Serious question - I constantly doubt myself and whether or not I am smart. Is it possible I’m incompetent, or is this imposter syndrome or the Dunning Krueger effect at work in my psyche? The firm seems to think I’m a high performing SM, but I just don’t see it.

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I feel the same way and it makes every Sunday especially difficult

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You don’t have to be the smartest person in the world to be a SM, your job is to manage others and get stuff done. If you can do that who cares how smart you are.

It’s not like presidents are the smartest people in the world, yet they run the US. It’s because their job isn’t to be the smartest person.

Keep your ego in check (clearly you are), support your team, and work hard. As long as you can do that you’ll excel as a SM.

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And if you don’t trust me on that, you’re buying me drinks till you believe it yourself.

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Turn of the tape/ we’ve all had those questions but you can’t move forward with that playing in your brain. Do your power pose and go take on the world… !!

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You’re obviously a likable person who is smart. Stop with the self doubt.

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I am honestly working more on my soft skills and people management, especially communication. I have realized everyone in consulting is insecure. The focus should be on building client relationships. The current partner in my project went to a second-tier state school but he is the seller, so he wins.

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It is called imposter syndrome and we all get it. I just won a big award and still feel like, ha ha fooled them! Truth is I work hard and kick butt but easy to dismiss that in my mind.

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Yeah… everyone has imposter syndrome. Just believe in yourself. Belief and hard work are unbeatable…

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You could just….not be smart? Who cares? You’re still successful by any measure.

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Agreed.

Who cares if you see it or not, keep outperforming your and leadership's expectations. Look up the 4 stages of competence, conscious incompetence is actually a good thing

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News flash: a lot of Partners are not very smart. They are all mostly talented in one way or another, but “competent”, isn’t always the case. Either that, or too stupid to ever doubt themselves ;)

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Intelligence and incompetence aren’t mutually exclusive.
It’s doubtful you would be in good standing at your firm if you were incompetent, however, and you likely would not be able to maintain your status as a high performer if you were not intelligent.

My PM berated me because I didn’t read some material. I told him to f-off because I am doing other tasks for him. It takes a certain amount of audacity but I am at that point. I attended the top 1% high school in my country, 99th percentile SAT and GMAT, full-ride to top liberal arts school, and PwC recruited me into a practice which only accepts 3% people from industry.

Whether you’re dealing with an intern, associate, director, partner etc you should give and get the same level of respect to/from everyone.

If your manager can’t do that tell him to do the work himself. Glad you stuck up for yourself, you don’t need that attitude when you’ve worked hard your entire life.

Your manager is probably just insecure about himself and needs to put down others to make himself feel smart. The smartest people I’ve met would never put down others and or tell you how smart they are.

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It’s the people you’re around

What do you mean by this?

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