Rolls Royce : Dealing with imposter syndrome – Mark

Friday, 15 July 2022

Dealing with imposter syndrome - Mark

Mark Wilson, Senior Technical Specialist, shares his thoughts on contending with imposter syndrome throughout his career

My story starts back when I was at school. Me and my best friend Paul were always competing to be at the top of the class. Whether that was to read the most books, to getting the highest grades in our beloved maths and science. We always pushed ourselves hard, which led to our being very high achievers.

I was astonished when the grades for our final year at university were announced and I was top of the class. It must have been a fluke. This is the first time I now recognise that I was suffering from the psychological condition known as 'imposter syndrome'. I had done exceptionally well, achieving exam results way in excess of 90%, but I couldn't give myself any credit.

Finding the 'competition' with Paul exhausting I decided to leave academia behind and started my journey at Rolls-Royce on a graduate programme. I worked my way through numerous departments and secured a permanent position in the fan aerodynamics team. Here, I was working with a group of intelligent people who I looked up to and admired. All the team had huge amounts of hands-on experience and a relevant aerospace degree or PhD with a specialism in aerodynamics. What on earth did I know?

After a year of finding my feet within the team I felt the need to prove myself again and decided to undertake a PhD. This is something that I had always wanted to do, but perhaps part of me wanted to do this so it would help me fit in and feel more comfortable working with my colleagues.

I managed to secure my PhD, winning awards in the process. However, the feeling that I didn't deserve any of this was still strong in my mind. I was petrified that this was the time that I would be found out. I managed to hold it together and was relieved to hear that I had passed.

Since completing my PhD and returning to the world of work I have been successful, progressing to Senior Technical Specialist. The feeling that I don't deserve any of this and 'I'm making all this up as I go along' is still a regular theme to my thoughts. Sometimes these feelings are overpowering and really compromises my ability to focus and operate normally. I have no doubt that I will continue to grapple with this issue as long as I live and having key people at work that are understanding is an absolute must for me.

I can see that having a doubt in your ability is a good attribute as an engineer; it forces you to work hard, understand things and never jump to conclusions. However, getting to the point where I'm comfortable that I deserve my position and where I don't encounter periods of severe self-doubt leading to anxiety and depression will take some work. But I'm on it.

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