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DE&I Training & Initiatives To Embrace Your Strengths
How to Overcome the Double Impact of Imposter Syndrome on Marginalized Groups
Own Your Greatness and Your Unstoppable Greatness authors, LinkedIn Top Voice, and NYC top executive coaches Drs. Lisa and Richard Orbe-Austin show staff, students, and organizations how to overcome imposter syndrome by using DE&I training and initiatives to combat the disproportionate effects it can have on marginalized groups.
Is Self-Doubt and a Lack of Diversity Affecting Your Team’s Confidence and Performance at Work?
Your organization is committed to building a talented and diverse team, and you know you have some of the best and brightest leaders, staff, and students in the industry. But self-doubt or a lack of self-advocacy are holding back many promising team members – particularly women and people of color.
The truth is that marginalized groups experience Imposter Syndrome at the same rates as their peers (about 70% of U.S. adults and 75% of female executives). The challenge, and the reason so many companies continue to have a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) problem despite their best intentions and commitment to training, isn’t that women and people of color have greater Imposter Syndrome than their peers. It’s that these marginalized groups have more – and more visible – triggers in their environment.
You may recognize that discrimination, cultural or racial gaslighting, and a lack of diversity all factor into how imposter syndrome develops and is experienced in the workplace. And you know that addressing these fundamental challenges will help foster a more supportive, inclusive workforce that encourages greater confidence and self-advocacy. But how can you give your diverse team members the support they need when you are just becoming aware of the double impact of Imposter Syndrome on marginalized groups?
It starts with a systematic approach to addressing imposter syndrome; one that speaks to your team members’s actual lived experiences – both in their current role and prior to joining your company.
What’s Imposter Syndrome and How Does It Affect Women and People of Color?
The double impact of Imposter Syndrome is a unique experience for people from marginalized groups: when internal feelings of self-doubt are reinforced by external factors, like explicit discrimination or a lack of diversity amongst staff or leadership. And the impact this can have on your team members – and your organization as a whole – can be devastating.
- It causes diverse candidates to diminish their contributions and avoid adding their unique and powerful insights.
- It decreases productivity and revenue as team members self-isolate and take longer to complete tasks in order to show they can deliver perfect results without burdening others.
- It results in less visibility for talented team members, either because they wish to avoid the risk or because their self-doubt has caused leadership to question their abilities.
- It increases turnover of your highest potential employees as self-sabotage and risk aversion keep them from pursuing a promotion or a leadership role.
- It reduces ongoing DE&I initiatives by introducing bias into the training process as self-doubt makes talented team members look like poor hires.
What Happens When Your Organization Provides Imposter Syndrome and DE&I Training?
Understanding the double impact of Imposter Syndrome and DE&I on marginalized team members can help with imposter syndrome and allow your organization to address it more proactively through training and initiatives to…
- Recruit and retain diverse employees and support their career growth and advancement.
- Foster a greater sense of community and collaboration among team members by reducing unconscious bias and micro-aggressions in the workplace.
- Show your team that you value their accomplishments and care about their confidence and happiness in and out of the workplace.
- Help senior management recognize signs of Imposter Syndrome and more effectively support their direct reports.
- Encourage team members to assert their needs and take credit for their contributions.
When you PRIORITIZE your DIVERSE staff’s WELL-BEING —
from their INITIAL TRAINING to LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT —
you’re fostering an INCLUSIVE, SUPPORTIVE, & EQUITABLE CULTURE
that allows you to keep and GROW your TOP TALENT.
Finding the Right Approach for How to Deal with Imposter Syndrome and to Foster DE&I Initiatives at Work
The fact that you’re searching for the right Imposter Syndrome and DE&I training and initiatives to support your team puts you one step ahead of most organizations.
Maybe you’ve tried bringing in other speakers, but they didn’t address Imposter Syndrome through the lens of diversity. Or maybe they talked about diversity concerns, but they didn’t incorporate concrete steps to recognize and manage Imposter Syndrome. And while both approaches can be productive, neither is sufficient on its own.
Making things more difficult, your leadership team might hold the belief that it’s offensive to try and help someone from a marginalized group deal with Imposter Syndrome head on. And while the challenges women and people of color face in the workplace aren’t solely resulting from Imposter Syndrome, they also may not be exclusively coming from a lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And by avoiding the issue of Imposter Syndrome, you may be oversimplifying the issue and preventing your organization from offering a vital support system.
As people of color, professional speakers, and executive coaches who have experienced Imposter Syndrome and discrimination firsthand in our own careers, we are uniquely qualified to speak to the issue: we know that both Imposter Syndrome and matters of diversity, equity, and inclusion need to be addressed together to offer a whole solution.
