Radical Self Leadership
[Music]
what does it take
to banish self-doubt and embrace radical
self-leadership
my journey started on a thursday night
about 15 years ago
when my night school students were
finishing up their final exams
and as they started walking towards me
with their exams in hand
there comes one of my very brightest
students
she was at every single class she was
right at the front of the room
and her written work and assignments
were uniformly outstanding
and as she came towards me my smile
turned to a look of concern
as soon as i saw her expression i will
never forget
the tears running down her face as she
handed me her exam
and choked out an apology for failing
the course right in front of the other
students
what just happened i quickly determined
that there had been no crisis that night
there was no catastrophic event she was
simply convinced
that despite all of her study and
preparation
she knew absolutely none of the answers
to any of the questions
and yet i knew that it was
mathematically
impossible for her to fail that course
and as it turned out
she actually got an a on her exam now
this is an example of what i call
radical self-doubt
and psychologists call imposter syndrome
you might have heard of it it’s when you
have feelings of
inadequacy or incompetence despite
evidence of being skilled and successful
imposter syndrome was coined in the
1970s by two psychologists
pauline clance and suzanne eins and they
first observed
it among high achieving professional
women
and as a high achieving professional
woman i will just say
i can identify but i have three
questions for you
and i want you to be very honest with
yourself
the day you got your offer of acceptance
to college or university
did it cross your mind that there must
have been some
clerical error in the admissions office
when you got accepted
or that big high-stakes job interview
was it possible that the interview panel
got your name
confused with another candidate when
they offered
you the job or at work
do you sometimes feel like your
colleagues seem to know exactly what
they’re supposed to be doing
well you’re in kind of that fake it till
you make it mode
and don’t worry i’m not going to ask you
to broadcast your answers on social
media but
i will raise my hand to all three of
those things
in spite of 12 years in university and
then another 20 years
in teaching and research and clinical
practice and leadership
i still sometimes feel like i am nowhere
near as
smart or effective as my brilliant and
successful colleagues
and it turns out i’m not alone
research shows that imposter syndrome is
pretty widespread
one study shows that about 70 percent of
us experience it at one time or another
and more recent research suggests that
imposter syndrome
may be especially prevalent among
students and academics
as well as individuals whose gender or
ethnicity or identity
makes them a minority in the workplace
and
the irony is we all keep it a secret
as if everyone else around us is waking
up and
going about their lives secure in the
assurance
that they’re fully skilled and
successful when chances are
they’re feeling exactly the same way you
are
self-doubt radical or otherwise
distracts us
and robs us of the ability to be
fully present to ourselves and others
and taken to an extreme
it can undermine the joy that we take in
our work
and relationships and so after that
fateful night of the final exam i
started thinking about my
outstanding students and what they were
doing right
and it boiled down to three practices
three behaviors
that are beautifully simple if not
beautifully easy
think of it like a simple wooden
three-legged stool
and it struck me that maybe i needed to
be teaching my students
about the three-legged stool the three
practices
in addition to teaching my course
content
and as i started talking with students
about the three-legged stool
it occurred to me that maybe what works
so well in school
could be equally true long after
graduation
because the three-legged stool didn’t
just help my students
it gave me a tangible way to banish
that self-defeating inside voice and
so now when those doubts creep in am i
smart enough
do i really have what it takes or when
i’m tempted to take the easy way out
because i’m afraid to fail i get a
picture in my mind
of the three-legged stool and that gets
me out of my head
and guides me toward positive action
so what are the three practices
show up pay attention
and do your homework simple but not easy
now it’s hard to imagine being remotely
successful
if you don’t actually go to work or show
up for class
but showing up is so much more than just
being
physically present for example how well
do you show up for yourself on a daily
basis
and how good are we at showing up for
others
for our colleagues or our teams or our
students
as vice president academic and chief
learning officer
at a large canadian public college i’ve
had no shortage of coaching
conversations with students and
employees from
all across the organization and at their
heart
almost every single one of those
conversations is about showing up in
some way
maybe it’s giving someone else the
benefit of the doubt
or saying yes to a bold idea
and the decisions that we make can have
life-changing consequences
so we owe it to ourselves to show up for
our values
