Imposter Syndrome
although i’m 29 plus tax and gratuity
i happened to be a product of busing in
the late 1970s
and i remember before getting on the
school bus
i would say to my mom you know they’re
not going to like me
or no one’s going to want to sit by me
and then i’d also question was i
smart enough was i good enough and i
would always talk about the they
and like any great black mother what she
said who was they
and i say well you know they and what’s
they name
they uh where do they live and she would
say you know a lot of that is in your
head
and she said come here let me tell you
something let me tell you something
right now and she said you know what
as long as you like you that’s all that
matters
as long as you love you that’s all that
matters and you
not being good enough could never come
from you so stop all that foolishness
get your butt on that bus and go to
school
and i said okay okay and i did that and
so i listened to my mother
but it took me a little while to learn
the lesson
and now as i fast forward until
adulthood and professionalism remember
that to
29 plus tax and gratuity i want to share
with you one of my favorite quotes
until you make the unconscious
conscious it will direct your life
and you will call it fate by carl young
i’ve been really marinating on that
quote a lot lately
particularly as i see the laser focus
on unconscious bias being the panacea
for discriminatory practices in the
workplace
and i began to also think about how many
deep-seated beliefs have been
unconsciously
controlling my decision-making
more importantly i’ve sat with the fact
the disturbing fact that
what happens and what do i believe about
me when my
unconscious beliefs actually
intersect with conscious constructs
in the workplace and the they of my
nightmares now greet me at the office
door
so conscious bias what actually is it
it’s the overt behaviors particularly
those pieces of exclusion
that exist in the workplace and i know
you’ve been buzzing around about
unconscious biases books
and everyone’s hosting training on that
but what they fail to actually address
is the actual consciousness of the
actions that are taking
where why can’t we all not only get
along but
feel like we belong and so what does
that actually sound like
in the workplace well it sounds like we
love you and we welcome you here but
don’t wear your natural hair
oh um only speak english and you darn
sure better not put that compound
chicken in the microwave
and you know what oh did you know that
you were hired for that diversity and
inclusion initiative
and my favorite of them all i know
there’s a lot of unrest right now
but please know that we are committed to
diversity and inclusion
and belonging because all lives
matter here
and so you think about this conversation
about diversity
and diversity will ask who’s in the room
and here i am wondering do i belong
in this room diversity
will ask how many more black latina
lgbtq
queer trans do we have this year than
last year
and here i am sitting am i the only one
and how long will it actually take for
me to be like them
an inclusion will jump on board
and say have everyone’s ideas been
actually heard
while i sit at the table and wonder do
my ideas
even have value and merit and
inclusion will ask is this
environment is this environment safe for
everyone to feel like they belong
and here i am sitting there still
focused on
how long do i have to fake it to i
actually make it
because where i come from faking it to
you make it
is how we actually survived
and here we now have this term this
description
imposter syndrome how many of you heard
the term imposter syndrome
how many of you really know what it is
that’s what i thought
so my academic research is really around
really reframing that imposter narrative
particularly
as it pertains to black women and other
minority ethnic groups
because when the original study was done
in 1978 they did not consider
racial factors they did not look at
institutionalized racism and the fact
that
what i believe about me is often
triggered by external factors
and that’s part of being black in
america
and so when you think about what does
that look like in the workplace
what is triggering this imposter
syndrome
well i had a opportunity to have what i
thought was going to be one of my dream
jobs last year
and for all my intelligence and all my
brilliance and the fact that
they valued me so they say
my after my very first meeting and i
kind of gave a little report
and then the very first thing at my very
first follow-up meeting with my
supervisor was
oh you know you talk too much i said i
talk too much
i said well i just kind of gave the
report that you asked for yeah but you
should watch the faces of people
and i thought what did i say and i went
through the list however she never told
me what to report so i gave a report on
everything that i worked on
and then the next time i offered some
advice based on again i don’t know my 20
plus years of
you know being a school principal
running schools organizational
development
and seeing some inefficiencies so i
added a couple of pieces that have you
considered this
and i was told that’s not your lane
oh so what do i believe about me
and how is the environment in which i
work impacting
my mindset eight billion dollars is
spent
on average every year on diversity and
inclusion
initiatives however they’re trying to
change a behavior check a box
avert costly legal action but
not actually trying to shift a mindset
it takes
21 days to break a behavior i mean to
break a habit 20 42 to break a behavior
and 63 to shift the mindset so how is
that one day of training
go and change the dynamics and create a
paradigm shift
how’s that going to happen and so when
i’m looking in the mirror
feeling like an imposter what i carry
actually on my back
is the conscious biases the
microaggressions
the trauma the stereotypes the bigotry
that
sits in the room with me and when you
think about the fact that
we’re often questioned and i know i have
about
whether or not what we say has merit and
then
if we actually sound a little bit like
me then i
am actually an anomaly not the norm
you speak well oh okay i didn’t know how
i was supposed to
be that’s how everybody in my family
speaks and so it’s things and behaviors
like that
that actually impact that and when we
think about how inequality
is truly baked deep into our current
capitalist society how can i not
feel like an imposter when all we really
want to do
is actually belong and the research
shows that it would take
95 years on this current trajectory
to actually bring black people up to par
in the workplace across all levels 95
years
and there’s this diversity paradox that
actually exists
and this is the idea that everyone
is different but we all need to be the
same you see we are hired for our
diversity
but we are trained and programmed for a
simulation
and so how can i actually belong how can
i actually
be when the essence of me doesn’t really
fit the mold that you’ve already created
and so it does take a village
but here’s the thing my mentor john
maxwell says great leaders
ask great questions and so
it’s going to take conscious courageous
leaders
to shift the paradigm so that in the
village
that everyone actually belongs and more
importantly i want to leave you with a
particular question
leaders what will you do
when your unconscious bias becomes
conscious thank you