Meet Drs. Lisa and Richard Orbé-Austin
Pulling from their extensive personal and professional experience, Drs. Lisa and Richard Orbé-Austin created their three C’s for overcoming imposter syndrome. Their research-based model goes beyond recognizing the signs of imposter syndrome to actively teaching the interventions needed to reduce self-doubt and to own your greatness.
Lisa and Richard literally wrote the book on overcoming imposter syndrome at work (a Foreword INDIES Book Award Finalist). Their work was the focus of a Masterclass that reduced imposter syndrome by 30% in just 12 weeks.
And they don’t just teach others how to deal with imposter syndrome at work – as people of color and two of NYC’s top executive coaches, they’ve done it themselves! And they have seen firsthand the double-impact imposter syndrome can have on marginalized groups.
Building on the content in their Foreword INDIES Book Award Finalist Own Your Greatness: Overcome Imposter Syndrome, Beat Self-Doubt, and Succeed in Life, the two have combined their groundbreaking work in addressing imposter syndrome with their background as DE&I consultants to offer a complete solution for recognizing and overcoming self-doubt in marginalized communities.
Invite Lisa & Richard to speak at your organization and give your team the help they need to…
- Clarify the signs of imposter syndrome, identify external factors that reinforce feelings of self-doubt, and choose behaviors that are antithetical to the cycle of imposter syndrome.
- Create opportunities to build community and develop new ways of interacting that help change the experience of team members with imposter syndrome.
Infographic developed from a talk for the Financial Times’ Women in Business Forum
Check Out Drs. Lisa and Richard’s Other Speaking Engagements & Workshops
How to Effectively Reduce Stress to Increase Productivity & Job Satisfaction | Leading Through a Prolonged Crisis | Leading Through Change | Imposter Syndrome & Leadership Development | How to Engage in Difficult Conversations about Race | Overcoming Unconscious Bias in the Workplace | Deepening Cultural Competence & Sensitivity
About Lisa
I have seen first hand how imposter syndrome shows up in the workplace and prevents people and organizations from reaching their goals.
And as a woman of color, I’ve experienced the double impact imposter syndrome has on people from marginalized communities.
I struggled with imposter syndrome throughout my grad school experience and early career. But it wasn’t until after I had the worst experience of my career that I saw just how severely imposter syndrome was affecting me personally and professionally. Thankfully, I was able to turn my experience around (a story I share in my TEDTalk).
But I realize that many people feel stuck in unhealthy work environments: they don’t understand what’s holding them back or how they could overcome imposter syndrome and own their greatness.
I’ve seen how imposter syndrome builds – especially in underrepresented groups that get negative reinforcement in and out of the workplace..
I know what it feels like to think you don’t have any choices, and I have dedicated my career to helping others overcome imposter syndrome.
About Richard
I have spent my career helping students, professionals, and organizations of all sizes understand and overcome imposter syndrome. And I have seen the way external experiences can reinforce self-doubt, especially in marginalized groups that have experienced external discrimination and bias.
As the founding director of the Graduate Student Career Development Center at NYU, I helped graduate students celebrate their skills and competencies in the face of self-doubt and go on to land roles and build confidence in their chosen fields.
And my time as the Chief Diversity Officer at the City University of New York showed me how imposter syndrome changes and grows at an institutional level. I saw how marginalized groups had their self-doubt reinforced both in and out of the workplace, often despite an organization’s efforts to champion diversity.
I understand what it takes to foster a supportive environment with confident, motivated team members, whether they were new hires or corporate leaders.
In our sessions, I will help you to feel personally and professionally understood. Your satisfaction – or dissatisfaction – at work has an impact on your personal life and relationships – just as your interactions at home tend to impact your productivity in the office.
As I’ve always told my clients, “When you work as hard for yourself as you do for others, you’re going to be unstoppable.”
Learn More About Drs. Lisa & Richard Orbé-Austin
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Find More Ways to Overcome Imposter Syndrome
Find More Ways to Bring Diversity Equity and Inclusion to Your Organization
Leaning In is Not Enough: How Corporate Leadership Programs are Failing BIPOC Women and How to Genuinely Support their Career Success | Why “Belonging” is Not Enough: How to Counter Attacks on Impactful DEI Approaches | How to Help Your DEI and Anti-Racist Champions Heal & Find Joy | The Transformative Power of Coaching for DEI Professionals | How to End Toxic Workplaces: A Ten Point Plan | How to Stop the Gaslighting and Mistreatment of Black Women in the Workplace
