Learn more about Kimberly Bowen as a media source or to request an interview:
Media Appearances
Following are some of Kimberly's quotes in magazines:
Baltimore Business Journal, Friday, June 20, 2008 Are You An Imposter?
Washington Post, April 6, 2008 Tweak to the Target When Changing Careers
Washington Woman Magazine, 2007 Helping Women Design Careers and Lives
Washington Woman Magazine, 2006 Women Work! Helping Women Achieve Economic Security
Baltimore Business Journal
Are you an impostor?
Baltimore Business Journal - by Rachel Sams Staff
You look poised. You speak with confidence. You get the job done right.
Your colleagues have no idea you lie awake at night, afraid they'll finally discover how incompetent you really are.
If you recognize yourself in those words, the culprit could be something called "the impostor phenomenon." It's the tendency of some high-achieving people to discount their accomplishments and fear they are less capable than others believe.
Psychologist Dr. Pauline Rose Clance and a colleague first coined the phrase 30 years ago, and Georgia-based Clance plans to reissue a 1985 book on the topic because she gets so many inquiries about it.
Clance says the impostor phenomenon occurs when a person's idea of her abilities truly does not match up with the accomplishments on her resume. That leads her to fear that she will have a major failure in her job, which Clance says runs counter to another basic strand of psychology: Typically, when we succeed at a task once, we expect to have a good chance of succeeding at it next time.
Some experts estimate as many as 70 percent of people have this feeling of fraudulence at some point in their lives, while as many as 30 percent of people may experience it consistently. The impostor phenomenon, sometimes called the impostor syndrome, often surfaces along with a big change in someone's professional life -- like a promotion, taking on a big project, or being asked to do a high-profile presentation.
Struggling with feeling like an impostor prevents people from really enjoying their successes, which drains them of the energy they need for their job. "People begin to feel, what's the use of working so hard, because I never feel a sense of accomplishment," Clance said.
While everyone worries about failure sometimes, with the impostor phenomenon, the fear grows far out of proportion to the likelihood of failure -- and can be crippling. The fear may lead people to hold back from giving their all to a project, turn down a promotion or even step down from their job.
Clance had a client who had advanced quickly at his company, but was afraid that if he showed the doubts he felt about some of his decisions, he would be seen as a failure. She worked to show him that his track record proved he could succeed, and it was OK to make some mistakes along the way. He recently got promoted and is enjoying his work, she said.
Many people who feel like impostors have unrealistic ideas of what it takes to be good at their jobs, said Dr. Valerie Young, a Massachusetts career expert who has a forthcoming book from Crown Publishing on the impostor syndrome. People may feel like impostors because they don't always know the answer, but you don't have to always have the answer to be successful -- you just need to know how to find the resources to get the job done, Young said.
People with impostor syndrome tend to downplay their accomplishments, responding to compliments by saying "Oh, it was nothing," or talking about where they went wrong, said Young. "It's a protective device," she says -- people expect others to criticize them, so they rush to criticize themselves first.
"I think for young people who excel very quickly, this might be a very common leadership development phase," said Susan Hahn, an executive coach at Swan Consulting in Arnold who has a psychotherapy background. To learn more about the phenomenon and how coaches can help people who are dealing with it, Hahn and a colleague recently did a 10-question survey of more than 100 businesspeople. The survey is continuing. Several people surveyed said they were surprised to see what a low opinion they had of themselves, and some said they were embarrassed to talk about the feeling with a stranger, Hahn said.
When Clance first began studying the impostor phenomenon, she expected to find that it affected more women than men. But feeling like an impostor seems to happen equally with both men and women, Clance said. Decades ago, men were less open to talking about it, but their experience of the phenomenon has come out through anonymous surveys, she said.
Experts say many people who feel like impostors are ashamed of their fears. But talking about the feelings with a trusted friend or mentor can help, because they can provide an outside perspective on your successes.
Kimberly Bowen, an executive career coach with Executive Career Designs in Arnold, says that if you find yourself feeling like an impostor, it's important not to beat yourself up more for having the feelings. Just being aware of the phenomenon and taking an inventory of your accomplishments and skills can help you get a more objective view, she said.
