Elevating Individuals Through Mentorship
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Impostor syndrome can be defined as a feeling of intellectual fraudulence. In this mindset, you feel as if you have tricked the people around you into thinking that you are more competent than you actually are. But in fact, you are only belittling your own talents and skills. You can make it to the top, but the biggest obstacle to your success is you. Tina Fox explores how mentorship can help deal with imposter syndrome with Dan Gullifor, associate professor of management and the Tyler Patterson Early Career fellow in the College of Business at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire. They discuss how to stop such a self-sabotaging mindset in its tracks, fully unleashing your most authentic and powerful self. Dan also explains why high-achieving women are the most prone to impostor syndrome, and what they can do to perform at their best without getting ashamed or afraid.
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Everyone, on the show, I am joined by researcher and professor Dr. Dan Gullifor. We are going to be unpacking imposter syndrome on today’s campuses and why structured, measurable mentorship may be one of the most underutilized tools in higher education. If you care about student confidence, retention, and scalable impact, do not miss this one.
Dr. Dan P. Gullifor, PhD, is an associate professor of management and the Tyler Patterson Early Career Fellow in the College of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He received his PhD from Texas Tech University and his Bachelor of Science and master of Business Administration from Bradley University. This fall, Dan will be transferring his talents to serve as an associate professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We wish him well there.
His research focuses on the impostor phenomenon, leadership, and self-concepts and has been published in a variety of well-respected outlets, including the Journal of Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and Leadership Quarterly. He has taught both graduate and undergraduate level courses in leadership and organizational behavior. Prior to entering academia, he worked in industry for several years in both human resource management and sales. Everyone, please welcome Dan Gullifor to the show.
Welcome to the show, where we bring wonderful guests like my guest, Dan Gullifor, to talk a little bit about not only their role in this world, but also about how things play into mentorship. As we know, mentorship is a huge part of how we all succeed in life. None of us goes on this alone. We are bringing in Dan because he has a really unique perspective.
Let me brag a little bit about Dan Gullifor before we welcome him officially. Dan is someone whom I met through a mutual friend. He is an assistant professor. He has been for seven plus years now at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Through that, we have collaborated on some research. He has really been helping me better understand the research side of post-secondary and academia.
I cannot thank him enough for his wealth of knowledge. In addition to that, Dan just recently received an opportunity at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is going to be leaving the University of Wisconsin and heading over to Milwaukee. With that, he is going to be doing more research, and we are very excited for Dan’s journey.
He also has a little bit of background in staffing and recruiting. He had worked in industry prior to his academic background, helping and becoming a lead recruiter. Not only does he understand hiring, he knows what it takes to get from collegiate to career. Dan, welcome to our show, and welcome to speaking to our guests.
Tina, thank you so much for having me. It is a pleasure to be here.
We are going to dive right in. You have done a lot of work in the world of imposter syndrome. Obviously, you are connected to academia and your journey into academics. What motivated you to pursue the research side? Not everybody goes into research when they become a professor, but you have decided not only on research, but you have decided on leadership and self-concepts and the imposter syndrome, which is something that we study here at TERN Mentoring. How to transition all of that from industry into teaching and research. Talk to us a little bit about your journey into this path.
When I was an undergraduate, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I changed my major probably four or five times. It was not until I met a mentor. I met a mentor who was the professor of my capstone course when I was a senior. They were just talking in class, and they were describing what they do for a living, and they asked, “Does anybody have any interest in doing something like this?”
I said, “Right here, absolutely.” I went to their office hours, and they said, “Here is what it includes. Does this still sound like something you want to do?” I said, “It does.” At the time, this was during one of the economic downturns. I was fortunate enough to have a job where I was going to be working, staffing, and recruiting. He said, “I tell you what, go work for a couple of years, see if it is something you like.
If you still have interest in coming back, we can connect then.” After working there for a couple of years, I reached back out to that professor, and I said, “I do not know if you remember me. I am still interested in doing this. I want to come back, and I want to become a professor.” He said, “Of course, I remember you. We would love to have you back. Come on back.”
I went back to Bradley University, where I got my MBA, and my professor was kind enough to say, “If you want to be a researcher, the next step is I will treat you like a doctoral student.” Instead of being an MBA student who was geared towards practice and getting ready for my next step in corporate America, he treated me like a research assistant. I was doing data analytics, writing papers, and submitting to conferences.
