By Erica

I am a big fan of the “fake it ‘til you make it” approach to confidence and presence. It’s a timing thing. If you pretend you are confident and competent long enough, you will actually become those things. But even if you realize your dreams and become that person, the occasional feelings that I am a fraud, that I am actually fooling all the people at least most of the time, persist. Those feelings —now widely exposed and labelled “the imposter syndrome”— are generally described as an affliction affecting women, robbing us of our confidence and holding us back. Is that right? I don’t think so.

I’ve never forgotten the time when a male colleague and I simultaneously burst into laughter because we couldn’t believe we were where we were, that people actually had confidence in us, were paying us to do this work we loved. When would they realize we were not the people they thought we were? Of course, we went right back to work, but it was comforting knowing that someone else felt the same way. You could be serious about your work and your clients, self-assured, grateful, and not take yourself too seriously—all at the same time.

Now that the imposter syndrome has a name, it’s become easier to talk about. So many successful people—men and women—talk about it. It’s not hard to see why and how they see it as a positive and use it to their advantage.

For starters, it keeps you humble. No matter how many nice things are said about your work, that nagging voice keeps self-importance and egotism at bay. There is no dissonance between grateful and confident. They are not opposites. They go very well together.

Second, it keeps you on your toes. There’s an old business school adage about good leaders make good decisions on inadequate information—because the information they have is always going to be incomplete. It reminds you that you could know more, do more. You don’t—and likely will never—know everything there is to know. But it’s important to keep challenging yourself to do better.

Finally, it is part of having a sense of humor about yourself. And, in my experience, sharing that vulnerability is the quickest way to bond and make lifelong friends.

We are not imposters, we’re just realists. Realists, of course, have questions and doubts. But realists also know that at our core we are the secure, confident and proud women the world knows us to be. Even if we have to fake it til we make it.