Leadership coach and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) professional Sophie Turner explains how CIMA helped her navigate the learning and development path in her career, the psychology of imposter syndrome, and considerations for organisations looking to create a more diverse and inclusive culture.
Turner explains the importance of objectivity as a remedy for persistent self-doubt and why it’s hard for people suffering from imposter syndrome to tap into the objective side of their brain.
She also illustrates ways that organisations can think differently about creating a workplace where everyone feels valued.
What you’ll learn from this episode:
- How CIMA studies led Turner down the leadership coaching path.
- Why imposter syndrome is more complex than feeling anxious or out of place.
- The role of feedback in managing imposter syndrome.
- The way language impacts women professionally.
- Some reasons why companies fail to execute DEI initiatives.
- Advice for organisations looking to close diversity and equality gaps.
— To comment on this episode or to suggest an idea for another episode, contact Steph Brown at Stephanie.Brown@aicpa-cima.com.
Transcript
Steph Brown: On this episode of the FM podcast, we’re looking ahead to UK & Ireland ENGAGE. If you haven’t already, make sure to register your place for the mid-October event. Speaking about her upcoming ENGAGE session, today’s speaker will discuss some of the factors that can drive lingering feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy for professionals.
Hi, listeners. I’m Steph Brown. I’m joined by Sophie Turner, a CIMA-qualified leadership coach and founder of #YesSheCan, a professional training and coaching organisation focused on empowering women at work. We’ll be exploring the psychology of imposter syndrome, how self-doubt can affect professionals, and where organisations are failing to empower success.
Welcome, Sophie. Thanks for joining me today.
To start, I’m interested in exploring your background in finance and how that influenced your career in leadership coaching.
Sophie Turner: Yeah, well, I ended up, as many of our CIMA colleagues, I ended up on a graduate scheme. And I ended up on the finance route, which I was thrown into to an extent. But I was very analytical, liked numbers, liked finding solutions. So, obviously a very management accountant, CIMA focus. Then, ended up always throughout my career, supporting others — budget holders, teams, nonfinance professionals — to understand the numbers better. There was always this sort of learning and development angle to essentially what was the numbers.
It got to a point I think, like many people within their careers — I really enjoyed my finance career. I got to a pretty senior level, European finance business partner level. It was the case of what’s next? And the D route, the FC[MA] route — many of us know from a CIMA perspective — it can be harder to crowbar in, or certainly back then, talking a number of years ago now. But the [financial director] route wasn’t for me. I then thought, OK, well, what else am I passionate about? And it was the learning and development side of things.
How CIMA helped me, it was demonstrating that, yes, theory matters. But, actually, a lot more is the application. It’s a lot more of the real-life experience. It’s a lot more, how do we problem-solve? I had some fantastic tutors, and it was always about real-life problems. It was always about, right, this is the theory that backs up. That’s what I’ve taken into my learning and development route, really. It’s very much: OK, what is it? What is it in terms of the detail? Why is it important to understand, and what can we do about it? Which, certainly from my experience from CIMA studies and then applying that within the management accounting sphere, was very much the approach I felt my accountancy training and my finance career took well.
Brown: Let’s touch on your upcoming ENGAGE session. For anyone that might be unfamiliar with the term, what is imposter syndrome, and how can it present for people?
Turner: Imposter syndrome, as per the dictionary, is the persistent inability to believe what we’ve achieved has been through anything apart from luck, being in the right place at the right time. It’s a sense of not fitting in, not belonging. Feeling like we’re going to get found out. Fear of making mistakes. There are some people that will say, “Well, is that just being out of our comfort zone?” There’s an element of imposter syndrome, which is a bit about being out of our comfort zone: new role, promotion, new responsibility, not feeling fully comfortable.
However, imposter syndrome is bigger than that. Because imposter syndrome actually looks at societal, familial factors that have influenced why we don’t feel like we necessarily belong. Why we don’t feel, or why we do feel, like we’re an outsider.
Imposter syndrome is basically thinking I’m really lucky to be here, or everybody’s better than me. But, actually, it’s more about society and how we can reinforce society’s view of: What does an accountant look like? What qualifications should we have? What route should we take to get to the next promotion? I can’t be in this role because I haven’t ever done a [financial directing and analysis] role. Anything like that. And it’s that self-doubt that then creates us feeling like an imposter.
Brown: I’m curious as to why some people feel like imposters despite being, objectively, successful?
Turner: That is a brilliant point. That objective point is when we are thinking objectively, when we are writing down what we are good at and what we’ve achieved, it’s very easy to demonstrate and to prove. Well, of course, I belong here. Of course, I’m good enough to do this role. Unfortunately, our negative self-talk and the training our brain has been placed under overrides that. In the moment, we feel like we don’t belong. In the moment, we feel we’re going to get found out, or someone’s better than us.