It is through him that I met my doctoral advisor at Texas Tech University. He said, “Come work with me.” I worked there for four years. That is where I met multiple people. Ultimately, that is where I found my lane, so to speak, in that I had great mentors who came around and said, “Do you want to study this? You want to go down this path? Here is how you go about it. Here is how you do this. How can I support you along the way?”
Ultimately, the way I found the imposter syndrome is I was having very serious bouts with it. It was something that I did not know what it was, and I was ready to drop out. I was ready to quit my doctoral program and say, “I made a mistake, I am a fraud, they are going to find out.” I called my dad, who happens to be an academic as well, and he said, “Tell me about it.”
I said, “I cannot do it. They are going to figure me out. I am a fraud, I am this big imposter.” He laughed, and he said, “Come home and talk to me about this over Thanksgiving.” He tells me about how his mother-in-law, my grandmother, gave him a book. It was the book on imposter syndrome. He said, “Read this. If you feel like you need to quit, you can quit.” It gave me the ability to see what I was experiencing, how real it was, and gave me the strength to get back up on the horse.
Also, if this was something that I was ready to quit my career and everything like that, I figured there must be a ton of research on this in our field. There was not. I said, “I think I can do this, and I could spend a lifetime researching this topic, because this is fascinating to me. That is what I have been doing ever since that day. That is how I got into this.
That is so cool. I want to back up for a second, because I am going to get to the imposter syndrome, because that is the core of what you study. What do you think? I think I know, but I want to hear it from you. What do you think made it so that these people came into your life, like that professor who said, “You know what, why don’t you go do that for a couple of years and then call me back?
Which, by the way, fortune is in the follow-up. Good on you for being so adamant about the follow-up two years after the fact. What do you think it was about you that allowed these people to be able to approach you and come into your life? There are a lot of people in our audience who are like, “That is so nice that you just had these mentors that came into your life, but I do not have that.” What would you say you were? What vibe were you putting out?
Honestly, it is something that I would not say that I was putting out any special vibes or anything like that. I would classify myself as an average student. I was not somebody who was exceptional, particularly dedicated. I was a bees get degrees guy. It was not anything that I was special at. Honestly, what I would say is that I noticed the timing, and I realized that this seems like this could be something.
There was an instinct that this person had extended a hand to me. It is like, “If I do not take this, then I cannot wait for another hand one day.” I think that was part of it. Also, I think in terms of why they were willing to come to me. Part of that is, and I have no problem openly admitting, I think part of it is just privilege. I am a very privileged individual. I am a straight white male from upper-middle-class America.
There is something to the idea that mentors and there is this attraction similarity principle that the people who are very high up are products of their past. In the past, individuals who were White males ascended into higher positions. The fact that I happened to be one made that bridge a lot shorter to cross. For me, I really think that I am just very fortunate in that manner. I owe so much to my mentors, not just my professor at Bradley, but also my professors at Texas Tech and here. That is a big part of it.
First of all, thank you for opening that can of worms, because we are going to go there. It is very brave. What I was going to say is that I noticed, and I think it came through in what you just stated, is that you have a humility about you. That is attractive to people who are in a position to help. Also, if he has got degrees and you are a regular guy, you are somebody who seems to be very open to listening.
Your timing was certainly good. As I said earlier, you did the follow-up. You actually went out, and you did something. Doing is half the battle, but I think it is very brave of you to open up this can of worms. Listen, I know where I am in this world. I know that I receive certain things.
My starting line might be a little bit more ahead of somebody else’s starting line. You talked about this imposter syndrome that you faced, and you have published this work. I know that you just went last summer overseas in Europe to talk with a bunch of other researchers about imposter syndrome.
How would you explain this concept to students and faculty who still think I am the only one who feels this way? You opened with the fact that “No, I am one of you. I get it. This is why I started researching this after I read this book. It brought me some level of connection in the fact that it exists outside of me.” How do you explain this to others?
The first thing I would tell you is that if you are experiencing it, you are not alone. You are not in the minority. You are in the clear majority that our estimates among all the research that we have done is that anywhere between 70% to as high as 84% of people experience some bout with the impostor phenomenon at some point in their life. Honestly, if you are experiencing this, take comfort, you are not the only one.
