Cultivating Confidence by Tackling Imposter Syndrome
Introduction: Neha Sampat is the CEO, founder, coach, and consultant at GenLead | BelongLab, where she helps organizations create a culture of belonging into which each person can bring more of their true and best self. She is a nationally sought-after expert and speaker in inclusive leadership and busting internalized bias and runs the top-rated Owning Your Value programs to recognize and address Imposter Syndrome and help individuals cultivate true confidence.
Money for this interview was donated to the Transgender Law Center.
Check out the full interview here.
Left: Neha Sampat Headshot, Wearing Maroon Blouse, Right: Jocelyn Thompson Headshot, Wearing Navy with Grey Vest, Arms crossed in front of her
Jocelyn: Tell us about your journey. You began your career as an attorney, can you tell us about how you began and why you made the switch to running your own business?
Neha: You hit the starting point and the current point, but there were a bunch of pivots along the way. When I tell people my career journey, they're like, whoa, that's so winding. And I'm like, everything followed in the way it really needed to.
I went straight to law school from undergrad. So I really started my career in the legal profession. I worked in Silicon Valley as a tech licensing attorney. But in my first year of practice, I recognized that this wasn't my calling. At the time I called it education. I knew that that was my cause.
And now I've evolved that into “empowerment” really being my cause. I started practicing law right when the economy tanked. So I had a lot of free time, which ended up being a boon for me because it gave me time to really think about what was really going to fulfill me. I got to start being intentional and moving towards what I really knew was going to set my heart on fire. So my move was into practicing law still but representing California school districts. So I left tech licensing, left a big law firm, left Silicon Valley to work in a boutique law firm representing California school districts. I was an education lawyer. I did that for far longer than I had planned because the life of a lawyer is very busy, and time flies by. It was three or four years into that job I woke up one day and was like, whoa, I'm still here. And I still have this hunger to do something different. So I ended up leaving that and taking some time when I really didn't have another job lined up because I didn't know what I wanted to do.
A few months, later I got a job that was, in so many ways, the perfect job for me. I became Assistant Director of Student Services at a law school. So I was mentoring people, empowering students, building community, creating belonging, all those awesome things that I hadn't really articulated as being important to me, but certainly were there in my soul. So that job really fed my soul. And a year into that job, I became Dean of Students.
While there, I also taught a leadership class, I got to dig deeper on empowering folks into becoming better, more effective, and engaged leaders. And I was there for 10 years. For many people that would have been the end-all. We used to joke that to get a job as a Dean of Students in a law school, you pretty much have to wait until someone retires or takes a hit out on someone. People just don’t leave that job. It's such an awesome, awesome job. But 10 years into it, I was stagnating as far as my own growth, personally and professionally. And I was really hungry to dig deeper on diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging. So that's when I decided to make the move, and it ended up being starting my own business. That was six years ago. And here I am.
Jocelyn: You do a lot of speaking and work on Imposter Syndrome which is a huge topic now, but it wasn’t when you started talking about it, how did your work on Imposter Syndrome come about?
Neha: My work on this started with my own struggles with self-doubt. Even though it's a hot topic, there are still a lot of people who don't know what it means.
Imposter syndrome is the feeling of not being cut out for the work you're doing or the work you want to be doing, often in spite of evidence to the contrary, combined with a fear of being discovered as a fraud.
It was originally coined as “imposter phenomenon” in the late 1970s by Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes. But I actually didn’t know what it was for a good long while. I remember that I was having a conversation with a colleague, and she mentioned Imposter Syndrome. I had never heard that term before. And when she told me what it was, it was like a watershed moment in my life. This thing is so widely experienced that it actually is called a “syndrome!”
I was experiencing a massive sense of relief and frustration that I had gone so far in my life without knowing there was a name for this and there were ways to disrupt it. I started digging into it and exploring its connection with belonging.
When I started the business, I took a belonging approach to D&I. It was geared towards how do we create spaces of belonging? I think if that's our goal, we're actually going to achieve diversity and inclusion along the way. And so I started looking into some of the barriers to belonging, and one of the big ones was Imposter Syndrome.
The beauty of tackling Imposter Syndrome is that it is an inclusion issue. For many of us who are marginalized, we feel like we're not good enough because we've been told we're not good enough throughout our lives due to bias, oppression, and exclusion. It's also a wellness issue. In my observation, it's one of the leading causes of anxiety and mental health issues. It's a leadership development issue. You cannot develop your authority and presence as a leader without developing your true confidence. You can connect the dots everywhere. It has such a broad and deep impact.
So I went and basically knocked on a bunch of doors saying, “Hey, let me help you with your Imposter Syndrome.” And I pretty much got doors figuratively slammed in my face. Like, “Oh no, we don't have any imposters here!” There was just no fluency around it. I think there was this disconnect between the people in the org who were experiencing Imposter Syndrome and the leadership in the organization that wasn’t hearing about it. But I felt very committed to not abandoning this topic just because there was not enough fluency around it. I realized that I was just going to have to create fluency. I committed a year of my business to do things on my own time and dime, writing, talking, educating people about Imposter Syndrome.
Neha Sampat speaking on Owning Your Value, her presentation is in the background, she is holding a clicker and wearing a white blazer
Jocelyn: That’s awesome, and of course the other hot topic right now, is DE&I. The work you do ties very closely with Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion work. How could a company use your services to support their DE&I programming?
Neha: Yes, I’d add the belonging because that's the approach I take to this work. I'm talking about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. And a lot of people add justice. I think that's a great addition as well.
What I'm looking for is not going about things in a top-down, assumption-based way, which is how DE&I has been traditionally practiced. Diversity was more about getting different people with underrepresented or historically oppressed and excluded identities in the door, but didn't care about what happened to them once they were in the door.
