The most recent Question Time, held on 6th December, looked at academic imposter syndrome. Questions from the audience of doctoral and early career researchers explored how to build confidence when working with collaborators, how to recognise feelings of unworthiness, and what you can do to help overcome them.
A sincere thank you to our panel:
- Dr Kathy Doherty, Head of Programme Area for Postgraduate Research in C3RI and MERI
- Dr Christine Le Maitre, Reader in Musculoskeletal Diseases, BMRC
- Dr John Nicholson, Reader in Strategic Management, SBS
- Professor Helen Richardson, Professor of Gender and Organisation, SBS
Q: Have you got any tips on how to deal with ownership of ideas when working as a team on research projects?
Academic life is collaborative by its nature, and there are a lot of rewards to be gained from working collaboratively. Although conducting research is fantastic and you will meet some amazing collaborators, issues can and will arise, so it’s important to look after your own career.
A sense of having your ideas appropriated is quite common, but, in a team, ownership of ideas is shared. That said, the majority of ideas are not generated by a single person in isolation and, at the least, owe a debt to the literature.
The team should be a partnership. Don’t be seduced by people’s titles or reputation – get a sense of the person and whether you can work together. Establish ground rules at the start – individual’s roles, joint ownership of data and publications, who will be first author on what paper etc. Build professional relationships, and take the emotional responses out. Establish whether there is a meaningful or accepted hierarchy – this is common in some disciplines, although it shouldn’t stop you from clarifying up front the nature of the team and expectations.
Keep notes or minutes of collaborative meetings, so that everyone is clear what has been agreed. If issues arise, discuss them early on and don’t let them fester.
Q: How do we know when what we’re writing or saying actually *is* ‘unworthy’ and a load of tosh, rather than imposter syndrome?
Generally, people aren’t unworthy. Most people who feel insecure or lacking in confidence aren’t rubbish. A certain amount of self-reflection is part and parcel of feeling insecure, and self-reflection is a good thing. The opposite is over-confidence, with not a lot sitting underneath. As you go through your academic careers, you will see both.
The important question is how do you manage these feelings of under confidence. Embrace feedback. Test your ideas, and accept that they are work in progress. You have to be willing to feel exposed – you’ll get rejections, but look at the comments, re-think, re-write, discuss, present at conferences and, with experience, you’ll work out what is rubbish and what isn’t. Learn to view criticism as a means to improvement.
Are your ideas and thoughts supported by data? If yes, it supports that what you are saying is not tosh.
Most research makes incremental contributions. Understand the contribution of your ideas, and to whom. If something is well written and the data are solid, but there is no contribution, then a paper is unlikely to be accepted. Understand the value of your ideas, and frame them appropriately for the audience.
Just because someone senior says something, or criticises, you shouldn’t necessarily believe them.
Seek peer support or peer review for your work, perhaps through a study group.
Q: How can you sell your idea/ research to potential collaborators (commercial or academic).
Analyse your audience, do your research, know your key messages, practice, be succinct and engaging.
Be honest and enthusiastic, and support your idea with evidence. Companies and other academics will value fresh ideas and mutual respect.
Don’t be intimidated by top/ senior people.
For academics, find common ground – e.g. discuss their paper.
It’s important to be realistic and clear in terms of what you can achieve and the timelines, so as to manage expectations.
Q: What do you think the University can do to better support PhD students who suffer with imposter syndrome? Women are often the ones who mention struggling with imposter syndrome – what are your views on how to better support women in academia?
Academia has a culture of criticism, and aspects of this need challenging. We must be constructive and kind – people will then feel like they can achieve. We need to be thinking of ways to build confidence. Boost your confidence by building up an evidence base of why you’re good – keep your cv up to date, do the RDF planner; then, if you have setbacks, look at the evidence.
Embrace doubt – doubting things means we have opportunities to improve them. But separate emotional doubt from cognitive.
Be realistic about workloads and targets.
It’s important that senior academics are more honest about imposter syndrome.
Explore why you feel like an imposter. If you feel insecure, unworthy or marginalised, find support groups and/ or join formal networks to share experiences and build your confidence.
Finally, if you’re suffering from low self esteem, make sure you’re not surrounded by people who will exacerbate this feeling.
Just a note that the student-led postgraduate women in academia group at SHU meets monthly to provide a forum for women in PG academia to discuss challenges and their general experience of academic life. It also holds workshops on specific subjects. For more information, see http://www.pgwomeninacademia.co.uk/