Don’t Let Your Employer Get Duped Into Using The Wrong Theme For IWD2025

Soultuitive Leadership

There are few things that get me more ranty in the ‘professional’ world than the marketing agency that takes over International Women’s Day. And this year it has done it again.

The problem is: it’s a marketing agency. And the United Nations - which runs #IWD - isn’t.

So if you google #IWD2025 you’ll find purple logos and masses of hype with yet another inane alliterative hashtag as the fake theme. This year the marketing agency has chosen to promote:

#AccelerateAction

Social media will be filled with women (and a sprinkling of men) looking awkward as they do this year’s 'official' selfie-pose: a one-armed bicep curl with a clenched fist, face-to-camera, one might guess symbolising strength and fighting?

And extra bonus points if your employer buys the £230 promotions kit from the marketing company, to make your #IWD events more ‘authentic’.

But they’re not. They’re a fake.

Because #AccelerateAction is NOT the United Nations’ theme this year.

And thank goodness it isn’t:

What does ‘accelerate action’ even mean?
How do you do that?
How do we measure progress and figure out when we’ve got there?
Something this vague and meaningless lets employers - and society - off the hook, again, on women's rights, empowerment and equality.

Maybe it’s better than last year’s #InspireInclusion, or the marketing agency's previous attempts with #BreakTheBias and #EmbraceEquity. But it's still a meaningless word-salad that is highly unlikely to inspire or accelerate change.

#AccelerateAction is yet another cutesie fake-theme that distracts from the real issues and drowns out the UN’s work on women's rights and equality.

The marketing company's sole right to dictate IWD themes comes from the fact that they bought the .com version of the domain name.

The agency could choose to put its obvious expertise behind supporting the UN Women’s theme, and to raise funds to support that vital work, but chooses not to.

Instead, it promotes a meaningless hashtag, positioning itself as the authority on IWD when it isn’t, splitting attention, and making the UN’s mission so invisible in search engine results that even major news organisations even fall for the ruse that the marketing agency site is somehow official.

This year’s UN Women's #IWD2025 theme is actually:

Rights. Equality. Empowerment. For ALL women and girls.

Source Here.

That’s something I can get behind. It means something. Each of us can imagine how we could make progress towards that, in our own lives and in our organisations.

So as we start the count-down to this year’s International Women’s Day - it’s 2 months today on 8th March - here are three things you can suggest to your employer, so they don’t accidentally embarrass themselves this year - and we make meaningful progress.

#1 Go with the correct theme.

If your IWD events organisers won’t believe you and are convinced the theme is #AccelerateAction, send them this article.

Please don’t make your women do the naff ‘strong man’ selfies. Please don’t give out purple cupcakes and wrist bands.

Please make sure your employer doesn’t accidentally embarrass itself by buying the £230 fake-IWD-branded event pack from the marketing company. Give a donation to the UN Women's organisation, instead.

In case a bit of motivation is needed, here's how cross women got last year at discovering their employers had been duped into using the wrong theme.

#2 Go beyond the cupcakes.

With the Fawcett Society reporting that the UK’s #GenderPayGap GREW last year, we’re not just failing to make progress, we’re going backwards. (Here’s a research white paper I published recently on this).

Flashy events and purple cupcakes on March 8th don’t create change.

What could you do in your organisation to make a real difference to rights, equality and empowerment?

What funding is needed? Which culture changes? What support?

Proactive leadership programmes and mentoring for women? A gender pay equality action plan that actually changes things? Flexible working - without judgement - so that women don’t have to choose between their caring responsibilities and their career?

One bite of a cup cake and it’s already on its way to becoming... well, you know. Don’t let that be the only after-effect for your employer’s #IWD events this year.

Here's a post I did last year for #IWD2024 about how cupcakes won't close the gender pay gap and what we need instead.

#3 Deal with the root causes

Stop focusing on the surface-level symptoms and address the root causes of inequality and unconscious bias in your organisation. Really hold up a mirror to the myriad of ways that decisions, culture, and working practices can disproportionately disadvantage women.

Ask women what’s broken (anonymously, so there’s no fear of backlash) and take massive action on fixing those problems.

Get help with that research, if you need it.

Look at the impact of things like return-to-office policies and out-of-hours events and travel on those with carer responsibilities.

And think about the less tangible stuff, as well, such as the hidden role of men’s Imposter Syndrome in women’s Gender Pay Gap (research white paper here).

I’m curious: what would you add to the list? What would you love to see being done, as a result of this year’s International Women’s Day?

Free #IWD2025 Masterclass

If you’ve hung around with me for a while, you’ll know I run a free workshop each year, to celebrate #IWD, inspiring and empowering women.