If you are experiencing impostor syndrome, you are not in the minatory. Estimates show that anywhere between 70% to as high 84% of people experience this at some point in their lives. Share on XIf you are worried about being in the minority, you would be worried that you are not experiencing it ever. In terms of what this is, the clearest way for me to be able to explain it is that it is just a function of the self-concept discrepancy. When we think about ourselves, the way we define imposter syndrome is simply it is the feeling of intellectual fraudulence, where you think that you have tricked other people into thinking that you are more competent than you actually think yourself to be, and you fear being found out.
That is it. Now, to understand it, it is this idea of self-concepts. On this side, you have your other self-concept, which is what it is that you think other people think of you. This one is your own self-concept. This is what you think of you. Essentially, the impostor phenomenon is when these things become decoupled such that the other self-concept, what you think others think of you, is more competent than what your own self-concept is. The further apart they get, the more intense the experience.
If it is just a little, just a little bit of imposterism. Moderate levels, high levels. That is really all that it is. The question is, how do you push these things back together to where you think you get more alignment, that your perception of what others think of you and your perception of yourself are more in alignment? That is really how it is that you resolve this discrepancy to minimize the experience of imposter syndrome.
That is such a brilliant way to describe, even with the hand signals. I have never heard it described in that way, and that separation space. I have been through 360-degree feedback at corporate America, which, on one hand, is something that is terrifying because you are just waiting to see what the anonymous feedback is from everybody who is surrounding you in comparison to what you think you are doing on the job.
What is the trick? What are some of the things that you have been able to do for yourself or that you have seen in research or in the book that you read? By the way, we will have to get the name of that book and that author, because I have to drop it into the lines below. How do you close the gap on that imposter syndrome if somebody is feeling that way?
There are a couple of ways. There are really two, because there are only two aspects of it. There are really only so many approaches that you can take. What is funny about it is that usually, this other self-concept is tied to other things that are going on. We form our opinions and we form our perceptions based on a lot of other external cues.
We form our opinions and perceptions abed on a lot of other external cues. Share on XSome of the times when you are most likely to experience this are when you look around, and you see things like, “I just got promoted into this position. People must think that I have these abilities. I was put in charge of this project. They must think I can do this.” That helps shape this idea.
The fact that we do not have the matching competency in our mind, we have to find ways, the more productive and healthy way is to ultimately pull our own self-concept closer to the other, right? The alternative, which is frankly a little bit easier sometimes, is the idea that we can hack away and try to manage impressions to pull it down so that the expectations that others have for us more closely align with our diminished self-esteem, essentially.
Really, the more productive ways to do it are to do things like engage in things like mindfulness. Think about things like, “When was the last time that I experienced this? Did I get discovered as a fraud or not? Did I make it through? If I did get found out, was it as bad as I thought?” Maybe you look around, and you think, “Does everybody expect me to truly be perfect, or is it okay for me to be competent in one area and grow into the things that maybe I think that they expect me to?”
There is a lot of perspective-taking that goes into it, and how can you do that? The old adage is fake it until you make it, which is okay. I think that is a really good short-term solution. The fake it until you make it thing over an extended period of time is likely to end up experiencing things like burnout. What you do is you will tend to overwork.
When you overwork, you end up not only meeting the expectations, but the thing about the imposter syndrome is on the back end, your mind tricks you into saying things like, “I just worked hard, it is not because I am actually competent, anybody can work this hard, there is really nothing special about me.”
It is very easy to twist yourself into thinking that essentially, you never accumulate any evidence that your success is because of you. That is the key. You have to permit yourself to say, “There are a lot of checkpoints and a lot of places that I could have been discovered as not being competent.”
We took college entrance exams, we took classes, and we took hundreds and hundreds of hours of classes. Went through all these licensures and certifications and something. Nobody has flagged it. We need to start listening to those people and not ourselves, and these biases that we let bounce around in our heads for so long.
I love the comment accumulation of evidence. You are absolutely right. As students are going through their primary education into their post-secondary education for some, there are a lot of measurements. There are quizzes, and there are tests, and there are SATs and ACTs, and there are capstone projects, and you are given a grade.
When you meet a grade, there is that accumulation of evidence. You get into the real world, and you are not necessarily getting that same accumulation of evidence that you are used to. There is this. What should I be thinking about myself? I can see, so I get that.
