Rising to the Challenge: The LENS May Webinar

Impostor syndrome-the belief that others overestimate one's abilities at work-is often viewed as uniformly harmful. However, new research from Dr. Basima Tewfik of the MIT Sloan School of Management offers a more nuanced perspective.

Tewfik's findings suggest that under conditions of heavy workload, what she terms workplace impostor thoughts can sometimes be channeled into greater effort and improved performance-without clear evidence of negative effects on well-being.

In this LENS webinar, Tewfik will explain when this pattern emerges and when it does not. She also underscores an important boundary: these findings should not be interpreted as endorsing excessive workloads or romanticizing impostor thoughts.

About the Presenter
Basima Tewfik is an Assistant Professor of Work and Organization Studies at MIT Sloan and an award-winning researcher and educator. She has been named a "Thinker to Watch" by Thinkers50 and a "Best Business School Professor Under 40" by Poets & Quants.

Prior to academia, she worked as a management consultant at Booz & Company, advising clients across industries including financial services, healthcare, education, and aerospace and defense. She earned her PhD in Management (Organizational Behavior) from The Wharton School and holds a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, in Psychology with a secondary field in Economics from Harvard University.

Program Details
The event will take place from noon to 1 p.m., Wednesday, May 6, 2026. Please register in advance to receive the Zoom link and calendar invitation. Visit the registration page at this link.

If you have questions or need disability-related accommodations to participate in this program, contact the Human Rights Office at 319-356-5022 or [email protected]. Early requests are strongly encouraged to allow sufficient time to meet your access needs.