Our Brains are Reading the Room

The other day I asked a room full of accomplished women leaders to describe some of their invisible work. For this exercise, I defined invisible work as the cognitive overhead of managing how you're perceived while also doing your actual job. I shared my own example of rehearsing what I planned to say in advance of exec team meetings at a previous job (and making sure I wore a suit those days).

The chat filled faster than I could read it.

Someone had rewritten a routine email to make sure she sounded "encouraging enough" to a male acquaintance who'd invited her to an event she couldn't attend. Someone described monitoring her tone in a message to her insurance provider. One woman said she types her responses, then goes back through and deletes them all before sending. "The load of doing the revision is huge," another wrote, and the room erupted.

One participant -- a mental health practice owner whose staff, she noted, begs her to take time off -- put it plainly: "In an effort to be 'successful,' I've overridden so much of myself."

I often hear brilliant friends and colleagues blaming their “imposter syndrome,” but that isn’t what I was watching.

I saw Imposter Conditioning™ -- the pattern of self-doubt and overcorrection that arises not from a lack of capability, but from navigating environments where expectations are inconsistent, unclear, or inequitable. The self-doubt we feel isn't a deficiency, it's the data. The responses we’ve developed (and women disproportionately so), like monitoring, managing, and constant calibration -- are actually rational, even nuanced, adaptations to unclear or unfair environments.

Our brains are reading the room.

The focus of my work is helping experienced leaders 1) See that distinction, and then 2) Deciding what's actually theirs to hold versus what is a predictable outcome of their conditioning.

A gigantic thank you to everyone in the room on Friday, and to Emily Grey, Rochelle Ung and Flourish Coworking for providing the opportunity. The conversation reminded me why this matters.