There was a word that popped up in my head when you were saying that you could either start chipping away at it and moving towards what it is that you believe others think of you, and why you got the job. You said that you could also start pulling them down to this concept of self that may be a little bit more limited. When you did that, the word that came up in my mind was sabotage.
Is sabotage something that coincides with imposter syndrome? Do people actually start to pull people down to a level where it seems manageable because it is easier to stay here, where I am used to, versus stepping up to what I could become, the potential?
Yes. I described myself in the beginning about how I was experiencing this. I was ready to drop out of my program. I was ready to simply quit and walk away. I was in my first semester, I think it was, and I felt like such a fraud that I was starting to look up moving companies and things like that. I talked to my dad, and he said, “Is it because your grades are not very good?”
I was like, “No, I have got A’s in all of my seminars.” “Is it because you are on a research project? Did it get rejected from a journal?” I said, “No, it actually got an R and R. It is actually going pretty well.” “You went to a conference. Did people rip into you during your presentation or something?” I was like, “No, they were actually pretty complimentary. They thought there was a lot of promise in the work.”
It is like all this evidence that is out there, but you get into your own mind of this idea that this potential outing as some fraud is just so catastrophic that you can do the mental gymnastics to make yourself seem like this is not because of me, right, I have just been fortunate, I have been lucky. This was originally identified among high-achieving women in academia back in the late ‘70s by Clance and Imes.
What they found was they said that these women, despite exemplary records with tons of publications, fellowships, course evaluations, all of these things, getting tenure, no matter what, they never attributed their success to themselves. They always said, “It is because I had a great mentor, I worked hard, anybody in charge of that project would have been successful, it was destined for greatness, it was not because of me.
When you constantly do that and you constantly externally attribute your success, you never amass that evidence that I actually can do this. I am competent.” Yes, people opt out. They pull themselves from positions and are considered. One of the things they do is impostors engage in this thing called self-handicapping behavior. The idea that before you go out and give a speech or take a test, everybody goes, “How much did you study?” The imposter, even if they studied, would say, “I did not study hardly anything. I did not have time.”
Essentially, what they are trying to do is lower the bar for themselves. Makes it easy. They try to diminish the chance that they might fail and be found out. If you lower the bar for yourself, you are more likely to clear it and not be discovered. They engage in impression management tactics like that all the time.
If I heard anything, ladies, it is what I heard. Go the exact opposite. The study that you mentioned in the ‘70s of these women in academia, I think that there was a more modern version of that because I was reading it years ago from HBR, Harvard Business Review, where they were. I am not going to get it exactly, but I am going to paraphrase here.
They were looking at ten qualifications for a job. They did this thing between men and women. When men met 2 of the 10, they applied for the job. If women met 8 of the 10, they did not apply for the job because they were missing the two. Decades later, we are seeing this same phenomenon happening in new ways through Harvard Business Review. That is just really interesting that this continues to go on.
I think that might be another episode as to what it is that we are teaching young girls. It has gotten so much better over the decades, with every decade we stand on another level of shoulders. We are seeing ourselves move forward, but the numbers are not necessarily panning out as far as pay grade, as far as titles, as far as board work. That is another talk for another time.
Let’s talk about the fact that you and I do work in mentorship. You do a lot of work on imposter syndrome. I am so grateful for the work that you do with us here at TERN. How could mentorship help with this feeling of imposter syndrome? Everything that you have researched, everything you have seen coming out from TERN, what are your thoughts on that?
There is an article that just came out fairly recently. It was two years ago now at this point that it came out, where they reviewed some of the interventions that you can have to help address these various things and to address the various experiences that you might have as a result of the impostor phenomenon.
The two main categories that really came out of it were the idea of having peer support and recognizing the idea that “There are other people who are experiencing this.” You go into a doctoral program, usually you come in with a few cohort mates, and you realize as soon as somebody opens up feeling this way.
Other people do, and you realize, “We are all experiencing this. We can normalize this experience a little bit and maybe even lean on each other a little bit here to make sure that when we are having these struggles. We are not alone.” The second one is this idea of having a mentor or a coach of some sort.
