Just for the record, I am not paranoid; no one is after me, and I won’t even get to watch the 3^rd season of Homeland until it is out on Netflix. That said, this post is about the juxtaposition of perception and reality.

There are days when I feel like I’m a fraud, like I can’t do any of the things I say I can. I feel like I know the words to say but cannot actually follow up on them, and wonder how it is I got to my current position. These days don’t happen all the time, but they also aren’t completely uncommon, especially in a new job.

I’ve only been in my position a little over 3 months and there are times when it is still scary, despite the fact that I think I am doing good work. But I held myself up as experienced with certain types of issues in the interview process (and it was the truth) that sometimes I wonder if I just managed to spin correctly, that I didn’t really learn what I say I learned from those experiences, that I can’t actually translate them into new action. My doubts are always focused on my strengths.

And I know, because I read about these things, that these kinds of thoughts are more common among women than men. So in that sense, you could consider these thoughts “normal”, even if they are not accurate.

This week, in my regular meeting with my boss, he gave me some feedback based on my first quarter on the job from the team I have been working with (the management oversight team, not my staff). Their biggest concern was that I seemed too confident. They worried that I did not fully understand what I was talking about, that I was afraid to ask for help, or that perhaps I did not know enough to know when to ask for help. They were afraid that I might think I could stop learning and understanding the process.

It seems like an exact replica of my own fears and doubts. Except it was not. You see, they have no concerns about my skills when it comes to Lean or Continuous Process Improvement (my strengths, and the reason I was hired into this position), their concerns all focus around one process the team I am leading is doing- a process I have never said was a strength, one where I admitted from the beginning that I had no experience with.

And this throws me off, because I don’t feel like I have ever held myself up as knowing more about this process than I do. I talk with my staff, the ones doing the work, all the time and ask them a ton of questions. When I present information to the group about this process, the information has been vetted and confirmed by my staff, people who are experts in what they do. I have confidence in what they tell me, so I have confidence in what I present to the group.

I did speech and debate in both high school and college. I have learned to be a confident presenter and speaker. Even when I am very nervous, I have the training not to appear so. I always thought that was a good thing- and to most people it seems to be. It is only this small group of people who are nervous, and they are nervous about only one thing.

After my boss presented the feedback to me, I had two questions for him. (And I would suggest to everyone who gets feedback to ask questions afterwards, even if it’s not immediate, send an email for follow up the next day. But ask questions to make sure you understand what was presented to you.)

My first question: Does this concern they are expressing extend to both of the processes my team is working on (and I am overseeing) or just one?

My second question: I have been brought in to lead a Shared Services team. Right now, we only have two processes, but the plan is to expand that, possibly as soon as two months down the road. I am expected to become an expert in every process my team takes on?

I’ll be honest, I knew (or at least hoped I knew) the answers to both of these questions before I asked them. My point in asking them was to clarify that the feedback was coming from the perspective I thought it was, and also to give my boss a view of the feedback from my perspective.

The answers, for those of you who are wondering, is that the fear is only around one of the processes we are doing, and that no, I am not expected to become an expert in all the processes we take on. I need to be able to lead diverse teams, but I don’t necessarily need to be able to do the work of all the teams.

The process that there is fear around is the most personal to the members of the management oversight team. The other process they have no concerns about, even though I have as little experience with it as I do the first. They have fewer concerns about it because few of them have ever taken part in that process themselves, whereas being the worker bees on the first process is likely what got them to their management level positions.

They are, for the most part, subject matter experts on the first process, and have handed it over to me, an admitted non-expert (and not just that, no real experience with it what so ever before this job), and they are having doubts and fears. Which is completely expected.

So how do I respond to this feedback? Do I shoe less confidence in myself, in my team, and the information I am presenting? No, because I have confidence in all of those things.

I think for me, the answer is going to be to make more visible to the team my ongoing learning- what classes I am taking to understand the work, the training I am getting with my team, etc. I am a fast learner, and I really have been given a number of great opportunities to learn about this process, but maybe they aren’t seeing everything that has been provided.

This is a process their careers have been built on. Mine has not. Nothing is going to change that, no matter how much I learn. The fear they are experiencing is a normal part of change. And the need for change management alongside continuous process improvement is one of the things I held myself up as experience in. It is one of the things I am good at.

And so I know, from a customer perspective (and they are my customers) there is only one thing that will truly alleviate their fear- success.