Page 34 - Adnews magazine Sep-Oct 2022

Investigation
And so my immediate reaction would be, ‘Well I’m obviously no good. I’m a failure. I’m a fake. I don’t know what I’m doing. Someone’s going to work it out.’
“I focus on those women, because I know the landscape. I’ve got a very personal experi- ence ... within the advertising industry. Agencies can be quite toxic. Not all of them, but I have worked in some that are.
“Advertising as an industry fuels self doubt. It’s quite compet- itive and you’re only as good as your last campaign, your last ad, your last idea,.
“You’re coming up with creative ideas which can be viewed subjec- tively. Others are often there to crit- icise your work. It’s a bit of a back- stabbing industry in that people are always trying to bring each other down, or get one up on each other.
“I think those in creative fields are quite apt to feel imposter syn- drome. There’s plenty of examples of that across entertainment. Meryl Streep, Jodie Foster, Tom Hanks; they all talk about their fear of being found out, or not being good enough.
“That’s just as pertinent in advertising, where you are putting your ideas forward. It’s scary.”
Lounds says she had tried to fly under the radar, one of the notable behaviours of imposter syndrome in advertising.
She avoided leadership roles and was terrified someone was going to find out she didn’t really know what she was doing.
“In one sense, advertising is a good place for someone like me,” she says. “Because you can hide in an agency, where you say, ‘Well, I’m pretty sure no one around here knows what they’re doing, but that’s okay.’
“But it kind of exacerbates that feeling. And as you get older, you do go up the ladder, get better jobs, more money, and you are expected to lead. And I just avoided it at all costs.
“Other sabotaging behaviours include being defensive and over personalising any criticism. And then you think: ‘Well, obviously I’m no good and they don’t value me here.’
“I’m not a fan of the term ... because it validates it, rather than questions why women are being held back.” Amanda Wheeler, Leo Burnett
going to find out I’m an utter fraud. Get out of here, before they really realise it, and fire me.”
Lounds says she hears many say they don’t enjoy working and want to leave advertising but don’t know where to go.
“In 2019, I left a job, under not very good circumstances. I had suffered burnout. I was getting to the point of panic attacks, bad anxiety, bad stress. I was being bullied and harassed and I told myself, ‘Right. Let’s get out of here. I’ve got to change my life’.”
That’s when she landed on coaching.
“I retrained and decided to focus on this particular area, because having looked into it a bit more, and when talking about imposter syn- drome, I realised just how much it had pervaded my career, and my life. And I didn’t even know that at the time. Had I known earlier on in my career, I perhaps could’ve done something about it, and things would’ve been different.
“Maybe I would’ve been more successful. Maybe I would’ve had a general manager role. I just thought, ‘Okay, now I need to give this infor- mation to other people.’
“Particularly young women who are in the advertising industry, which can be very male dominated. It’s hard for women to speak up, and help them find that confidence, so they’re not in a position where they’re in their mid forties, like I am now, going, ‘I really could have done a lot more in my career, but I didn’t, because I was too scared’.”
And she’s making a difference. “Some come in and it’s almost like they’re broken at that point. And then when they leave, they’re completely different. There’s a change.
“To me, it doesn’t look like a lot ... but there’s simple mindset shifts that take people from one space to another.
“And it’s just that repeated behaviour, understanding, looking at things differently. I’ve had people come into my programs, and they’ve also been bullied in their careers. They don’t believe that they’re good enough, worthy. They struggle to find another job, because of those things.
“And then they have a new perspective, very positive, very confident, going out and getting jobs that they wouldn’t even consider before. Making decisions that are aligned with what they really want, and also setting some really clear boundaries about what they want to do. How they want to do it. And this then brings a lot more joy to people’s lives. It’s so amazing to watch this transformation.
“There’s the confidence gap between men and women. That’s quite well documented. I think maybe organisations could help focus a little bit more on helping women to become more confident, because the myth of the ever confident male is just that - a myth. There are plenty of men who experience imposter syndrome.
“Again, terrified that they’re