When you have a mentor or a coach, one of the things that is very negatively correlated with or negatively related to the impostor experience is age. As you get older, you tend to start to amass more evidence. You start to realize, “I have gotten this far, and nobody has found me out. The odds of somebody finding me out are going to be pretty diminished.” The idea of “I am old enough. I do not care anymore.”
I do that sometimes.
Me too. These college kids keep getting younger. What you do is you have a mentor who, as you develop this relationship and this back and forth, you develop a higher quality relationship, one characterized by trust and vulnerability. When somebody is experiencing imposterism, the fear of exposure is one of the biggest drivers of their behavior.
You are only willing to admit this potential feeling of imposterism when you have a sense of trust that nobody is going to exploit you or find you out or anything like that. When you have a mentor who can say, “I have experienced this.” “I have gone through these exams.” I have gone through these really hard labs.”
Whatever it is that you are going through. They have shared the experience, and they can tell you, “You were just like me. I made it through. I know you will. Here are the things that I did that I know you can do. Here are resources that I know that I have that were available to you that were not available to me.” Many of these things are not things that are just easily found in handbooks and manuals, and instruction packets for your career.
These are tacit pieces of knowledge that are not codifiable in YouTube videos and Reddit message boards. These are unique things, tailored to you, that somebody can help you through that experience. That is what is so powerful. I am a product of great mentoring from people at various steps along the way. I would not be here without those people mentoring me. I can attest to that.
Bringing up that whole part of we are so well connected today with Reddit boards, with YouTube videos, with social media. At the same time, we see on college campuses this concept of belonging. How can you be in a snow globe as beautiful as a college campus with people that are experiencing the same thing that you are experiencing, with all these layers of support from career services to your classwork, to extracurricular activities, you have got lots and lots of support?
Yet we still have a high mental health issue that continues to plague college campuses, and we have a low sense of belonging in this perfect snow globe. What would you say to colleges that offer advising, and they offer counseling, and they offer all of these things? How can a structured mentorship model continue to support all of the services that are on a college campus?
You live it every day. You are working with students every single day. What would you say from a faculty perspective that could help your other faculty and leadership members across the United States, as far as considering structured mentorship and scalable mentorship on their campus?
To answer the question, I want to go back to the comment that you made about how we are more well-connected than we ever have before. That is true to an extent. We have a greater quantity of connections than we have. I would not necessarily say that we have a high degree of quality connectedness anymore. Part of that is because the ease of the quantity of those connections is so prominent. It is very easy to just go on and send a text.
It is very easy to just Snapchat. It is very easy to do this from your couch, Netflix, whatever. It is very easy to do those things, but to still satisfy that immediate urge for connectedness and that need for belongingness. We are social creatures. We are meant to be around other people. If you did not learn this in COVID, that is one of the biggest takeaways ever. I am an introvert by nature, and I thought I would be thriving.
I even wanted to be around people more often. When we talk about the need for mentoring, the mentorship is not necessarily just a simple quantity ad. It is a quality ad. When we talk about, do you have advisors? They probably have multiple advisors. They probably have career advisors. They probably have academic advisors. They may have access to counselors and things like that on campus. They have all kinds of access to all of these individuals.
When we talk about mentoring, the return on mentoring is from the unique connection and the relationship that you form between mentor and mentee. That is what it is. You get to know each other through iterative interactions, through discussion of values, what are perceived strengths and weaknesses, what are your goals and aspirations, and what are your biggest fears.
It is only through these conversations and trying to truly understand who the person is that you get the feedback that you truly need to hear. Not just does this check the box, but it also satisfies that initial urge of saying, “Yes, they talked to somebody.” Just because they talked to somebody, does that mean that they were heard?
For me, I think the mentoring piece is so critical in today’s day and age because it is very tempting and easy to find other things to check boxes on that make it seem like you are satisfying that need. That is what is so critical. That is why I think TERN, and that is why I am so thrilled to be a part of it is because I think it is satisfying an urgent need out there that is just it gets kind of overlooked or it gets kind of glossed over to where again, people are only getting their surface level needs met when the true value of mentoring is from the deep interactions that you experience.
I could not agree with you more, but I am going to bring up something that you said earlier. You opened the can of worms on, I know who I am. I know what privilege I have had. One of the things that, as a founder, I struggle with is making sure that Universities understand that this is not a nice-to-have on the side.
