Many claim to be allies to marginalized groups, yet few actively engage in allyship behaviors. We focus on this disconnect and explore what barriers hinder individuals’ allyship. Open-ended responses from two representative samples of employed individuals from Michigan (n = 778) and Canada (n = 973) were analyzed. The ecological systems framework was loosely applied to map intrapersonal, interpersonal, and contextual barriers to allyship from the perspectives of potential allies in their workplaces. Results were consistent across the two samples and revealed that about 19% of barriers arose from the organizational context (e.g., lack of training), and 8% arose from interpersonal dynamics (e.g., lack of coworker support). Among intrapersonal barriers, cognitive (9.5%) and motivational (9.5%) factors rose to the top; fewer responses pertained to personality (5%), social identity (5%), or emotional barriers (2%); 27.5% claimed no barriers. Given the predominance of the organizational context and workplace interpersonal barriers, as well as leaders’ ability to influence individuals’ cognitive and motivational (intrapersonal) barriers, this paper highlights the need for organizations to adopt a systems perspective. Organizations can play a stronger role in empowering and nurturing employees’ allyship and provide low-risk, structured opportunities for allyship action that simultaneously builds trusting relationships among coworkers.

Many employees self-label as allies, yet few engage in concrete allyship action. We propose that one critical barrier is impostorism – possessing allyship competencies yet feeling like a fraud – which may stifle action and undermine individual mental health and workplace functioning. Latent profile analyses tested whether this unique confluence of competencies and feelings of fraudulence were present with respect to the ally role. Results from a preregistered study with two representative samples of working adults in Michigan, US (N = 778) and Canada (N = 973), identified four profiles: (1) Competent Ally Impostors (high allyship competencies, high impostorism), (2) Confident Allies (high allyship competencies, low impostorism), (3) Average Allies (average allyship competencies, moderate impostorism), and (4) Disengaged Individuals (low allyship competencies, low impostorism). As hypothesized, we found that Competent Ally Impostors had significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms and anxiety than Confident Allies, suggesting that this subgroup of skilled individuals may nevertheless be impeded by impostorism, and their mental health may suffer as a result. Unlike our hypotheses, Disengaged Individuals and Average Allies reported significantly less psychological safety, work efficacy, and job satisfaction than Confident Allies and Competent Ally impostors suggesting that allyship competencies and not impostorism may drive employees’ levels of psychological safety, work efficacy, and job satisfaction at work. Our findings point to the outcomes associated with allyship impostorism and other subgroups of allyship functioning, which in turn sheds light on how we can better target research and practice to boost allyship.