I think what’s really important to acknowledge is: 75% of people have felt like an imposter, have felt like they don’t belong. It disproportionately affects women and people of colour, effectively minority groups. From a leadership perspective, those who would be in underrepresented groups. But absolutely anybody can experience it. Some people experience it in certain meetings or with certain people or doing certain tasks. Others feel it a bit more broadly.
What we will talk about in the ENGAGE session is: Identify what type of imposter syndrome I have. Generally, there’s five types. There’s one about being a superhero and doing everything. There’s one about not asking for help. There’s one about being a perfectionist. There are five different types, and it’s identifying which one we tend to fall into. What we can then do is start to unpick how it manifests. Is it a person that triggers it? Or is it a task? Or is it an environment? Is it a bit more broad? Because it’s like anything: The more self-aware we are, the more control we then have over our actions.
That objective phrase that you used earlier, Steph. We can then come back to that objectivity. Which then essentially allows us to not let the emotive side of things affect our, not judgement in terms of work judgement, but judgement on ourselves and bring ourselves down.
Brown: Who do you think would really benefit from attending your session?
Turner: Anyone that fits within that 75%.
What’s really important, and it’s really interesting because there might be some more senior people who have experienced it but don’t necessarily want to say. I think it’s really important for managers and leaders of people as well. One of the ways that others can impact our imposter syndrome is giving us good feedback — I’ll go into this more in the session. I had some fantastic managers in my career both within finance and within leadership, but I didn’t ever really receive very good feedback. That’s a key element in terms of allowing, creating that objectivity for us.
But I would say anybody who has ever felt like they don’t belong, has ever felt uncomfortable or they’re not necessarily here because they’re good enough. Anybody. But, like I say, managers as well, because, yes, we need to own it ourselves and we need to create a space where I don’t allow my negative self-talk to creep in. However, if I’ve got an external person who I respect, who essentially is in control of my career to an extent, I need good feedback from them because that will help me believe that I belong here as well.
Brown: I’d like to discuss your company #YesSheCan and your journey empowering women. In the conversations you’ve had with other professionals, what are some common barriers women face in their careers?
Turner: What tends to happen — this is shifting now. Over the leadership side of things, it’s shifting now. We’re now looking at, instead of treating everyone the same, it’s about, what does this person need? Many of us, from an individual perspective, we all need to be treated according to the needs that we have. As we think more top level, more broadly, we group people together.
There are commonalities with groups. There are exceptions; it’s not a hard-and-fast rule; we will get it wrong at times. But generally, there are common experiences that women have had that men haven’t had. Or in as great a depth, or in as vast numbers. There are language matters. Our default is male when we look at football and women’s football. We categorise that as women’s football, even though it’s football. The default is men. Gendered language: A lot of the language we use when it comes to job descriptions, tasks, focus, when we are given feedback, tend to be male-gendered words. It’s about being assertive. It’s about being dynamic. It’s about striving for results. Fantastic. But actually, psychologically — and there’s a lot of research that backs this up — women won’t necessarily go for those roles. Some will, absolutely. Or if a woman comes forward for one of those roles, from a bias perspective, the interviewer, the recruiter might think, well, that’s not a word that fits that person. And, actually, it might be completely subconscious.
At YesSheCan, what we do is we have two elements. We have supporting women; so we don’t limit ourselves because that’s really important. This is not about victimhood. This is about: Can I go to bed at night and think, I’ve done my best today? There may be barriers that I face but I’ve done my best to push through them. That’s one.
We also have another side where we work alongside businesses to support anybody. Yes, women. But anybody to help them drive strategy. To help them do different types of training. To help them identify different needs for their teams: female, male, nonbinary, gender-fluid — whoever. What needs do those people have? We have two elements: We support the individual, but we work with the businesses so they can support more people en masse.
Brown: When working with businesses and leaders, where are gender-focused initiatives falling short in organisations and are not hitting the mark?
Turner: I think, generally, initiatives work when there’s top-down advocacy. We’re talking from a C-suite or exec level, MD level. It needs to be backed up from a cost perspective.
We know that being truly diverse and inclusive increases profit. To all the accountants out there, quite clearly, we’re increasing up our EBIT. There was a report done by McKinsey in 2021, 2022, that found that a truly diverse and inclusive organisation can increase up EBIT by up to 33%. Obviously, from a finance background, I view that with a lot of, “Really? That’s a lot.” But I don’t believe McKinsey would have reported those numbers had they not truly believed in them. Why would they, as a global consulting firm? They’ve got nothing to gain from putting out stats that are incorrect or can be cut through.
