The biases that shape impostor syndrome, according to a Supreme Court judge

A few days after Justice Mary-Jane Ierodiaconou was appointed to the Supreme Court of Victoria, the unconscious biases of a senior legal practitioner led to a challenging and emotional moment of impostor syndrome.

Editor’s note: This story first appeared on HR Leader’s brand, Lawyers Weekly.

At the 2024 Minds Count Lecture, following a moving speech by High Court Justice Jacqueline Gleeson, Justice Ierodiaconou shared a vulnerable moment of impostor syndrome she experienced in the days after she was appointed to Victoria’s highest court.

Despite not looking anything like the colleague she attended with, a very senior barrister approached and told him it was “really nice to meet your daughter”. When corrected and told Justice Ierodiaconou was just appointed, the barrister followed up with, “Oh, you’re a magistrate?”

The blunder did not end there, with the barrister then having assumed that Justice Ierodiaconou must have been a County Court judge.

“While this was happening, I felt astonished, but I also started to think, is it something I’m wearing? I’m a very approachable person, and I thought, am I being too friendly? Am I not displaying sufficient gravitas?

“Then the academic side of my brain kicked in, and I thought, ‘I’m being stereotyped here’. I don’t know [if] it was because of my age, my ethnicity, my gender, but I had to step back out of myself because it was starting to make me feel like I don’t belong [and] maybe I’m not cut out to be a judicial officer,” Justice Ierodiaconou said.

Justice Ierodiaconou added there are unconscious biases that can drive other people’s behaviour, which can then impact other people “and make us feel that we don’t belong to the role we’ve been appointed”.

In addition to embracing the advice from a psychologist she met with, Justice Ierodiaconou said she found help in the work of United States psychologist Carol Dweck, who has written extensively about mindsets.

“We can have a growth mindset, embrace lifelong learning and stretch opportunities and all of the fears that come with that, or we can box ourselves in and think of ourselves as having a fixed set of abilities and intelligence and just try and perfect that area and not go beyond that.

“That means we’re looking at validation rather than growth, so when I am stretching myself, I often think, I know this is good for me, and that has helped,” Justice Ierodiaconou said.

Justice Ierodiaconou said another factor has been the relationships she has made across the profession and in different areas of law, which have been vital in putting her thoughts into perspective in a much more positive way than the experience she had with the barrister.

“They will generally put you right by giving a bit of perspective; you can learn not to compare yourself much to others and realise that everybody’s probably as concerned as you are about performance,” she said.

Speaking on the same panel, County Court of Victoria’s Judge Frank Gucciardo also shared a moment of impostor syndrome while he presided over a historic child sexual abuse trial.

While in the midst of chiding himself about the experience, Judge Gucciardo said he realised there was “nothing to be ashamed about” because the effect it had on him “was really most relevant”.

“The impact of feeling incompetent and somehow letting myself down generally was really placed in a context of saying, ‘Maybe this job requires more than technical competence’. It required me to have an understanding of what grief and brokenness is,” Judge Gucciardo said.