DEIB done right is DEIB that is done by every single person everywhere that every single job is done in an inclusive, equitable, and just way. So I think that when you're talking about DIEB, it technically covers everything. But you know, to connect the dots a little more explicitly between the work I do and DEIB, I take that belonging approach.
So we're actually helping our clients ask everyone in the organization:
What does it take for you to feel like you belong?
When do you feel like you don’t belong?
What are the strengths of your organization?
What are the challenges in your organization?
That's what we want to hear from everyone in the organization. We're taking a bottom-up belonging approach... a more aggregate, holistic approach to creating an inclusive culture.
In the wake of George Floyd's murder, I think there has been an interest in not just doing box-checking, but how do we actually be transformative and not just performative (as I’ve heard it wisely framed)? I'm confident that there is a shakeup happening and it's going to take time, but we have to just keep at it and keep being more creative, experimenting, trying new things, using our own brains and our own voices and authentic perspectives to bring something new to the table.
Jocelyn: It sounds like you are seeing that commitment from orgs that you’re working with.
Neha: I am seeing that from some orgs, but, you know, I would be lying if I didn't say that there's a lot of optics-focus out there, too. Unfortunately, there are probably just as many that came out of the woodwork last summer and really thought they were or said they were going to do the work, but had no budget for it, had no real plan for it, had no actual true commitment to it. There’s still a lot of work to be done.
But I am delighted to see clients broaden the work they're doing. I try to keep my vision on both because it's easy to feel kind of hopeless when you just keep your vision on the ones that are really optics focused. But there is more transformative stuff happening too, so that's super exciting.
Jocelyn: Yeah. That's awesome. I wanted to go back to something you talked about, which was the data that you collect. I am always pushing companies to look at more data and, not just make decisions based on how they're feeling about things. In what ways do you go in and collect data when you're working with companies?
Neha: It depends on the company. It depends on something as simple as how big is the company. I do think there has to be a way to welcome the voice of every single person in an organization. Anonymous surveys are something we always include. If it's a small company, we might do interviews or small focus groups. So it really depends on what is feasible given the size of the company. I think one important piece is that there has to be some way to welcome every voice. So people can speak up and with anonymity.
Jocelyn: Yeah, that makes sense. Switching gears a bit I wanted to talk a little bit more about your career. Is there anything in your career that if you could go back and do it over, you would? If so, what?
Neha: I think that I can answer it this way. What advice would I give to young women of color, brown girls, like myself—people who might've had similar struggles that I had—it would be to trust themselves and to tell their stories, value what they uniquely bring to the world, and give the world what it didn't even know it needed.
The tricky part of that advice is that, of course, I did not have the freedom when I started my career to be unabashedly authentic. I probably would've lost my job, because there are different risks at play, depending on what privilege you have or don't have. So it’s not just doing whatever you want and being a hundred percent authentic. But don't lose your voice! You may not be able to speak it exactly how you want to at this moment, but there will be a time when you will be freer to speak it. What also gives me tremendous credibility with my clients is that I speak my voice and that I'm actually sharing with them a journey I have been on.
Jocelyn: Yes, I love that. How do you feel that you are able to show up as your authentic self in your work? Are there any ways that you still feel yourself holding back?
Neha: Yeah, I will have a truth to share. Sometimes those truths are tied in with feelings like anger and frustration. And I know that if I share something, particularly in that tone, I may be turning some people off who might be prospective clients. So when I was starting the business, I had to be strategic.
But the truth is, now I'm in a position with my business that I can afford to be picky about the clients I take on. I can afford to put my authentic self out there. I'm gonna turn off some people, but I'm realizing that I'm firing up a bunch of other people, and those are the people that I actually really want to work with.
So in a way, it kind of filters out some of the folks that might not be the best partners for me and my business. But I don't just walk around without any sort of strategy in my head, I'm a brown woman in America. There are always going to be things that are risky for me to say or do. And so I am very thoughtful about not saying things that might lead people to deepen their stereotypes about me and my people. So it's frustrating, but authenticity is a privilege, and authenticity is relative, and I'm deeply grateful for the privilege.
Jocelyn: If people are wanting to find you online, you and your company, work with you, where can they do that?
Neha: I'm constantly putting out content on LinkedIn, short videos, blog posts, musings, or articles. So they can follow me there. If folks are interested in reading some of our work, we have a blog on our website: www.genlead.co
People can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
If they're interested in contacting us on issues of belonging, inclusive leadership, Imposter Syndrome, or wellness, they can email hello@genlead.co.
Jocelyn: Sounds great. That's all the questions I have, but do you have anything else that you want to share?
Neha: I think I would just leave folks with a call to curiosity: It doesn't necessarily mean you need to go join your DE&I committee in your company. It means you look at what you're doing in your job and think about how you can be more equitably and inclusively doing that job.
Jocelyn, I’m just really excited about the work that you do and how committed you are to this as well. We have a warm, wonderful, and dedicated community, but we need to spread the responsibility.
Jocelyn: Yeah, that's something I've been thinking about, my work is in Human Resources and I feel like diversity and inclusion have really been pushed to HR, and it's so much more than that. I'm starting to think about how we can incorporate this in marketing, product, supply chain, and all the other pieces of the business so that it is all-encompassing because HR is just one piece of it. So I totally agree with you.
Neha: I think where you bring something a little unique is that you see HR as one piece of the puzzle, and you want to help them do the HR function more inclusively and equitably. DEIB definitely needs to come out from under the umbrella of HR.
Jocelyn: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for spending the time today. It's been really fun. I always love hearing you speak. So thank you.
Neha: That totally means a lot to me. And thank you so much for your belief in me, your belief in the work I do. I've been delighted to have you in this community, so keep doing your awesome thing.
