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Action Learning: Research and Practice

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Leadership, risk and the imposter

syndrome
Mike Pedler
Published online: 06 Jul 2011.

To cite this article: Mike Pedler (2011) Leadership, risk and the imposter syndrome, Action
Learning: Research and Practice, 8:2, 89-91

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 Action Learning: Research and Practice
Vol. 8, No. 2, July 2011, 89–91

EDITORIAL
Leadership, risk and the imposter syndrome

the problem is the domain of the leader; unlike the puzzle, it is charged with unanswerable questions
as well as unformulatable ones (Revans 1982, 712)
This issue of the Journal contains four papers that all touch on questions of leadership and the
risk inherent in that activity. What Revans saw earlier than most was that leadership is an uncer-
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tain and risky business with little help to be had from technical experts, with the best recourse
being to those who found themselves in similar situations.
Action learning seems now very popular in leadership development programmes, especially
in large organisations. Corporate leadership programmes are reported as increasingly using
‘context specific’ approaches, including coaching, work-based learning, active learning,
problem-based learning and action learning (Mabey and Thomson 2000; Horne and Steadman
Jones 2001; Bolden 2005, 11). One recent estimate from the USA is that more than 70% of cor-
porations now use action learning for leadership development (Marquardt 2010). But how many
of these programmes really deal with the unanswerable and the unformulatable? How many of
them practice action learning for leadership as Revans envisaged:
The menace of urgent problems, or the lure of enticing opportunities, are likely to reinforce a desire
to learn . . . persons must attack real problems, preferably ill-defined, or fertile opportunities,
however remote. . . . These attacks, whether upon problems or upon opportunities, must carry signifi-
cant risk of penalty for failure. (Revans 1998, 8)
Revans referred to this condition as the risk imperative for action learning: unless we feel at risk,
and are aware of what we risk, then action learning cannot happen. Revans’ aversion to pro-
fessional facilitators arises from this same point. Facilitators have a vital role in getting action
learning off the ground, but the longer they stick around the greater the danger of them becoming
expert – in their own eyes, in the eyes of others or both. To be an expert is to deal in the technical
domain of the puzzle, for no one can master the unanswerable and the unfathomable – which is
the domain of leadership.

A paradox of action learning for leadership

The paradox for action learning is this: as virtually all the sets on leadership development pro-
grammes, such as those referred to above, will have paid facilitators, how can such professionals
facilitate (i.e., make things easy) without removing the risk imperative? Some people respond to
this conundrum by mounting a stout defence of the facilitator role, but I think it is more useful to
hold on to the paradox and to make it the problem of every facilitator of action learning.

Leadership as facilitation
New light on this paradox comes from the example of a leadership development programme in
the UK’s Creative & Cultural Industries, where I acted as the independent evaluator. The ‘Crea-
tive & Cultural Industries’ are made up of many diverse skills, crafts and professions with a very
few large organizations and very many small ones, including charities, social enterprises and
self-employed people. Also referred to as the creative economy, these are ‘industries which
have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for

ISSN 1476-7333 print/ISSN 1476-7341 online

# 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14767333.2011.581016
http://www.informaworld.com
 90 Editorial

wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property’
(Department of Culture, Media and Sport 2001, 4). In 2001, the sector contributed over a
million jobs and more than £100bn to the UK economy and it is believed to have grown at
twice the rate of the economy as a whole in the last decade. The importance of leadership to
this sector was recognised in 2006 by the establishment of a Cultural Leadership Programme
(CLP) with initial government funding of £12m.
As part of the CLP, over the last three years 130 ‘cultural leaders’ have participated in a
Leadership Facilitation Skills programme (LFS) to develop their leadership practice via the
unusual route of learning to facilitate action learning sets, on the premise that: ‘Learning to
facilitate action learning increases a person’s effectiveness as a facilitative leader’ (Venner
2011)
The LFS ‘teaches you to facilitate your peers as they tackle complex organisational chal-
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lenges’ and embraces a model of ‘Facilitative Leadership’ consisting of the skills of ‘attending,
listening, questioning, reflecting, learning and giving fewer solutions’ (Pedler and Aspinwall
2009, 4). These are recognisable as the skills required for, and acquired from, participation in
action learning (O’Hara, Bourner, and Webber 2004), but in this context they also turn out to
be leadership skills.
However, it is one thing to have the skills for leadership and quite another to be willing and
able to exercise them. Leadership risk emerges as much in the context of ourselves as it does in
the challenging circumstances in which we may pitch up. Leadership fails sometimes because
circumstances overwhelm us, but just as often because we undermine ourselves – as in the
Imposter Syndrome.