Thank God for my father, who is in the military, so I have a little bit of a militant background, but I am dead set and laser-focused on making sure that mentorship goes into the curriculum because we are very interested in meeting the middle. I do not worry as much about the top ten percent.
The top ten percent is the top ten percent for a reason. They have access to things. They might have privileges like you. We are trying to meet the messy middle. I was part of the messy middle, middle-class kid, first of my generation to go to a US university, had parents, one is an immigrant, one is in the military.
I really had a lack of advice on what is next after school. At the same time, cautiously optimistic about what it was that I was going to be able to do to showcase to my younger siblings and to my cousins who were next in line. When it comes to mentorship on campus, probably a couple of weeks ago, I was speaking to a VP of development who had a really nice marketing message in his thoughts about how we would like to inspire and not require.
I am all about inspiration for sure. I also recognize that despite all of the services that students have available to them on campus, there is a certain level of requirement in order to make sure that we are not missing students. Students who are seeking will find. Some students do not even have time to seek. We have to go find them.
How would you speak to the masses out there that really are trying to keep mentorship as a sideshow as opposed to bringing it into the classroom? How can you advise me as a founder as to how I can better approach universities to help them recognize that this really should be a part of their curriculum? Help me walk through that a little bit.
Mentorship is very closely tied to the concept of leadership. We know from our studies for years and years that the number one most influential thing in the workplace is your relationship with your leader. It is the number one reason people leave their jobs. It is one of the biggest things that explains why it is that people have upward mobility. Leadership and mentorship, I would argue that the best leaders are also great mentors.
That is one of the first things to talk about. When you talk about the idea of the top ten percent is going to be fine and the idea that we want to make sure everybody has an opportunity and things like that, I think you give me too much credit for being brave for admitting it. I have no problem admitting that I am privileged. That is fine. I have to explain this because I have people who will look at me funny when I say it in class. I do not feel guilty for what I have.
Any of my successes or whatever you perceived as successes diminished because of that. The way we talk about leadership is that when you become a leader, you do not just get power and influence. You also get a big heaping spoonful of responsibility. When you talk about people who have had great mentors, when you talk about people who have done great work, and you mention how you are a first-gen student at a US university, you have this sense, and you have this sense of responsibility.
When you become a leader, you do not just get power and influence. You also get a big heaping spoonful or responsibility. Share on XThat it is now your job to help make the next person’s job better, their next life, their next experience better. That is the key. Another thing that you brought up that I want to make sure to point out is this idea of requiring versus inspiring. Yes. I want to inspire, I love inspiring, it is a big part of what I believe, but there has to be some requirement out there. We are also seeing a bigger and bigger disconnect between the idea of what is not required, even if it is something that people know is good for them. People do not behave rationally. I joke about it, I know that Wendy’s burgers are not good for me, but I still do it. It doesn’t add up.
I am in the car behind you, by the way.
I joke with my students about this. I go, “Tell me, do you learn more in person or do you learn more online?” They all say unanimously, “We learn much more in person.” I go, “Great. How many of you would like an online option for the days you do not feel like coming to our 8:00 AM class?” Everybody’s hand goes up. It is like, you know that it is harder.
You know that it is harder to get off your couch and go engage in a social function somewhere out of your house than it is to get onto a group chat. You know that it is better for you, but we still have a hard time doing it. That is why I think the responsibility that comes with ascending into leadership positions is becoming a mentor.
I think it is, yes, we can inspire, but even when there is an increasing disconnect between doing what we know is the right thing or the more productive thing, that requirement comes behind and makes sure that everybody is doing it, even if they do not necessarily feel that they are doing it on their own. Is it better if they were all inspired to do it on their own? Of course, it would be, but we also have to be realistic about the fact that there are a lot of opportunities for that not to translate.
This leads us into another aspect of who you are, another aspect of what we continue to strive for, and that is outcomes. Research, data, and outcomes. If we can move scalable mentorship into a position on campus, which we all know requires collaboration. We have academic freedom at the professor level. We do not want to burden the professor with any more work.
We do not need them to become experts in mentorship, but we also have the people who are in charge of the curriculum and the movement of the university forward. We have students who are trying to get their diplomas. We have alumni who want to try to support. This intersection of all of these people coming together for the benefit of the student is wonderful. We want to make sure that we are tracking how that looks.
