MSI Press Blog

  Managers rarely admit it, but many live with a persistent, private fear: “I’m not really good enough for this role.” That’s imposter syndrome — and while it’s often discussed in relation to early‑career professionals, it has a particularly corrosive effect on leaders. It doesn’t just make managers insecure; it actively prevents them from stepping into the humility, transparency, and relational courage that servant leadership requires. And nowhere is this more visible than in the resistance to reverse evaluations — the practice of employees evaluating their managers. Below is how imposter syndrome quietly sabotages both. 1. Imposter Syndrome Makes Managers Protect Their Authority Instead of Sharing It Servant leadership begins with a simple premise: leadership is service, not status. But imposter syndrome flips that premise upside down. When managers feel like frauds, they cling to authority as a shield. They fear that if they loosen their grip — by inviting feedback, empow...

    Today's excerpt comes from  A Woman's Guide to Self-Nurturing  by Joanna Romer. What is Self-Nurturing? On a tray in the middle of your bed sits a pretty teapot, milk and sugar, a flowered teacup and, the  piece de resistance , a frothy cream puff on a matching flowered plate. No, you’re not sick, and there is no one invited to this little tea party but you. You have gone out of your way to create a tempting display of yummy food and fine china solely for the purpose of pleasing yourself. “A waste of time,” I can hear you saying—but is it? Gazing at the tea tray and the cream puff, some inner part of your being is unaccountably soothed. It is the side of you that is, undeniably, female. Yes, men and women are equal, but sometimes their needs differ. Even Sheryl Sandberg, author of  Lean In,  the most feminist book in decades, declares, “…there are differences between men and women both in their behavior and the way their behavior is perceived” (San...

For Transformation Tuesday, here is a nugget of transformation from A Woman's Guide to Self-Nurturing by Joanna Romer. " The art of self-nurturing encompasses a broad range of activities from the simplest to the most complex. In its most elementary form, it can refer merely to pleasures such as indulging in a bottle of perfume or buying a bouquet of flowers on our way home from work. On a more advanced level, self-nurturing can entail consciously expressing gratitude throughout the day for everything from the food on our table to a new job promotion. Making lists of items we are grateful for, along with recognizing activities that fill our soul with joy, can have a tremendous impact on our psyche. By acknowledging beauty, abundance and joy, we add them to our lives. A natural concomitant to gratitude is prayer, which then works to enhance our feelings of worth. Acknowledging God’s role in our lives is a powerful aid to self-esteem. " Book description: A Woman's Guide...

  Excerpt from  Think Yourself into Becoming a Language Learning Super Star Affective Dissonance: Disqualifying the Positive Disqualifying the positive says a lot about your own self-esteem. It is a case where you are always putting yourself down, and this probably happens in other areas, as well, not just in language learning. When you do not understand how marvelous you are (even if you are not the top student in the classroom—there are so many other ways to be a good language learner and a good person than a high test score), you start looking for what is wrong with you. When you do that, you start seeing your negative qualities (c’mon, we all have them, and if we look hard enough, we will see them, and if we are honest enough, we will admit them), and overlook all your positive qualities, either personal or related to study and performance even when the positive qualities outnumber the negative qualities. When you do that , it becomes difficult to be a good learner.  ...