in how we frame those decisions showing
up
is as much a philosophy of service as it
is a concrete physical action
sometimes in our busy lives it can be
so much easier to fly below the radar
and it takes courage to speak out or
stand with others whose voices may be
marginalized
or muted and let me ask you this
have you ever said no to something
something
really good in your life because you
were
afraid to say yes showing up
is saying yes it’s about facing our
fears and stepping outside our comfort
zone
with the intent of making a difference
so
showing up is key but it’s equally
important for us
to pay attention and so many people
are not paying attention and i’m not
talking about the driver in the car
ahead of you
who is going very slowly because they’re
looking
at their phone self-doubt
forces us to focus our attention inwards
onto ourselves and not necessarily
in a good way when we’re worried about
looking
competent or confident or in control
it’s really hard for us to pay attention
to other people
and that’s a problem because we are all
social animals paying attention
is an extremely active practice of
courage and
curiosity the american poet
mary oliver said to pay attention
this is our endless and proper work
if showing up is about service saying
yes
paying attention is deeply and
meaningfully engaging with people
and the world around us it’s grappling
with ideas that are
new or unfamiliar or even those
with which we may profoundly disagree
and i have found this to be as true in
my personal life
as it is in the workplace or the
classroom
so okay let’s get personal
when my daughter was five my
relationship with her dad
ended for lots of reasons that i’m not
gonna get into right now
but anyone who’s ever been through a
divorce probably knows that
it’s not fun or easy to want to show up
for your ex
never mind pay attention to them and if
it weren’t for my daughter
i probably wouldn’t have tried but i am
so glad that i did by intentionally
trying to understand
his perspective how he saw things that
started to open up a space
for him to hear me and for him to show
up for me
and instead of years of acrimony and
conflict we enjoyed years of friendship
and joy in co-parenting our
amazing daughter and i get
that not every relationship can be or
even should be
salvaged and maybe that story kind of
sounds like a fairy tale
but six years ago when chris my
ex died after a heroic battle with a
terminal illness
i grieved for the loss of one of my very
best friends
and for my daughter’s loss but i had
no regrets and that experience
taught me a profound life lesson not
showing up
not paying attention can cost us grades
or jobs but it can also cost us
relationships
and joy and so we might show up
and pay very close attention but unless
we do our homework we’re still going to
miss the mark
now for students homework is more than
doing the course readings or studying
for exams
homework might be joining an
extracurricular club
or cultivating a professional network
or homework might be seeking out
counseling supports
or academic accommodations or tutoring
homework is looking for that something
extra we can do
and it’s not just about helping
ourselves homework
is about advocacy and activism
and lending a helping hand so
what does your homework look like with
your partner
or your friend or with your community
and what homework have you been maybe
putting off with yourself
and let me tell you the real secret you
have to do
all three all three of these practices
it’s a three-legged stool
and if you start sawing away at one or
two of the legs of the three-legged
stool
it’s gonna tip and teeter and if you
actually start hacking away
at the three-legged stool chances are
you’re gonna fall off
and let’s be real the three-legged stool
is not the solution to the world’s
problems
life is messy and it’s complicated
and there are no shortage of times or
reasons
when we should very rightly doubt
ourselves
but thinking about my student the one
who wept on that
cold dark thursday night all those years
ago
no one ever told her that the things she
was already doing
showing up paying attention doing her
homework in
all the ways that i’ve mentioned were in
themselves
a virtual guarantee of her success and
i can’t help but wonder if maybe knowing
that might have reassured her that she
really was on track
that maybe her radical self-doubt her
imposter syndrome
might have been challenged by the
tangible evidence of her three-legged
stool
and maybe that night she might have
handed in her exam with a sense of
pride and triumph and excitement for the
next step in her journey
so how well are you balanced
on your three-legged stool at their
heart
these practices show up pay attention
do your homework aren’t just a recipe
for success
at school or work or even
success in life they are ingredients
for radical self leadership
for making the most of your full
potential
all you have to offer and so instead of
radical self-doubt
let’s embrace radical self-leadership
and
rewrite the future now through
your life should you decide to carry
this three-legged stool
along with you you might be amazed at
the secrets that it will reveal to you
and the dreams that can help you fulfill
and the difference
that you will make in this world show up
pay attention and don’t forget your
homework