This year it will be:

How to share your ideas with courage, confidence and passion.

I’m going to be teaching my 7 Cs framework from my book Dare to Dream Bigger, as well as how to stop Imposter Syndrome from deciding how much impact you get to have.

And everyone who registers is also going to get a copy of the Ditching Imposter Syndrome book, as my gift.

If you’d like the link to register free, here's the link.

It’s at 2pm (UK time) on Friday 7th March and it’s open to everyone - as my way of paying-it-forward, to help support you to make an even bigger difference, for International Women's Day and beyond.

See you there?

Clare

We Don’t Have Imposter Syndrome Here

Soultuitive Leadership

"But we don't have Imposter Syndrome here!" is something I regularly hear from C-Suite execs. Yet behind closed doors, the signs are there: masked as overworking, silent burnout, performance issues, toxic teams, productivity problems, mistakes and lack of innovation. It’s hiding in plain sight, and it’s hurting your business and teams more than you might think.

We're about to publish the 2024 Imposter Syndrome Research Study (get the white paper here) and there's a shocking finding that proves we can't afford to keep ignoring Imposter Syndrome and hoping that it will go away:

1 in 10 of your team members will think of quitting, due to Imposter Syndrome, TODAY.

Read the white paper

1 in 10 today. That figure rises to 1 in 4 who will consider it this week. A quarter of your workforce.

And our latest study shows that 62% of people are struggling with this daily or regularly, to an extent that is negatively impacting their performance and wellbeing.

We have to stop ignoring Imposter Syndrome.

For someone to be seriously consider quitting their job, due to something that's actually quite straightforward to tackle, is a completely unacceptable situation.

But it's exactly what I did, back in 2001. In fact, I quit the engineering career I loved.

I couldn't handle any more of the dysfunctional coping strategies that I was using to succeed despite Imposter Syndrome. And I was very successful, a fast-tracked rising star.

I couldn't handle any more of the destructive self-talk that plagued me in the darkest hour of the night, as I worried, what-iffed and catastrophised that today might be the day they found me out and realised I was a fraud.

My doctor had put me on antidepressants, to help me handle the chronic stress and anxiety that all of this was causing, but they just made things worse.

And my closest personal relationships were breaking down, as my subconscious fight-flight-freeze response routinely picked the 'fight' option, to fit in with the constant aggression and fire-fighting of our factory's culture.

I felt so alone and broken, like everyone else had their act together and I was the only one who felt this way.

So I did what so many of your team members are doing to escape from this: I took a sabbatical and studied Spanish in South America. But I never went back to engineering.

Had there been anyone I could have talked to about this at my employer, to help me to realise I could turn this around, and then to give me the tools to do so, I would still be an engineer today.

But then I wouldn't have spent the past 20+ years specialising in Imposter Syndrome, publishing three landmark research studies into it, writing two books on the topic, and creating the world's only Imposter Syndrome Master Coach training programmes.

With 1 in 10 thinking of quitting every single day, the challenge is that they never mention Imposter Syndrome in exit interviews. And even if it did, by then it's too late.

There's a huge human cost in someone quitting a job they might have loved, due to something as fixable (and preventable) as Imposter Syndrome.

And there's also a huge cost to your teams and your business.

Recruitment is tough right now, with it routinely taking upwards of six months (plus notice periods) to fill key roles.
That leaves your existing team members covering that work for half a year, but they were already overloaded. I've been working with clients whose happy team members are now quitting, because they can't handle the workload of all of those who have quit or gone on sabbatical / leave of absence.
It's estimated that filling a vacancy for someone who quit costs upwards of half a year's salary, and that's if you get the right person first time, and they have a short learning curve to start performing in the role.

All Managers Need To Be Able To Spot The Imposter Syndrome Warning Signs

Being able to spot the warning signs for Imposter Syndrome and intervene as early as possible can prevent all of this. In fact, Imposter Syndrome-informed management training should be mandatory for all people leaders.

Here is a tour of the most common warning signs for Imposter Syndrome, from our latest research study, as well as some of those that are more nuanced, but vital to spot as early in the process as you can, to prevent harm.

Before we start, just in case you've been fed the myth that Imposter Syndrome is a good thing...

How To Spot 5 Top-Secret Warning Signs Of Imposter Syndrome

This podcast episode shares with you a tour of the most common signs, and then 5 that are much more subtle, but which allow you to spot earlier on that people need support.

Want to know what to do next about Imposter Syndrome in your organisation?

Make sure you've got a copy of my new book - Coaching Imposter Syndrome.

It's for line managers, HR professionals, Mental Health First-Aiders, coaches and consultants.

