The other day, I was talking to a friend of mine who just got promoted to a managerial position.
In summation, here’s the situation: I started working at this startup at 22. We’ve done decently well and since I was a part of the team in the early parts, I’m now being promoted to a managerial level at 25 — i.e. being tasked with hiring a team of 10 people for my group and will be in-charge of managing them.
I’m excited for the challenge and the career development opportunity, but I feel a ton of imposter syndrome. I feel like I’m not ready for this job or ready for the responsibility and I’m feeling extremely self-conscious and just anxiety about the pressure of the increased role.
1) Acknowledge your value
The first thing I would say is objectively acknowledge what you bring to the table.
Right, so if you take a step back, you have to acknowledge the CEO/founding team has confidence in you that you can handle this position.
If they wanted to, they have the ability to hire an experienced manager from an outside company to do the job, but they chose you.
So objectively, think about the positives and why you are meant for this. For example, you bring 3 years of expertise working in your department for the company and know how things should be done. You also have a great understanding of the company’s culture through working for the company for 3 years and closely with the founding team. That’s 2 great assets that all managers should have.
2) Forget about age
I think a lot of your insecurity comes from your age. You think I’m only 25, I can’t be a manager of 10-person team. Why not?
What does age have to do with anything? It’s about the relevant experience you have and the attitude you have. You have both of those things.
You don’t need to be old to be a manager. Again, your boss/founding team knows your age. They wouldn’t put you in the position if they didn’t think you had a good shot of doing well.
3) Understand, everyone deals with imposter syndrome
Everyone begins as a beginner. The CEOs you see today, were at one time in their career, a first time manager.
Another example: Tom Brady, once, had to learn how to grip a football. He wasn’t the Tom Brady we see today when he first started playing football.
Whether people want to openly admit they dealt with imposter syndrome is one thing, but we all deal with the insecurity of do we deserve this, do we belong where we are?
4) Write down your insecurities + determine what’s insecurity, what’s natural nervousness, and what’s the objective truth
The important thing with imposter syndrome is trying to understand the difference between irrational insecurity, natural nervousness and the objective truth.
I think list down your insecurities. For example,
I don’t think I’m ready because I don’t have any managerial experience à This to me is natural nervousness. The objective truth is you can gain that on the job through learning and managing.
I don’t think I’ll do a good job because I don’t have any managerial experience à While again the second part is true, the first part is just irrational insecurity. Only through experience will we know how you do. Why not be more positive? I think I’ll do a good job or a decent job.
5) Ask your boss, what does success look like? What does failure look like?
Obviously, I don’t want to give away the department for anonymity for the individual, but marketing department’s success is different than say a finance department’s success.
What are the things your boss is looking for from you to deem you’ve done a good job? What are those performance indicators and how are they measured?
Is it retention of employees? Is it productivity? Is it employee survey reviews? Combination of all 3?
You’re so nervous and feel imposter syndrome because you don’t think you deserve to be in this position but also probably because you’re afraid of failure.
Ask your boss, what is failure? What would need to happen to make you decide to let me go? Once you have what he/she says, then you can be on the lookout to make sure those outcomes don’t happen.
6) Use the resources around you to help you
Read books. Write down notes of their mistakes, learn from their stories.
Get advice from people in similar positions. Connect with people that were once young managers, understand what they learned from their experiences.
Use their wisdom and apply it to your situations.