From Imposter Syndrome To The Boardroom, Phil’s Story

The call that started it

His wife contacted me first. That tells you most of what you need to know about where things had got to. She was worried, lonely and increasingly frightened for a marriage she could no longer see a way through. The man she had built a life with, always confident, always self assured, always the one who could make a room laugh, had gone quiet. Distant. Exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with just hours worked.

What was really going on

Phil had always been the person people wanted on their team. Confident, social, loving, great fun to be around. Then success took him up another level, a senior VP role in HR and Change inside a large, fast growing business, and the pressure that came with it did what pressure always does to unresolved wiring. It amplified it.

Imposter syndrome rooted, deeply and from what felt like nowhere. A man who had been productive his whole career suddenly couldn’t send an email to his own CEO without rewriting it a dozen times. He was convinced he was letting his team down. Certain he was about to be sacked. So he tried to protect the people under him the only way his wiring knew how, by holding on to everything himself rather than delegating, which quietly stunted their growth and kept them hidden from the senior leaders who should have seen what they were capable of.

He was working longer and longer hours. He stopped exercising, something he had always loved. He stopped seeing friends. He stopped seeing family. He stopped, in every meaningful sense, seeing his wife. He was wired and tired at the same time, which is one of the loneliest states a high achiever can be in, because from the outside it still looks like success.

He was about to leave his job. I was his last hope. And hers.

The work

Phil was fully open and completely honest from the first session, which made the work move fast. He is exactly the kind of leader you would want beside you on your own journey, and once we found and removed the outdated beliefs, the feelings and the wiring that were keeping him stuck, the change in him was rapid.

Where he is now

Phil is now recognised as the person transforming both people and process across the wider business. His team are being singled out as outstanding hires, because he is finally stretching them to the level he always meant to, and they describe feeling fully supported while they grow into it. His stated mission has always been to build followship as a leader, and that is precisely what he has built.

He stands up for himself now, in decisive but respectful emails and in person with his CEO, and his views are heard and acted on. He has since been invited on to the board. He was an absolute delight to work with, and watching that spark and star quality come back into a man who had lost sight of it entirely has stayed with me.

His wife has told me how grateful she is that he took the chance on working with me. They are enjoying real, quality time together again, and are about to move abroad for their next adventure as a couple.