Leadership was the main theme of CILIP Conference 2023, and for an academic librarian and recently-joined CILIP member, the programme of keynotes and seminars that covered topics from imposter syndrome to rethinking leadership was welcoming and insightful.

At conferences, it can often feel like there is an over-abundance of new information and people, that can lead to feelings of low-confidence and helplessness, but Jo Whalley (Coach and trainer/facilitator) and Jess Pawley’s (Knowledge & Evidence Specialist Somerset NHS Foundation Trust) talk, ‘Developing yourself as a Leader’, on imposter syndrome was a great way to settle in and gain some new perspectives.

It was empowering to hear from Jess, who spoke about her realisation that you can be a leader without being a manager, and that many people who are and could be leaders don’t see themselves as this.

Jo, who describes herself as outwardly confident, said that she always surprises people when she tells them that she too experiences imposter syndrome, even though her work often puts her in the spotlight.

Her advice on how to combat and depersonalise these feelings by recognising that they exist and move past them, rather than ignore them completely, and to avoid comparisons with others was very helpful.

Keynote speaker Masud Khokhar’s (Librarian & Keeper of the Brotherton Collection at the University of Leeds) talk on Redesigning Leadership for Continuous Innovation provided some completely new approaches to tackling leadership questions in my own work.

Masud spoke about the bubble effect, and the human tendency towards familiarity, which highlighted the importance for leaders to break out of their teams’ and departments’ silos.

His talk also made a poignant call to action to encourage and embrace people from all socioeconomics groups to become representative of the people who use our services.

It was re-assuring to hear from Masud that everyone has their own unique cognitive limitations, which means we can’t (and shouldn’t) focus on too many tasks at the same time.

In worst case scenarios this leads to cognitive overload, burnout, and learned helplessness – and perhaps a feeling of imposter syndrome, as things don’t seem to work out any more.

Masud also provided challenging ideas, he said that librarians have fallen behind on leadership in AI, which framed the idea of imposter syndrome in a new context, AI is an area that I feel like I need to learn more about.

Read Alice’s guide on making the most of conferences

Alice Cann is Academic Liaison Librarian for Business at Brunel University London. Read her blog here, and read the original longer form story on Imposter Feelings at the CILIP conference. Alice is also on Twitter