Has a leader ever left you thinking, “You can’t do that!  You’ll sink the whole company.  Who hired you?”

Skilled leaders use their power to build a bright future for their company, department, clients, and employees. However, if an imposter creeps into a leadership role, they can do some serious damage. If you find yourself working for or with one, there are strategies to turn the situation around and keep your career on track.

4 Types of Imposters

The ability to identify imposters is step 1 to keeping your career safe:

1. The “Up-and-comer”:  This leader possessed some valuable skills on day 1 of their role but was hired with the understanding they had knowledge gaps to fill and would have to grow into it.  Often an in-line promotion (team member becomes team manager, knows the job but new to leadership).
2. The “Best-of-the-worst”:  This leader got the job because there was no better candidate, but they weren’t necessarily well qualified either.  They likely have large gaps in knowledge or experience and would not have been selected if there were other options.
3. The “Delusional-dreamer”:  This leader talks a big game and sells their vision well but is not able to deliver results.  They often move rapidly from one huge idea to the next without ever successfully implementing any of them.
4. The “Deliberate-deceiver”:  They have made a career out of sneaky wording, timing, telling people what they want to hear and blaming others.  Spending more time on their story than their actual job, they often move to the next company just before the prior employer goes up in flames.

The games they play

Imposters have lots of tricks up their sleeves, but the common element is keeping secrets.  They all fear discovery for various reasons.  For example, the up-and-comers and best-of-the-worst often keep their business strategy, decisions and operational details secret for fear that others would disagree or judge them.  It stems from a lack of confidence, but that same paranoia may also lead them to work extra hard at being successful in the future.

However, the dreamers and deceivers are more focused on keeping their results (lack of results) secret.  When it’s time to report their progress, they present distractions, recommend a new plan (without finishing the last), or place blame.  Dreamers will promise you the moon and stars, but conveniently forget to send you any form of a progress report.  By the time you corner them, they’ve also conveniently forgotten they ever promised to do the work because they’ve moved on to their next sales pitch.

Deceivers have a smorgasbord of ways to place blame.  It usually starts with something innocent like blaming a timeline, the government, the weather, something non-human that can’t fight back.  I’ll never forget watching a master deceiver blame a timeline for two and a half years before finally turning blame to their peers and exiting on his own terms. Here’s how the accountability discussions went:

• End of year 1:  “I was just building my infrastructure, hiring and training staff.  Too soon for results.  This is a big job and you want it done right!”  No questions were asked.
• End of year 2:  “Our new staff has been working in the strategy this year and correcting past issues.  However, work done now generates profits next year.  Almost there!”  This caused some nervousness, but the leader was hardly questioned.
• 6 months into year 3:  “Well I’m sorry this isn’t the result you were expecting, but if Bob, Sally, Tom, and Sue had done their jobs we wouldn’t be in this mess.  I did my part but I will not be held accountable for what’s beyond my control.”  Sudden panic emerged amongst the leadership team
• End of year 3:  The company was ready to fire him.  However, this was not his first rodeo and he was already looking for his next role.  After 3 years of VP salary and bonuses (without any actual achievements), he calmly moved on to another company touting himself as the savior of his former employer and demanding even more money.

The underlying theme of any imposter is they avoid attention as much as possible by hiding, keeping secrets, not communicating/responding and 31 flavors of blame.

Coming out ahead

If you’ve realized there’s an imposter in your midst and caught on to their games, the final step is adjusting for them in your personal success strategy. 

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity.  An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

-Sir Winston Churchill

Level 1 – Safety:  First ensure your career is not in immediate danger from the actions of the imposter.  If it is, use your awareness of the situation to seek reinforcements from other leaders, HR and even legally if needed.

Level 2 – Awareness:  Information is power.  Think creatively about where you can get more of it:

• If they are over your department, are they making improvements or letting the department fall apart?  How do other teams/leaders perceive the situation? 
• If they are not over your department, who do you know that works for them?  Are they doing any work for you/your team?  How’s that going?
• What performance indicators/reports/dashboards are available? 
• Don’t overdo it.  This is not a CIA mission.

Level 3 – Strategy:  Eventually an imposter will either learn their job or exit the company (voluntarily or by termination).  The key to creating an opportunity is inserting yourself into their process where you can be useful to the company but minimize the danger of their blame games.

• If you work for an up-and-comer or best-of-the-worst, there may be an opportunity to become their business partner.  Struggling leaders value the support of strong team members.  If you become integral to their success, you’ll be first in line for opportunities and promotions (plus they’ll be afraid to lose you.)
• If you work for a dreamer or deceiver, how can you ensure the most important elements of the job still get done?  You could replace them when they leave or be promoted to help rebuild the department.  Watch for special projects that could make you stand out, despite the imposter dragging the department down.
• If you are a peer to an imposter, awareness is key.  Be ready for the blame and respond calmly when it happens.  “I do not appreciate the finger-pointing, and the fact of the matter is that you skipped every meeting for a year where our team tried to support you.  There is only so much I can do to assist you, but I can’t force you to attend or send a delegate.”
• If your success depends on work from the imposter, be diligent about follow up and paper trails.  Get everything in writing, even if you are just email-confirming the commitments made verbally in a meeting.  Be quick alert leadership when commitments are not being kept.  Also, look for strong direct reports under the imposter you can work with directly for progress reports and follow through.

Imposters can be a challenging hurdle, but you can absolutely turn the situation into an advantage.  Avoid the urge to torture yourself by overfocusing on their crazy ways.  Hell, torture them instead with a well-prepared response when they try to point their finger at you!  You are in control of your destiny.

Do you have a special method for dealing with imposters? Share your techniques and experiences in the comments!