When it is done with the right objectives, i.e., because it’s the right thing to do, it doesn’t fail. Because all that happens is, we will bring in different approaches for different groups of people and they will feel respected and valued.
But what we’re trying to impart is a culture shift. Where organisations have fallen short is because they don’t take it seriously. They think there’s a silver bullet; there isn’t. We’re talking about a cultural shift, and that cultural shift starts with education. It starts with acknowledging people’s concerns, people’s fears, people’s different opinions, and trying to educate and raise awareness as to why it’s important that we do think about the language we use. We do think about inclusion. We do think about different social events and different times of meetings.
I had a former colleague who did a four-day week, and she was fantastic at what she did. But she was stuck. Because she knew, externally, she would not be able to get a more senior role doing a four-day week. Which is outrageous because she was fantastic. We all know, anyone who does reduced hours, you tend to get a full-time job out of them just within those hours. Where businesses fall short is, they don’t think outside the box. They don’t think differently. What we need to start viewing is: Who is the best person for the role? Not the best person versus the criteria — but the best person for the role. And that is values. We can teach skills, and we can build experience. Who is the best person for our organisation? Whatever they need, let’s make it work. And that’s where organisations fall short.
When they take it seriously and they put their money where their mouth is, it is only ever a win-win. But people have to want it, and that’s why I say that top-down advocacy is really important. Because ultimately, it starts with a budget. And it starts with giving time; time is money. From a productivity perspective: support, educate, raise awareness as to why this is really important. Back it up with flexible working or work from home two days a week or whatever it might be.
Brown: Is there any advice you could give to organisations struggling to close diversity and equality gaps? And where to start with that process?
Turner: The starting point for me would be collect data. Data is not the sole answer, but it gives us a base. It gives us a base to view progress. I would start to think about data.
I’d start to talk to people that we already have within our organisation. How do they feel about inclusion? Do they feel respected? Do they feel like they belong? And talk to everybody. This is not just talking to the women, this is talking to everybody. Let’s get a cross section and get an understanding. Let’s not make any assumptions.
Then it’s a case of talking to an expert and getting an expert in. Or if you’ve got someone in-house that is aware and trained up and qualified to do so. Then start to build a plan and say, “OK, we’ve spoken to this group of people. We’ve identified some needs. What can we do to meet those needs?” And just start slowly tweaking things to make changes, to create and foster a more inclusive, belonging environment.
What we want is every single person to turn up to work and feel respected, feel like they belong, feel like their opinion matters. Which seems really simple and is very much a human side of things. But if we don’t get that, that person will leave. And all of the good talent that we have, they’re not necessarily going to stay. They don’t feel respected, don’t feel like they belong, don’t feel their opinion is valued.
The start point is collect data: Where are we now? Don’t put quotas on it; you don’t need to have targets. Just work out where we are now: Are there any specific gaps? Let’s say, we’ve got a 50/50 male-to-female management accountant split. But as we go up the senior levels, that drops significantly. Instead of it being 50/50, we end up being 90% male, 10% female when it comes to our business partners or finance business partners, depending on our structure. Why? Why is that? Then we can work out where this leakage is. To work out: “Right, we need to do something differently here.” Who can I talk to that I think should be in this role that isn’t in this role? Why aren’t they in this role? Start to delve in and pull out, segment.
We cannot solve everything in one fell swoop. Start to segment data, ask questions of our colleagues, and come up with a plan. But equally, having the view that this is a long-term project. You will not change your gender pay gap within a year. What we’re aiming to do is change our gender pay gap within five years. And that’s OK, because that’s progress.
Talk to an expert. Get somebody in to run training. Get someone in to look at our strategy, look at our policies, assess our working hours, assess our contracts, whatever it may be. Use expertise wherever we can.
Brown: Thanks, Sophie. Thanks for sharing that advice. What are two or three reasons you’re looking forward to ENGAGE, which is coming up soon?
Turner: Ah, just to get back involved in CIMA more than anything. Obviously, having been a paid-up member for so long, I’m just really excited to go, experience, get back into the sort of finance world, the financial terms — I’ve lost them to an extent. But I’m excited to get fully immersed back in CIMA.
Excited to meet as many people as possible. Excited to make a difference as well, to help people. Personally, I’ve experienced imposter syndrome within my finance career, and, no doubt, the examples that I give of that at ENGAGE will resonate with people in the audience.
Yeah, just very much looking forward to being part of the CIMA family again, really.
Brown: Thanks so much, Sophie. Thanks for being on FM today.
Turner: You are very welcome.
