.”

Our football club CX leader decided 2024 would be her “year of yes,” which involved agreeing to every opportunity–however daunting–and going in with a mindset of “what is the worst that can happen?” to push herself.

Similarly, fellow panellist Emma Acton, Vice President Marketing EMEA at Zendesk, combats imposter syndrome by regularly pushing herself out of her comfort zone–often in the gym–to banish any self-doubt over her abilities.

“You build up this courage, and think ‘oh bugger it, I need to put the big girl pants on’. And boom, boom, boom–you just get on with it. Afterwards I’ll think ‘wow, that wasn’t so bad, was it?’ Sometimes you have to do that in life.”

She continues: “I don’t like using the term imposter syndrome, because we’re not imposters. It’s self-doubt, which is completely natural. We’ve just got to overcome the self-doubt, and we are all absolutely capable of that. We’ve got the tools, we’ve got the knowledge, we’ve got the know-how and the skills to do it.”

Career coach

Deshpande believes having a coach has been invaluable to her career. “It accelerates your career and it gives you a sounding board to discuss issues and be very open. [There have been times] I haven’t opened up to anyone, even my family, because I fear that they will worry about me. So I share it with my coach who is an independent person who never judges me.”

But as Acton points out, it is up to individuals to go and seek out this. “If you feel you’ve got a gap, there’s lots and lots of help out there,” she says. “It’s about coming to panel events like this, there are lots of brilliant podcasts and books, and there’s online coaching–there are so many tools that are available to us.”

Learning from failure

The panel agreed that building resilience to cope in times of stress–which often brings out the worst self-doubt in the best of us–takes time and mostly comes from learning from failures.

“Failures are always going to be there, they’re just a blip, you need to continue working through them,” says Deshpande. “I think it’s critical to know that it’s OK to fail. When you come across a failure, you always want to make sure you focus on the outcome and what you want to achieve. And if you can’t achieve it alone, then turn to the people who you think have done it really well and get help.”

Acton suggests women should be treating their failures as a “practice try”.

“Because what really defines failure? When you set yourself a goal and know you’re going to get there, consider failure as a practice version. Everything in life can be a practice, and once you accomplish one thing, you move on. You might get it on the first go, you might get it on the 10th go, you might get it after five years. But you did it and those failures were practices.”

Top tips from our panel for confidence in the workplace

• Say “yes” to every opportunity–however daunting it might seem

• Keep a “ta-daa list” noting all your achievements

• Think of failures as a practice and take learnings from every misstep

• Know when to step back and take a moment for yourself during busy periods

• Find a coach to help you think differently and mentor you to your next step up the ladder

• Surround yourself with sponsors who would advocate for you

• Champion your fellow colleagues for a job well done to encourage a positive working culture throughout the business

Women in Leadership panel speakers

• Emma Acton, Vice President Marketing EMEA, Zendesk

• Head of Customer Experience at a top UK football club

• Anuradha Deshpande, Director of Customer Operations, GoCardless

• Emily Freeland, Director, Value Consulting, Zendesk (HOST)