When it comes to the data collection and the adjudication, and how we measure our impact, which is what this is all about, is measuring impact. How should campuses measure and communicate outcomes to the stakeholders? As a researcher, what do you think helps move the needle so that people are like, “I now see why we are doing this.” What should they be measuring?
It depends on what it is that everybody wants to get out of the mentoring process. Answering that question, what you are going to find is that different people have different priorities. What I think is important, what I think has been so interesting to find, is that through the data adjudication I have been doing here for the last couple of years, is that when we look at their return on this, it is very easy just to jump to the mentee and look and see, have they diminished their experience of the imposter syndrome?
Typically, yes. Have they experienced greater levels of job search self-efficacy? Yes. Are they more self-aware in recognizing what is important to them and the things that maybe they need to improve upon to ultimately realize their goals? Yes. These are very clear and easy things to see through the data, and the data bear this out. This is an easy thing to see. When we talk about how to convince all these stakeholders, it is recognizing that the effects of mentoring are so much more far-reaching than just the individual who is the mentoring recipient.
Mentors benefit even more from the data that I have seen. The scores are not only stronger, but they are also more consistent, and they show things like mentoring self-efficacy, things like engagement with the university, willingness to step back and be things like guest speakers, serve on advisory boards, and be donors to the university. That is an incredible value add to the university. Of course, when you talk about what else the mentors are getting out of this? They are usually representatives of the surrounding community.
You get a more prepared student, a more confident student, one who does not have to suffer from some of those adverse effects of feeling like a fraud or an imposter. You get people who are actually pursuing their jobs, pursuing career advancement. They are putting forward more effort and not engaging in things like quiet quitting and things like that, which I know so many people struggle with.
They recognize, “There is value in going above and beyond.” You see that these effects are not limited just to the recipient of the immediate mentoring, the mentor, the university, and the surrounding communities. Essentially, the rising tide lifts all boats. How do you want to measure this? There are opportunities for some tailoring and customization based on specific context.
Maybe the needs at James Madison are different from those at Texas Tech versus those at Marquette, right? We do not know. That is a conversation to be had with each institution. The theme, though, is that the magnitude of the impact is affecting so many stakeholders. Making that so much more central is only going to intensify the positive outcomes.
I love multiplying the power of the win. You have highlighted the fact that whether it is the mentee, who is the obvious winner, or the mentor, which I am so glad you brought them into it, because of all the work that you do with leadership. The university gives back from the mentors, the communities, and you are a recruiter. It is so nice when recruiters can finally get somebody who is better prepared for the next step in their life because they are well-adjusted. They have had these mentors in their lives.
This is a multiplication of that power, which is really powerful. What would an ideal ecosystem of mentorship look like at institutions if they really want to support the student, especially the historically underserved populations? What does that need to look like for you? You managed the leadership there, you have got the students, you are in research, you are touching a lot of different aspects. What does that ecosystem need to look like for this to win?
This is not just because it is a shameless plug for TERN, but I think it is the coordination. I think it is the idea. When you talk to mentors and recruit them, most people are not going to come stick up an objection because they say, “I do not want to help the student.” Mentees are not going to say things like, “I do not want any help.” Institutions are not going to say things like “Mentoring is not important.”
That is never the thing. When we talk about it, I teach some continuing ed classes on time management. Time is not wasted, nor do we have leaks of time. Time does not disappear. It is just invested in areas that are not as ROI heavy. We just spend our time on things that do not necessarily generate as much value. When we talk about this in the team-based literature, we call this coordination loss.
Time is not wasted, nor do we have leaks of time. It does not disappear. It is just invested in areas that are not ROI heavy. Share on XAs soon as you have so many people and you are spending more time doing things like, “Do we want to jump on the Zoom? Do we want everybody to have this, or pass the document this way? What does our interdependence look like? How are we going to coordinate and work together?” What TERN does so well is that it really cuts down on that coordination loss.
It lets people know that “We know that these individuals are being matched to the best possible person, where we are going to see the best possible value come out of this relationship. We know that there is a centralized place where this can happen. We know that when we are investing our time in this, it is not being wasted.
We know that the effectiveness is there, but so is the efficiency because we have talked about the day and age and everything where time is the ultimate currency. I think that resistance is oftentimes based on I want to help, but I do not have the time. I want to do this, but I am not sure the best way to do it. If you can provide a template, a prototype, or evidence to show that we know this works.
