I suspect that the main good purpose of the impostor syndrome concept is to tell it to another person, when they need to hear it.
When an article gives a personal account of someone feeling impostor syndrome, one possibility is that they are trying to tell it to readers who might need to hear it, or who might tell it to someone else who needs to hear it.
What's potentially a bad effect of the impostor syndrome concept is when it causes very rational and needed self-doubt to be dismissed. So, instead of thinking, "I need to figure out how to be better at this," one might think, "Ha ha, my impostor syndrome must be flaring up again. Which means I'm even better than the evidence suggests."
(BTW, management-ish articles usually seem to be about self-promotion, one way or another, and I think it's just accepted as something a savvy person does. I try to pick out useful things, but don't assume (as I might with some other genre) that the writer believes what they are saying, nor that they think what they are saying is actually important -- even though both might be true, despite the conventions of the genre, as they might be true with this particular article.)
I get where you’re coming from. It has begun to annoy me that we’re always supposed to show massive sympathy for it and perform “omg, me too, you’re so valid!” responses to someone saying they have it. If you don’t feel confident in your skills maybe you should... do something about it instead of putting it down to some syndrome that implies you’re actually already great and you just need to believe in yourself?
I don't think that's entirely fair to say. I've experienced it to some extent before and never told anyone about it. I've grown up with humbleness being taught to me as a very valuable virtue and it sometimes ends up impacting me negatively. For example, I struggle with selling my accomplishments on self-assessments. So much so that my manager has had to work with me on a plan that better makes my accomplishments visible.
When I get recognized and promoted, sure, I'm very grateful about it but it can occasionally give me anxiety of what those below me in their career ladder think about me. I have ways of dealing with anxiety but telling them I have imposter syndrome is not remotely one of them.
When an article gives a personal account of someone feeling impostor syndrome, one possibility is that they are trying to tell it to readers who might need to hear it, or who might tell it to someone else who needs to hear it.
What's potentially a bad effect of the impostor syndrome concept is when it causes very rational and needed self-doubt to be dismissed. So, instead of thinking, "I need to figure out how to be better at this," one might think, "Ha ha, my impostor syndrome must be flaring up again. Which means I'm even better than the evidence suggests."
(BTW, management-ish articles usually seem to be about self-promotion, one way or another, and I think it's just accepted as something a savvy person does. I try to pick out useful things, but don't assume (as I might with some other genre) that the writer believes what they are saying, nor that they think what they are saying is actually important -- even though both might be true, despite the conventions of the genre, as they might be true with this particular article.)