Imposter Syndrome
When asked what they had learned about leadership, many of the Creative & Cultural
Industries, participants felt that there was a mismatch between what they perceived as
desirable leadership qualities, such as being open, listening, facilitative and collaborative,
with the predominance of hierarchical and ‘heroic’ styles in senior positions. These mainly
female participants often felt disenfranchised by the cultural dominance of this heroic
view of leadership:
Most women in the cultural sector suffer from ‘imposter syndrome’ and half confidence issues. We
all react and cope with this in different ways – by over-compensating and ‘fronting it out’ or by not
taking opportunities because we feel we are not ready for them. (Participant quoted in Pedler and
Aspinwall 2010, 7)
Imposter Syndrome (Clance and Imes 1978) describes the condition where people find it hard
to believe that they deserve any credit for what they may have achieved and, whatever
their outward appearances, remain internally convinced that they are frauds. Whilst originally
proposed as a particularly female phenomenon, personal experience – and Shakespeare’s
Cassius . . . ‘we petty men’ etc. – suggests that this is widespread amongst men as well. The
stalking Impostor Syndrome emphasizes that whilst any leadership development will always
need to include a large measure of personal development, as Revans wisely observed, our
best recourse might be to a few comrades in similar adversity.
In this issue, John Edmonstone’s Action learning and organisation development: overlap-
ping fields of practice sees leadership as one of the links between action learning and organis-
ation development. Leadership is for the wicked problems but we have ‘a powerful tendency to
frame what are really wicked problems as tame ones’ – thus avoiding the leadership risk. Action
learning can help us face the difficult organisational issues and to pursue strategies in response to
them that are ‘clumsy’ or ‘messy’ rather than ‘elegant’.
 Action Learning: Research and Practice 91

Continuing the theme of the avoidance of difficulty, Paul Donovan’s ‘I think we should take
this offline . . .’: conversational patterns that undermine effective decision making in action
learning sets reflects on a six-month study of conversational patterns in an action learning
set. Three patterns – Interrogation, Venting and Judgment – are used to illustrate how the set
struggles to express thoughts or feelings that are potentially threatening. Yet the failure to
express these often creates further defensiveness, keeps the conversation away from important
topics and significantly limits the set’s ability to make good collective decisions.
Tom Bourner’s Developing self-managed action learning (SMAL) demonstrates collective
leadership in the challenging context of neighbourhood renewal in Brighton. Self-managed
action learning enables participants to manage and facilitate their own sets and to avoid
learner dependency by working without the continuing help of facilitators. Through this
process these self-managed sets were able to address many complex and contested neighbour-
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hood issues.
The final paper in this issue takes a different slant on leadership on action learning, asserting
a strong role for the facilitator in helping participants to work collaboratively in the less familiar
setting of the online environment. Kate Thornton and Pak Yoong’s The role of the blended
action learning facilitator: an enabler of learning and a trusted inquisitor outlines the role of
the facilitator working in both online and face-to-face settings to support leadership learning
in the New Zealand education sector. In contrast to SMAL, here the facilitator has a critical
role to play because ‘online facilitation requires a greater emphasis on collaborative learning
and the encouragement of reflective practice’.

References
Bolden, R. 2005. What is leadership development? Research Report 2, Leadership South West, University
of Exeter.
Clance, P., and S. Imes. 1978. The impostor phenomenon among high achieving women: Dynamics and
therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy Theory, Research and Practice 15, no. 3: 241– 7.
Department of Culture, Media and Sport. 2001. Creative industries mapping document 2001. 2nd ed.
London: Department of Culture, Media and Sport.
Horne, M., and D. Steadman Jones. 2001. Leadership: The challenge for all? London: Institute of
Management & Demos.
Mabey, C., and A Thomson. 2000. The determinants of management development. British Journal of
Management 11, no. Special Issue: S3 –S16.
Marquardt, M. 2010. The evidence for the effectiveness of action learning. Paper presented at the
International Action Learning Conference, March 30, in Henley, UK.
O’Hara, S., T. Bourner, and T. Webber. 2004. The practice of self-managed action learning. Action
Learning: Research & Practice 1, no. 1: 29 –42.
Pedler, M., and K. Aspinwall. 2009. CLP leadership facilitation skills programme 2008/2009. First
Evaluation Report to Action Learning Associates.
Pedler, M., and K. Aspinwall. 2010. CLP leadership facilitation skills programme 2010. Third Evaluation
Report to Action Learning Associates.
Revans, R.W. 1982. The origins and growth of action learning. Bromley, UK: Chartwell-Bratt.
Revans, R.W. 1998. ABC of action learning. London: Lemos & Crane.
Venner, K. 2011, forthcoming October. Developing facilitative leaders: Action learning facilitator training
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Mike Pedler