Sheila Cox, an executive coach with Performance Horizons in Towson, has another suggestion: Get involved with a peer group -- if you're a vice president of marketing, join a networking group of people at the same level. When people see for themselves what kind of background and skills their peers have, it can help them realize that they really do measure up, Cox said.
(All contents of this site © American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved.)
Washington Post
Tweak to the Target When Changing CareersResume Rx
Sunday, April 6, 2008; K01
Glenn Menard wants a career in project management after more than 30 years as a carpenter.
First, Menard needs to clarify his target job, said Kimberly Bowen, a career and life coach with Career Life Designs in Arnold who works primarily with people considering major career changes. "You should have the target in mind, make sure you qualify for it, then write your résumé," she said. Right now, the résumé reads as if "there wasn't a plan."
One area that needs immediate attention: updating his computer skills. It isn't enough to acknowledge in his cover letter that he needs to do this. He must show that he has the necessary skills to apply for the job.
Next, Bowen said, Menard should pull his résumé into a concise format highlighting the skills and accomplishments that are relevant to prove he can do that job.
Bowen suggests starting with a "Professional Profile" section to summarize background and expertise.
Next, Menard should include a "Work Experience" section, starting with his most recent job. "For older [people] or people with job gaps, minimize years by including them to the right of the page or eliminating them if older than 15 to 20 years."
Under each job, Menard should highlight at least three of his accomplishments, "starting each statement with a skill, such as managed, taught, designed."
What needs to go: any references to himself in the first person, the interests and references section, and references to older dates. "You don't want to indicate your age because people do discriminate against that."
-- Mary Ellen Slayter
Washington Woman: Helping Women Design Careers And Lives.
Carrie Smoot (2007). Helping Women Design Careers And Lives. Washington Woman Vol. 13. No 7 October 2007 pp. 36-37; 52.
“It's not the how of making a change that should concern people," says Annapolis, MD, career and life coach Kimberly Bowen. "Fear of the unknown keeps them from moving forward." Bowen says she has figured out what women want --a <living> and a life that empowers them. "Whenever women talk about their careers, they also talk about their lives; the two are completely intertwined. Your life doesn't have to be in perfect balance for it to be a good one. Just make sure you plan for down time." (p. 36)
"While I was a career counselor, I came across a statistic that said 80 percent of all Americans were dissatisfied with their jobs, but were willing to stay in them for the security. I feld sad that people are not living up to their potential and feeling miserable. The cost of waiting may be too high. That inspired me to start Career Life Designs and help women to find their passion, purpose and prosperity," Bowen says. (p. 36)
"A lot of coaching takes place over the phone," says Bowen, who works with women all over the country and world. "Clients are given homework, and we strategize three to four times each month to see how everything is progressing. The idea is to make the client stronger and stronger," Bowen says. (p. 36)
Washington Woman: Women Work! Helping Women Achieve Economic Security.
Carrie Smoot (2006). Women Work! Helping Women Achieve Economic Security. Washington Woman Vol. 11. No 8 November 2005 pp. 12-14.
"But all single parents have to be creative in making their lives work. It takes about two years to come through a transition successfully. Women with children have to sequence -- they can't accomplish all their goals at once -- they have to do it incrementally." (p. 13)
Now remarried, her children in middle school and high school, Bowen is the Director of career serives at the YWCA of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County, a Maryland Women Work! affiliate. She also owns her own career and life coaching business, Career Life Designs (www.CareerLifeDesigns.com). "The Y's program is holistic and comprehensive. By the time participants meet with our staff, many have worked through "victim thinking" and other concerns with a counselor and staff experts. In addition to helping professional women, single parents, teen single mothers still in high school, displaced homemakers and others in transition to move forward with their careers, the organization is helping new arrivals displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Bowen recently developed an innovative, affordable career coaching program at YWCA, which maintains relationships with local community colleges to train and place participants quickly as nurses, paralegals, business managers and other technical careers. "The best way to find a job is to know where you want to work," Bowen says. "Focus on your strengths, passions and accomplishments. Don't put yourself in a box. It's extremely hard sometimes for women to toot their own horn." (p.14)
Bowen says she's not happy with the lack of funding for women's programs. "We need to continue fighting, along with Women Work!'s national office, for economic equity issues." (p. 14)
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