You have fifteen years of experience. You’ve led teams, delivered results, and navigated situations that would have stopped less capable people in their tracks. And yet, when the bigger opportunity arrives, the very thing you have been working towards, a nagging voice appears and it wants to know what happens when they find out you have been winging it all along.
This is imposter syndrome. It is not a sign of weakness, and it is not unique to you. It is, however, worth understanding.
What Is Imposter Syndrome?
The term was coined in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, who observed something consistent among high-performing women: they attributed their success to luck, timing, or the efforts of others — rarely to their own competence. Subsequent research confirmed the pattern crosses gender, industry, and seniority level.
At its core, imposter syndrome is the persistent belief that your achievements are not fully deserved, and that at some point, someone is going to notice. What makes it particularly stubborn is that it does not respond well to logic. You can review your CV, recall your wins, and remind yourself of every promotion you earned but the feeling remains, largely unmoved. That is because feeling like an imposter stems from a belief system rather than from a fact-based knowledge. To shift the feeling, you must shift your belief.
Why It Gets Louder at Senior Level
Unfortunately, for many people, imposter syndrome intensifies as you move up. The higher the role, the more visible the decisions, the greater the expectation that you will have answers, and the more exposed you feel when you do not.
In addition, the skills and experience that earned you the promotion were built at a previous level. The new role has a broader scope, more ambiguity, a peer group that expects strategic thinking rather than functional execution. That space between what got you here and what the new seat requires is very real, and sitting inside it can feel identical to being out of your depth, even when you aren’t. The important thing to remember is that this space is a period of transition rather than a final verdict.
What is The Story You Are Telling Yourself?
Imposter syndrome sustains itself through a very specific mechanism. Once the belief takes hold the brain begins looking for evidence to confirm it. Psychologists call this confirmation bias. Positive outcomes get attributed to luck or good timing. Mistakes, however small, get filed as final proof. And because the narrative feels like honest self-assessment, it is seldom questioned.
What Imposter Syndrome Is Not
It is not humility. Genuine humility is an accurate read on your strengths and your limitations. Imposter syndrome distorts that picture, amplifies the perceived gaps, and edits out the evidence of capability entirely. It is also not a reliable signal that you are out of your depth. Research on the Dunning-Kruger effect consistently shows that the least capable people in any domain are also the least likely to question their own competence. If you are worried about whether you belong in the room, that concern itself is more often a sign of sophistication than of inadequacy. A feeling is not a fact. Treating it as one is where imposter syndrome does its most damage.
How to Work With It
The goal is not to eliminate self-doubt entirely. Some degree of it keeps you honest, curious, and invested in doing good work. The goal is, however, to stop letting it make decisions on your behalf. The most practical place to start is with evidence rather than feelings. Decisions you influenced, problems you solved, results you delivered, trust you have been given over time. Most people hold this information loosely in their heads, where it is subject to constant editing by mood and anxiety. Writing it down makes it harder to dismiss.
The second shift is learning to separate what is genuinely underdeveloped from what is simply new. A capability gap that exists because the scope has changed closes with time and exposure. A gap that exists because the skill itself needs building requires hard, deliberate work. Confusing the two won’t move you forward.
The third is to notice when the imposter voice is driving a decision and ask yourself one honest question: is this based on evidence, or is this a story I made up?
About Marjorie – Dealing with Imposter Syndrome Through Career Coaching
Imposter syndrome does not resolve on its own. Left unexamined, it shapes the opportunities you pursue, the rooms you walk into, and the version of yourself you allow others to see. If you recognise yourself in this conversation and are ready to do something about it, Empowered Evolution offers the tools and framework to help you build a more accurate and honest relationship with your own capability.
You can find it here.