Imposter syndrome.

Articles on it are seeping out of every social media orifice.

impostor syndrome or im·post·er syn·drome

^{[ im-pos-ter sin-drohm]}

noun

anxiety or self-doubt that results from persistently undervaluing one’s competence and active role in achieving success, while falsely attributing one’s accomplishments to luck or other external forces. (Source: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/impostor-syndrome)

According to psychologists, sufferers are haunted by not only their fear of inadequacy but also of their fear of exposure.

I should damn well hope so. That is precisely why I have published two books.

I care more though about the fact that many are complete frauds in the first instance.

About the incompetence and corrupt practices that allow these morons to plonk themselves down into their roles in the first place?

I know, how naïve of me?

But just for a moment, think about all the goons who have been successful in gaining appointments and promotions in your company.

How did half of them manage it? Well, for those conversant with the freak treatise, many of them will naturally not have been troubled by the inconvenience of a formal assessment process.

And one appointed, the evidence for their ‘successes’ will overwhelmingly just be soundbites and discourses created by others who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and the cliques.

If people keep repeating that Johnny is great at his job, then ‘Johnny is great ‘ will become an accepted truth. Where the business is successful, people will then go and seek out reasons to connect this to Johnny. Unfathomable, but that’s how the freaks roll.

Nice for Johnny, not so nice for everybody else. They all must pick up the blame and draw the flak for the stuff that doesn’t go right.

And mark my words, there will be a shed load of that.

Johnny will have problems only if deep-down he worries that he might be sussed out by the people who matter. You know, if there is a change in the higher echelons and Johnny loses a key sponsor.

The rank-and-file will know that Johnny is a shit-shooter, but alas, will not have the power to effect change. And you know how well these paranoid patriarchal pyramids receive dissent.

You don’t last too long if you have an opinion. Particularly one that the Directors cannot get their head around or one that challenges existing structures.

Or ones that they interpret as implied criticism of them, for not dealing with the snowballing, steaming, brown Bombe Alaska that is hurtling through the organisational corridors and onto the pass.

But at least we should credit the ones who feel imposter-like with some self-awareness. At least they know themselves that they are really crap. Though that introspection does rather start to build the case for their own hypocrisy.

Ok, forget the credit for that and let’s move on to the truly bad eggs. These are the full-blown psychos. The (self-) indoctrinated dogma owners and who never pick up their poop. The self-anointed superstars, or course with a little help from their friends.

What cataclysmic damage these crackpots inflict on the vast majority of sane employees struggling to get through the day.

At least if they had applied for their jobs and had then been rejected, they would have ultimately found an appropriate position (we can but hope).

But they remain in post, inflicting the fruits of their own deluded megalomania on the masses. Their very own winter invasions of Russia.

Of course, sociopathic nutters aside, some of our real imposters are making capital out of the prevalence of this syndrome in organisational parlance. There are after all always a few who seek to establish an insanity plea.

These throw their imposter thoughts out there and fish for compliments. Like 14-year-olds on Instagram desperate for likes, for the gram.

Imposturing, if you like, if the word existed. Not just one who impostures but does so with an emphasis on the posturing.

‘Oh no, I feel like I’m so ugly’.

‘Don’t be silly, Jackie, you’re beautiful and amazeballs’.

‘Thanks, hun x‘.

Meanwhile the organisational Jackie is bouncing around her company like a pin-less hand grenade botching everything in her wake.

Her imposturous sensibilities consigned to the backburner and her status reinforced.

After all, anyone who takes the bait and offers reassurance cannot easily become a future critic.

And so, ironically, the theme of Imposter syndrome buttresses the position of the imposter.

And imposters are killing organisations. We should however be turfing them out, not beside their couch listening to the regret for their pretence or for their fear of humiliation.

If they have that much self-awareness, they should go the whole hog and do something more worthwhile.

Like get the hell out of Dodge.

unsplash-logoNik Shuliahin