You can get it here:

Get Coaching Imposter Syndrome

And I strongly encourage you to tackle this problem from both ends: implement scalable in-house resources to tackle and clear Imposter Syndrome, and also address the 3 amplifiers within your organisation: the Culture, the Environment and the Habits.

Want to discuss what that might look like for your teams?

The solutions you need usually cost less than the cost of replacing just one person who quits due to Imposter Syndrome. And 10% of your team members are thinking about doing that, today.

Here's where to book a call:

Book A Call With Clare

Time Travelling To Make Big Decisions Easier?

Boost Your Confidence, Soultuitive Leadership

They say that the second best time to plant an oak tree is today, but what if you could use time travel, to support you in making life's big decisions? And no, I'm not saying you need a Tardis or to stow away in the boot of Doc Brown's DeLorian. But there is a surprisingly simple self-mentoring question you can ask yourself, instead. Want to find out what it is?

The body and the primal part of the brain are wired to keep us safe, in the here and now. The unconscious mind (which runs that side of the show) is constantly on the look-out for threats and danger. And it doesn't matter whether these potential threats are physically there in the outside world, or coming from our inner world, with what I call our 'mind-story fears'.

The body fires off its fight-flight-freeze response whether that threat is real or just a what-if in our head.

The thinking brain, on the other hand, struggles to be present, here and now.

Think about the last set of thoughts you can consciously remember: when were they? About something now? Or the past or future?

The thinking brain loves what-iffing, catastrophising, worrying about the future, and replaying the past. It's constantly time travelling. It's very rarely in the present, even though that's where our only power lies.

All of this can lead to stress, anxiety, loss of confidence, Imposter Syndrome, burnout, toxic resilience and worse. And that's why the very first stage of pretty much any work I do with business leaders is about getting grounded, out of your 'stress head', and being able to be more present.

We can use this innate ability to shift through time to our advantage, when we want to create change in our life.

You've probably heard of mental rehearsal - where you deeply imagine doing something in the future, and it can improve your performance? It's used by athletes, musicians, and I even use it as a keynote speaker, when I'm rehearsing a new talk.

I also teach deep-acting ways to use mental rehearsal, with the element of intentional time travel, to create identity-level shifts on my Stepping Up To Lead programme, and on my Imposter Syndrome Master Coach certification training.

But there's something surprisingly simple that you can do, right now, to start using time travel to make those important decisions that could influence you becoming the leader you were born to be.

I phrase it that way, because most of us aren't really being the leader we were born to be. Over the years we pick up so many masks, bits of subconscious armours, and ways we've shut down, that most people aren't really showing up as all of who they really are. They're showing the world the 'sanitised' version - the one that feels safe.

The process of 'unchanging' takes courage - and knowing the right ways to do this, to make it safe and effective. But there is a source of wisdom that is open to us at any time that we need it; it can make big decisions easier - we just need to learn how to connect with it.

And that's where time travelling comes in. It takes us out of the drama we're currently stuck in and gives us a longer-term, less emotional perspective.

This self-mentoring process is great for if you're stuck on a decision and feel like you're going round in circles.

And it starts with one question:

What would the 80-year-old me say?

How can you figure that out? Let's go to:

Your 80th Birthday Party

This is a great way to get that long-term perspective on which decision to make.

Imagine it's your 80th birthday party

You've snuck out for a quiet moment. And you're reflecting over the intervening years, looking back to today and that decision you wanted to make. Get a sense for everything you have done and become since then.

Play out both options

Now imagine choice 1 and move forward through time to your 80th birthday. What has changed?

Repeat with choice 2.

Looking back from your 80th birthday, which choice feels right? (Your body, not your brain, knows the answer). And does it really make much difference?

Letter from the future you

Ask the 80-year-old you what advice they would give the you, today. Allow it to bubble up, without editing, writing a letter from the future you, to guide you on the next stages of life's journey.

When you're done, come back here now and reflect on what you discovered.

What did you learn? How did it feel? What action are you going to take?

I use this technique whenever I feel I've lost touch with my intuition, or I'm feeling stuck in the drama of a current event.

The exercise here is a simplified version, because you're guiding yourself through it, DIY, probably for the first time. But it is something we do in much more depth, with me guiding you through it, in my Stepping Up To Lead programme, and on my Imposter Syndrome Master Coach certification training, if you'd like to find out more.

I'm curious: what are your thoughts?

How did it feel to play with two time travelling process? What insights did you gain? Click the button to join in the discussion on LinkedIn.

Here's where we're talking about this

what's the next step?

Want to find out how big a role Imposter Syndrome might be playing for you, and how it's causing you to self-sabotage?

Get your research-backed score plus a personalised action plan in under five minutes - for free:

Tell Me My Imposter Syndrome Score!

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