I have done this in the past. That is something that is so much more enticing to people to make that work. For me, I think if you are going to put me in charge of this, I think the biggest thing is there has to be a coordination to make sure that everybody’s time, effort, energy, their expertise, it is something that is being utilized effectively and efficiently. To me, I think that is the biggest thing that I would have in terms of driving those things together.
That is so well said. I did not know that you taught a time management class. I want to be somebody who sits in that because people ask me all the time. I am sure I can take some tidbits out of what you say as to what we can do with our 168. 168 hours in a week, we all use them a little differently. How can we streamline that?
It is really about coordination. I am so fortunate, Dan, to work with people like you because I call you all pioneer innovators. I am often asked by potential investors, venture capitalists, or whoever I run into from an entrepreneurship standpoint. They are always asking me, “What is your ICP? What is your ideal customer profile?” I do not have a specific title. I cannot say, “It is the Dean, or it is the professor, or it is the adjunct, or it is the career services person.”
It is just somebody who cares and somebody who is a pioneer innovator and wants to collaborate. Thank you for talking about that collaboration piece. Yes, we will do everything we can to help with the air support and make that lift as minimal as possible. My last bits for you are. What advice would you give to students who feel like impostors, since you once were one? What would you like to say to those students?
It is a normal feeling. Just about everybody that you may look up to they have all experienced it. Remember, you are only seeing everybody’s highlight reel in today’s day and age. You are not seeing their struggle, their work, their setbacks, their obstacles, and hard things are hard. If you are feeling like this, there is a reason that you think other people are thinking more highly of you. It is probably because you have earned it. It is probably because you have done something worthy of that kind of expectation and that kind of perception.
You should view it as an opportunity to meet that expectation and to continue to strive, not necessarily as a hindrance to those expectations that you worked hard to build up in your own accord. These are things that you are doing right if you are feeling this way. If you are feeling uncomfortable, you are growing. There is discomfort in that experience, and do not let it be something where you take the seat away from yourself from the table. Make somebody else take it from you.
I hope everybody heard that. I hope every student, anybody who is experiencing imposter syndrome, heard that. What about for faculty and staff who want to be better mentors? What advice would you give to them?
I would say it is a little bit of the golden rule. It is the idea that you were once on the other side of the desk. Try to remember how you felt. Try to remember what you needed. Just a little bit of empathy for what is going on with this person, and know that maybe the challenges that they are experiencing, that maybe are not as readily apparent to you, recognize that the challenges also might be a little bit different.
They might be presenting themselves differently. Understand that you are not where you are entirely on your own. You are not where you are purely on your own effort and your own accord. It is something where, somewhere along the way, someone extended you a hand, and you may not change the world through this mentoring, but you can change someone’s world. Take it seriously.
You may not change the world through mentoring, but you can change someone’s world. Take it seriously. Share on XThat is legacy living to change just one person’s world. I could not agree with you more. For our audience who for sure are going to want to follow you, they are going to want to look more into your work, they are going to ask me about this book, and I will get that information from you later, but how can they reach out to you and learn more about your work? What is the best way to do that?
If you’re taking a new job, I do not have the new setup and everything for all the email addresses and stuff just yet. Hopefully, those credentials will come soon, but I will have my LinkedIn page. You can find me on there for sure, and then, depending on when this comes out, if you simply Google me, I am sure you will find me on Marquette’s page somewhere with all the up-to-date contact information. If you want to see more of the research that I have been involved with, with a lot of great people, I also have a Google Scholar page, and you can find me there, too.
That is great. I hope everybody looks Dan up because he is, as you can tell, a wealth of knowledge. This has been an absolutely fantastic talk. Who knew you were an introvert? I have always said introverts are some of my favorite people because they do a lot of the listening. Therefore, they do a lot of the learning.
As you can see from Dan’s feedback on this TERN Talks, you can see how much learning he has done during his time on this earth. He has definitely spent his 168 very well every single week. Marquette is so lucky to have you, Dan. We are very fortunate to be partnered with you in learning more about the research, certainly in the area of imposter syndrome.
I cannot thank you enough. For those of you who are interested, we are going to be launching TERN Talks on all the major streaming services. Check us out at TERNMentoring.com. I hope you all have a great day. We will see you on the next episode. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in.
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