- Karyn Tomlinson, who won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest in June, recently sat down with Fortune to discuss her career and its many ups and downs. During the interview, she spoke about how she’s dealt with imposter syndrome in some of the world’s most demanding kitchens.
Imposter syndrome was coined back in 1978 when psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes noticed many high-achieving women dismissed their success as a result of luck or charm, rather than competence. Today, imposter syndrome is highly common in the workplace, with roughly two-thirds of all employees, based on three recent surveys from the past year, saying they worry about being exposed as a fraud at work despite clear evidence of their abilities.
According to KPMG’s 2023 Mind the Gap study of 750 high-performing leaders, 75% of senior women across Fortune 1000 companies have felt imposter syndrome at some point. And younger women tend to feel it more than older generations, with Asana finding 78% of Gen Z respondents say they overwork to compensate for those same feelings of self-doubt.
Karyn Tomlinson, who just won the most prestigious award in the culinary industry last month, knows a thing or two about imposter syndrome.
“I started cooking professionally in my mid-20s, which was late compared to others,” Tomlinson told Fortune. “A lot of chefs I knew of had started dishwashing when they were 14 and then worked their way up.”
Tomlinson, who flew to France to study at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris at the age of 25 and with zero real cooking experience, said she found it “humbling” to share kitchens with people who had years of experience on her.
“I wasn’t street smart in that way,” she said. “And so I really felt like an imposter.”
Tomlinson would later get work in one of the most elite kitchens in the world, Fäviken, Magnus Nilsson’s Michelin-star restaurant in Sweden, which made the World’s 50 Best list.
“I knew I was smart, I knew I had experience, but in that particular context, I knew nothing,” she said. “I had to build up my confidence… over time, that all accumulates, but it takes humility.”
“I was really reluctant to show people if I didn’t know something, or admit I didn’t know something, or that somebody else—maybe I didn’t like very much or didn’t get along with or didn’t respect me—might actually have the answer.”
Tomlinson said she wrestled with feelings of self-doubt several times in her career, but winning the famed James Beard Award has helped with that.
“I’ve had really amazing people in my life who reminded me that everybody struggles with that—even people who look like they’re on top, or really know what they’re doing,” she said.
“There have been naysayers in my life, but there have always been other people who are encouraging, and I’ve been really grateful for those people. Sometimes, that’s all you need: Just one voice that thinks you can do it, and that even if you don’t know something, you can learn, and it’s okay if you don’t know it yet.”
