Subject to Corporate Psychology...
- mentallurgical
- 11 hours ago
- 3 min read
Recently I had a conversation with a Senior Executive in my company that ended politely and on a seemingly good note. But the moment I stepped away from the meeting my mind began to run random thoughts and I replayed every sentence I had spoken in my head as if it were evidence in a trial against myself. I kind of mentally replayed every pause, the moments where I could have sounded sharper and the answers that did not feel as aligned in my world of work as I wished they were.
As the day went on that uneasy feeling stayed with me because I started to carry it into every discussion I had since and noticing how passive I am in group conversations, easily assuming my colleagues no longer valued my perspective and how even interactions with people junior to me began to feel like subtle signals of lost respect. This continued until I found myself wondering whether my confidence, my position and my sense of professional worth had quietly eroded over the last couple of years of setbacks and missed recognition.
It was only later when I tried to step back from the emotional weight of the experience and that for no real reason, that I began to see what I felt deeply personal might actually be something very human and very much studied in psychology.
Apparently researchers call this pattern the Impostor Syndrome, which describes how capable people can feel like frauds despite clear evidence of their competence, especially in high pressure environments or after periods of low recognition. There are many study references on PubMed and others published through the American Psychological Association showing that these feelings are linked to higher anxiety, harsher self judgment and lower satisfaction at work.
Another condition resulting in this experience is our brains Negativity Bias, the tendency to give more attention to what went wrong than to what went well, which means a single moment of hesitation in a meeting can overshadow months of solid performance in your own mind even if no one else in the room noticed it. I personally am aware that I am prone to negativity bias from ever since I started taking notice of my thinking and thought patterns in various situations but somehow struggled all the way unable to contain this.
When I began to tell myself that my ideas were not grounded in reality or that my title determined how much respect I deserved, I was also getting trapped into what psychologists called a Fixed Mindset. Under fixed mindset we tend to believe that ability is something you either have or you don’t, rather than something that grows through learning and practice. When you find yourself trapped in fixed mindset, know that, decades of research summarized by the American Psychological Association show that shifting towards a Growth Mindset helps people in corporate environments and in general, to stay engaged, curious and willing to speak up even when they are still developing.
Social psychology adds another layer by showing that status differences and evaluation pressure can temporarily reduce mental clarity and confidence, which means being in a room with senior leaders can make even well prepared professionals appear less confident than they actually are. This is not because they lack knowledge but because the brain is reacting to the possibility of being judged by them that can have a long term impact on your growth and the way people look up to you.
Seeing my experience through this lens did not make the self doubt disappear all at once but it created a pause between what happened and the story I told myself about it. At that moment of realization, I could begin to ask whether I was truly being devalued or whether my mind was filling silence and ambiguity with fear as to whether this moment was really a verdict on my future or simply another step in a longer process of growth.
I learned that psychologists who study cognitive behavioral approaches suggest that confidence grows through realistic thinking rather than positive thinking which means looking at evidence instead of assumptions, noticing both what went well and what can improve. In my case, I understood that I was just being subject to impostor syndrome, negativity bias and fixed mindset when I got my feedback during annual performance appraisal few weeks later.
You can use below reflection questions after a high stakes conversation to get a reality check done and avoid the mental stress perhaps-
What was the conversation?
What is your assessment of the conversation?
Write down evidences for and against your assessment/feeling
From your assessment of the conversation, write a realistic statement that includes both strength and growth areas
Write 1-2 improvement action plan for your next conversation
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