You are not an imposter.
Main takeaways from the Women in Tech Dublin conference. #WinSeries19
Written by Michelle Navarro.
We can never talk about gender equality enough — at least not while in Ireland women still get paid 13.9% less than men and only 6.3% of CEOs are female[1]. Creating a completely level playing field to empower, involve and engage all individuals is crucial. But why even after getting a job and overcoming one of the biggest gender barriers — the lower employment rates for women, especially migrants — do some people sometimes feel this is not their place or that they are not ready for it? This was one of the questions that the annual conference Women in Tech Dublin tried to address in this year’s edition.
Ruth Leonard, Senior Sales Director at Indeed, brought to the table the important discussion on the persistent feelings of inadequacy and incompetence in the work environment, despite evidence to the contrary. This is called Imposter Syndrome. Astonishingly, 66% of women interviewed by her team claimed to have this condition, which can lead to anxiety, poor productivity and burnout. According to the executive, we can overcome it by developing emotional intelligence to reduce self-doubt and allow for growth.
“There is a saying: you can’t stop the birds from circling your head, but you can stop them from landing. Emotionally intelligent people can mute that voice that’s telling them that they can’t do something. They also understand that change is a fact of life, are empathetic and aim for quality, but not perfection”, she says.
Designed to bring women together, the 2-day event promoted dozens of panels with other amazing and inspiring speakers of all areas of technology who shared incredible insights and ideas. Some of them were Brenda Romero (BAFTA Award Winning Games Designer and CEO at Romero Games), Fionnhuala O’Reilly (Datanaut at Nasa and Miss Universe Ireland 2019), Aisling Curtis (Commercial Director at Microsoft Ireland) and Talita Holzer (CEO of @waytoB and the mind behind #GoingFar initiative — you can check her insights on creating truly inclusive interfaces here).
Hopefully, by overcoming Imposter Syndrome, migrant women and non-binary people will have more tools to bring their diverse and varied experiences to expand their careers and make positive and significant economic, social and cultural contributions to Ireland.
